by Mark Tufo
But now I heard noise…and not the good kind. A rat the size of a lapdog loped past. It stopped for the briefest of moments, whiskers twitching as it smelled my cooked countenance, but even a warm meal wasn’t enough to entice him to stay. It turned to look over its shoulder and bounded off.
I could think of only one thing that would send a rat on its way: zombies.
Would they bother me? Did I have enough strength to turn them away? I barely had enough strength to think the thoughts, so I kept my ambling shuffle in motion. The house now seemed thirty-five feet away. And no, I have no idea how that happened; I’m not a quantum physicist for fuck’s sake.
It was countless heartbeats of pain later and I had halved the distance to the house. I was now a good fifty feet away. I could hear the moans of the undead, they sounded far off, but there had to be a lot of them for me to be hearing them this clearly. Instead of the movement causing my burns to limber up, the opposite seemed to be happening. The puss that was oozing from a dozen different places was beginning to congeal which made my previous shuffle feel like a world class sprint. In reality I had another ten feet to the steps—which in and of themselves were going to be a near insurmountable endeavor. I didn’t think I was going to make it.
The moaning didn’t sound any closer, but it wasn’t moving away. I imagined a column of zombies was moving horizontal to my location. I did a silent ‘thank you’ to the Big Guy and suddenly had a feeling he heard. I was a little awestruck to think that I might have a direct pipeline. I wonder if this was what Moses felt?
I stubbed my toe against the step. At some point I had my eyes shut, trying in vain to block out the blistering nerve endings as they pounded relentlessly. I couldn’t even begin to wonder how I was going to get my leg the eight inches up to get onto the first step. I looked at that front door like I was a Japanese tourist who had left his camera behind and the door was the Eighth Wonder of the World. (Is that a stretch? It seemed to work when I thought about it, seems a little different on paper.)
I placed my gnarled hands under my right thigh and pulled up, the toe of my melted boots rubbing up against the backstop. I almost got stuck on the small lip of the stair that jutted out. Fried skin around my knee snapped apart as I over-flexed it. Oily blood flowed freely, but I sighed in relief as my right leg was now one step closer. The next test would be if I had the power to stand completely upright, then I’d be able to drag my left leg up.
I placed the heels of my hands against the railing and, combined with my leg, I was indeed able to get my left foot onto the top of Mount McKinley—or the first step, however you want to interpret that is fine with me. Now I just had to deal with K2 and Mount Everest and I’d be home free. If you’ve had the opportunity to read my other journals, you’d realize I have a flare for the dramatic, but that doesn’t mean what I was feeling wasn’t right.
The moans were either increasing in volume or zombies were getting nearer as I was strategizing the complexities of my climb. I wondered if just falling forward onto the landing itself would be the best course of action; but unless the door was unlocked AND open so I could push it in, I would be fucked. Once I hit the turf, there really didn’t seem any sort of chance that I’d be able to get back up.
“This blows,” I whispered, as I once again reached behind my right thigh for an assisted lift, but now it was coated in my juices and it was difficult to get any sort of grip, especially since my fingers were curled up like claws.
I jumped when I heard gunshots no more than a street away, then I began to hear human shouting. It was too far to catch the words, but I’m sure it revolved around the zombies and how they needed to stay away from them. Life had become vastly easy in one sense; you really just needed to survive, no shopping lists, errands, chores, meetings, project due dates, all the bullshit of modernity had been stripped away. It was now a one word world. Sure, how you went about that one word was difficult as all hell, but at least you only had to focus on the one thing. That’s got to count for something, right?
Yeah, I know it’s bullshit. I’d rather be driving to Walmart with the missus shopping for dreaded curtains than this crap. At least at the end of the errands I could have gone home and got my ass thoroughly whomped by Travis in any Wii game we played. Survivalism isn’t nearly as much fun in reality as opposed to when you are prepping. I’d hoped and secretly dreamed for this day whilst I prepared for it. It really did seem so simple back in the day, but I’ve had my fill of death and destruction. Right now I’d gladly take unclogging a plugged toilet in a strangers home, maybe even without rubber gloves than this waking nightmare I now found myself in.
“It worked!” I said maybe a bit too loud under the circumstances. I had been completely able to occupy my mind elsewhere as I climbed up onto the second step. More gun fire and definitely more human sounds, but the latter was more of the screaming variety. It sounded like a woman was being torn to shreds, but I’m testimony to the fact that once your body is being wrenched apart, even the biggest, beefiest males can scream much like a woman; especially if a particularly tender part is being dined on. Images of that poor bastard Cash, with April back in Colorado, rushed to the forefront; that thought alone spurred me onto the top step quicker than anything else had thus far.
I was beginning to hear footfalls, it sounded like wet salmon being slapped across someone’s face. They were getting close. I could only hope they weren’t necessarily hunting me down.
The remnants of the screen door hung by my feet. I eyed the door handle and then my hooked fingers. I didn’t have the hand strength to crush a gnat, so this was going to be interesting, and now I had the added bonus of them being covered in my own gore. I moved closer so that I would not have to stretch my arm, I didn’t think I could deal with another part of my anatomy leaking. My feet tangled up in the aluminum runner from the screen door; I was falling forward, but I could not get my arms up to brace myself. My head struck the door first with a solid thud, I was grateful it was not a hollow sound—my head not the door.
I was falling into the house; I hoped that there wasn’t anything too destructive on the floor, like protruding nails, broken glass or bacteria-encrusted old chicken. I think I’d take the glass over the chicken, not the nails, but definitely the glass. It was none of the above. I fell into a crinkling mass of tin foil. The noise of the foil was a small distraction as my head bounced off the hard tile entry way. My vision was blackening, and now my fucking head ached to go along with the rest of the shit storm I was going through.
Zombies were still coming and I wasn’t much safer than I had been a few moments earlier. I wriggled my body the rest of the way into the house out of sheer necessity. I managed to push the door closed with my left leg, and was able to see strips of tin foil hanging everywhere as I faded to black—pretty much just like the old movies or even the Bugs Bunny cartoons where you see the shrinking black circle go all the way down to a pinprick and wink out. Luckily there was no fat pig telling me ‘Th-th-that’s all folks!’
CHAPTER THREE
Eliza &Tomas
“Your face is priceless, brother,” Eliza exclaimed.
“It is a shame, dear sister, that the only time you show anything remotely similar to a smile is at the expense of others,” Tomas replied sadly.
“Come, brother, share in my happiness…our victory,” she stressed. “With Michael Talbot out of the way, there is now nothing that can stop us. And yet you still pine for him and his family, don’t you? We will meet up with his family soon enough, you can say your good-byes then.”
“What? I thought we were done with the Talbots, let them be, they have lost their father, what more could you possibly do?”
“You cannot be that naