by Ron Tufo
I cradled Ed’s head in my arms. His femoral artery had been nicked and from the amount of blood that was pooling into the dirt below him, he couldn’t possibly last even another minute. There was no way to stop it quickly enough and even if I could, I knew he would die from the shock of a blood level too low to sustain his life.
“Ed…Ed, can you hear me?” I will never know if he realized it was me holding him, but his eyes trembled open and a word came faintly from his mouth. “Andrew?” Beyond any doubt I understood he was asking about his son’s wellbeing. I looked up at Squeak as tears were flooding my face. Squeak slowly nodded up and down. He, too, fathomed what I had to do.
“Andrew is fine, Ed. That is what we came to tell you. Andrew is fine. He is with us.”
No answer, but a weak and fading smile.
It is true that you can really see when a person dies. Their eyes move on from the glow of life to the empty matte of death. His last, relieved, smile will be one more haunted memory.
Squeak picked me up like a toy and took me out of the greenhouse. “Ron, he will probably start to re-animate soon. I am so sure he would not want that.”
“I can’t, Squeak. I just can’t. I am going back out front to the kids.”
I barely heard the shot.
My children may be not be fully grown adults in age and experience, but sometimes, and thank god this time was one of them, they are wise beyond their years. They saw my face, they heard Squeak’s shot, and they never said a word. Never asked a question. Squeak and I quietly got into the pickup truck and we all drove away.
The first objective of our trip had been an abject failure. Let’s hope the remaining two parts fared better.
Squeak’s sister, Manuia, lived only a few miles away. Given that it was already dark, we were really hoping for the best: that her home was secure enough for her to be alive and for us to spend the night. We parked in front of her home and again left the kids as a rear guard with very explicit instructions to shoot first.
Squeak beat on the door. “Manuia! Manuia…oei le fale? No answer. The whole neighborhood was even more eerily quiet than the one we had just left.
“Manuia! Manuia, tali mai ia te a’u, o lou tuagane Tuamam!” Silence. He pounded again and the door swung open. It had not been locked and only partially closed. Squeak looked at me with fear in his eyes.
We crept inside and shined our LED flashlights wherever we could, all the while shouting for Manuia to answer us. A complete search turned up nothing. The house had not been ransacked. There were no signs that any struggle had taken place. It was just empty. Everything belonging to his sister was there and put away neatly. Neither one of us had any theories as to where she may be.
And then it hit both us like the proverbial brick. The restaurant! She would be nowhere else. It would have been her first thought, to go and protect her business through the storm.
We raced back outside told the kids to climb in and took off like a rally road race for the center of town. I am quite sure Squeak pushed the transmission of the Chevy to its limit of torque. Under any other circumstances I would have not been pleased with the abuse he was heaping on the SUV, but considering what may be at stake, I was drafting on him as close as I dared.
Guido’s was tucked into the corner of a gentrifying strip mall. It had been slated for razing and a newer, modern shopping center was to replace it. It was also a Sunnyrock town landmark. The original owners were, indeed, Guido and Maria Colantuoni. How an Italian restaurant came to be owned by a pair of Samoan sibs is a whole story unto itself.
The Colantuoni’s were a childless couple, and Manuia approached them with her brother in tow acting as her interpreter. She begged them for a job cooking in their restaurant. They smiled at her and wondered how a South Pacific Polynesian Island girl who couldn’t speak a lick of English, let alone Italian, was going to know anything about cooking Italian food. She (or Tuamam, it gets a little muddy here) convinced them to give her a chance to cook one meal before they made a decision.
A retired Guido always claimed he had never had such a wonderful dish of Veal Parmesan Milanese. Every time he said that, Maria punched him in the shoulder. Until then, it had been her specialty alone, although, even she would tell you Manuia’s recipe and presentation was magnifico! Manuia would tell them that she had never made that particular dish before and was just choosing to mix and cook ingredients together in a way that came naturally to her.
That was the start of Manuia’s and Tuamam’s employment. She would cook and he would wait tables and take care of customers. The Colantuoni’s became surrogate parents to them, and they, in turn, loved them and worked hard for them. As the years passed, they accepted more and more responsibility until the day came that Maria, alone now after Guido’s passing, surprised them with the deed to the restaurant. She was going home to Benevento to be with her sister and wanted her two Samoan children to have the place as her gift. In the typical loving Italian family way, there was much crying and hugging. Later that night, when Maria had gone home, Tuamam and Manuia sat looking at each other and thinking how far they had come from being two relocated, unemployed, hungry, early-teen orphans.
We roared into the parking lot. Squeak damn near drove thru the front door of the restaurant. He was leaning on the horn and flashing the high beams. He could see someone inside pointing a gun at him and fervently hoped it was his sister. He actually climbed onto the hood of the Suburban, screaming and waving his arms. Oh man, was he ever going to pay for that move!
A shot came through the front window of the restaurant and blew out the right front tire. That was followed by a loud and scared Samoan apology. “Tuamam! Tuamam! Ou te matua faanoanoa, na gau lo’u tamatamailima. E te sa’o?” (Tuamam, Tuamam! I am so sorry, I am so scared, my finger slipped. Are you alright?)
Squeak was yelling that he was fine as he was jumping off the hood and running toward the restaurant. His sister was hurrying to open the front door. There was a whole bunch of crying and hugging–hey, I told you they were raised by two Italians! It was just wonderful to see that she was alive, even if she did shoot my truck. Why the hell not? Everyone else uses it for target practice! Much happy sobbing later we all sat at a table and tried to work out our situation.
We needed someplace to stay the night. Manuia did not feel that returning to her home would be a good choice. She had left there in a rush because daily zombie activity had already gotten to most of her neighbors, and frankly, she was more worried about the restaurant than she was about her house. There was also a roving band of subhumans that were ravaging and stealing whatever they could. Protecting her business was her first choice.
Here we were in the middle of the end of the world and we have to worry about some so-called humans who want to make it worse. Maybe we should have just packed it in and let everything start over.
Manuia did have one excellent suggestion, though: the walk-in freezer. It was vented out the roof of the building, so it did provide a source of fresh air when the vent was open. She had been staying there for awhile now and never had any trouble with the demons, as she called them. It would be a tight fit for all of us, but it could be done and it certainly provided a secure place to sleep. Besides, I was not going out to change a tire in the dark, no matter how many rifles had my back. Once again, we off-loaded all our gear from the trucks. We had this down to a science by now, and stored it all in the overhead bins of the freezer. The trucks would just have to fare for themselves for the evening. We did pull them onto the corner of the lot as close to us as we could, a lesson well-learned.
There were already some curious zombies beginning to take note of the arrival of a new food source. They were attempting to enter through the shattered window. It was expeditiously decided that retiring to the freezer was a better option than starting up another shootout and attracting who knew what to our location.
It was cozy in the freezer, to say the least, and as the door closed, everyone hoped it wasn’t going to
become our self-contained-ready-made-no-assembly-required-all-purpose-one-size-fits-all-group coffin. Even with that cheery thought, everyone was snoring in minutes. We were all just so sleep deprived and emotionally exhausted; it had amazed me that we’d lasted that long.
Whether we slept till morning or not was kind of a moot point. There was no light source in the freezer and no one was shining any flashlights around for fear of waking someone who was still snoring away, at least, once we set Squeak the runaway freight train straight. I had to take his light away from him after an hour or so of constantly checking the corners.
As the last of our little party began to stir, I did finally light the place up. There wasn’t a lot of privacy, but at least everyone looked more alive than we had over the past few days. We all kind of eyeballed each other. The unspoken words needed no English to Samoan translation. We all had to pee. Opening the door to god knows what seemed like a secondary issue to relieving our bladders.
I had only one caution for the group. “Let me get out of the fucking way before any of you start to empty your guns through the open door!” I made sure to look my son straight in the eye as I was saying it, too. I did not want my destiny to be becoming a pin cushion for wayward rifle slugs.
I flipped the door lever and jumped back as quick as my stubby little bow legs would carry me. Self-preservation was indeed a marvelous motivator. As much as I loved my family and friends, I had seen first hand how quick they could unload ammo through a gun barrel.
There was, in fact, a zom standing at the entrance. His look of “Wow! Look what I found!” lasted about two or three nano-seconds before he became a lead weight repository. To say that his head exploded would be like comparing a cap gun to a nuclear reaction. If you blinked at the wrong moment, you missed the whole thing. This time, it was Manuia who belched out dinner. For the rest of us, this had become one of the daily performances of the Zombie Follies.
For some unknown but wonderful reason, our ex-undead friend was the only customer at the restaurant for brunch that morning. Mark dragged the remains out of the freezer entrance by his shoes–I’m pretty sure that was the only part he wanted he wanted to be in contact with-and we all exited our comfy little hotel room. For once, there were actually lines for both bathrooms and then it was out to the trucks. I got busy changing the tire while Squeak got busy arguing with his sister. Although none of us spoke enough Samoan to be even remotely fluent, we all knew the gist of this argument.
Manuia wanted to stay and Squeak could not understand why. Her restaurant days were over. Even if the place was repaired, who would the customers be? I don’t think she could get through the shock of the circumstances enough to admit to herself that her diner days were over. Then we all heard the sentence that abruptly ended the argument. Manuia loudly pouted out, “Lelei, o le a ou faia lau ala.” None of us, and I mean none of us, needed a translator for that sentence. In any language, that was the universal female phrasing of “Fine. I will do it your way.”
Squeak knew he had won the fight and lost the war.
The tire change complete, we headed back to Manuia’s home and she gathered up some things to take with her to Maine. I was just coming out of the house with an armload of clothes when I looked up to see the Suburban covered in fog.
Oh shit. Here we go again. The fog dissipated briskly in the morning breeze and sure enough, Sitting Bull was reclining on the hood.
“Little off your beaten path, aren’t you, chief? And what do you think you’re doing sitting on the hood of my truck?”
“Sure seems that way, Talbot. I am getting more face time with you than I have with anyone else in the past century. Seems whoever pulls my strings wants to keep tabs on your activities. And your demon is not exactly in showroom condition anymore, is it? So back off. All this travel is wearing me out. Anyway, I have a message for you this time. Get back to Maine as quick as you can. Things are not going to be well up there in a little while. By the way, your truck needs a little body work.”
The fog came straight down from the sky and onto my truck without so much as wisp of wind to bring it. I started to ask Longwalker what the hell he meant, but he was already gone.
Do something heroic and nobody sees it. Do something embarrassing and you are on youtube before the moment is over. Everyone had seen me talking to hood of my truck. Squeak had sat on the front stairs and was wishing he had tickets to sell. Manuia was pointing at me and shouting out Polynesian curse reversals. My kids just kept loading the truck. They had seen this show already and the repeat performance was not worth watching.
I was sputtering out curses of my own and then I just threw my hands up in the air and looked skyward. Just once, I thought, I wish that smart mouthed, sun-wrinkled old redskin would give me a straight answer before he hazed out on me.
I looked over at Squeak, who was eating a bag of popcorn and smiling at me like he was at the afternoon matinee in the old Rialto Theater. I motioned to him that we needed to talk. Now and alone. He came down to the truck and I began to relate my latest revenant experience.
“But what about Melanie, Ron? How can you go back without searching for her first?”
“I figure we can split up. ”You guys can go back and Meredith and I can go look for Melanie.”
“Cripes! You really do suck at tactics, don’t you. Hell, even I know the first rule of enemy engagement. Never split your forces! Besides, I let you out of my sight once before. That is never happening again. I promised Tony and I am not going back on it. It’s all of us or none of us, little buddy.”
Suck. This was not going as I had hoped.
Squeak wasn’t finished. “And to top it off, Ron, you have been talking to air way too often for any of us to think you are still entirely amongst the sane–as if you ever were. We are all a little worried for you, man. Except my sister, though. She just thinks you are flat out psychotic.
Wink, Gary, and Steve were back from their morning rounds and not happy with what they had seen. They had tried Wink’s idea of sprinkling some lime dust on the areas that lent themselves to be more easily walked and it was like they had officially opened another lane on the Can-Am Highway.
They followed multiple tracks into the woods until they came all the way to the backyard of the big farmhouse and discovered that there must have been snoopers there almost the whole night. The tracks leading out were not in the least bit disturbed by the late fall winds–fresh as today’s bread, in Mainer terms. The scariest part though was that they were definitely zombie tracks. One set was particularly odd. Looked like the maker was dragging only one leg instead of doing the usual zombie double shuffle. Either that or the tracks came from a human with a bad leg. Their eyes all lit on each other at once.
“Fuck,” Gary said. ”I will bet it is that old hag come to scout us for vulnerabilities. Well, if it was her, she sure as shit found some. Like the fact that she could spend hours inside our compound boundaries and just walk away whenever she felt like it.”
As much as Wink would have liked to argue how Gary had come to that conclusion, he could only flash back to what Doc Jefferson had told him and Steve just yesterday. Wink, who wouldn’t even call an Australian Wolf Spider a nasty looking critter, had some uncharacteristically choice adjectives for our not so neighborly Mrs. Littlehill.
“Damn,” Tony said when they gave him the news. “When do we expect Ron and Squirrel back?” The small joke got a chuckle from Gary, a groan from Wink, and it sailed right over Steve’s screwed on too tight head.
“Dad, we really don’t know,” said Gary, “he thought about a week or so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was longer.”
Gary had learned his tactical skills from dad. He thought the same thoughts about the current circumstances. What better time to attack a thin line of defenses than when they were at their weakest? Ida was on the property long enough to gain way too much information. No one could say for sure how much useful knowledge she got out with, but no one was willing to underest
imate her abilities any longer either–not after what happened at Doc’s.
Everybody was put to task working on strengthening the safeguards. Wink broke out his surprise that night at the gathering of families. His effort at electronic communications was both great and funny.
Great, because it really did work, allowing the manned locations of the perimeter to talk with each other. Funny, because the only housings for the electronic guts he could find that didn’t weigh more than could be easily carried were two American Girl dolls they’d been about to send to Hom’s little nieces in Laos before the world crisis happened. He designed them so that you spoke into the ear and listened for responses through the mouth.
Gary’s first reaction was expected. “I don’t give a shit if they do work. I am not going out to fight zombies carrying a little girl’s doll. Nu-uh, not gonna happen. Someone else can do it if they want to, but it ain’t gonna be me.” With a smile, he finished with, “Maybe if they were GI Joes, I would consider it!”
Steve took one for the team. He would be on one doll (now that just doesn’t sound right) and Hom would be on the other (and that sounds even worse).
Everyone, even Gary, was happy to have some form of communication other than signal flags. Wink and Hom took their leave and headed home. The fences were all quacked with A.D.D.s, Gary’s nickname for our Attack Ducks on Duty between the double fences we had built. The mines were activated with juice from the small generator we used for just this purpose. Everyone had a position to cover that filled the gaps left by those not there. The compound was as ready as it could be.
Much to Gabby’s dismay, she was put out on the porch in her doghouse. No sleeping in front of the fire tonight, but she would be able to sniff as well as hear any trouble a lot sooner.
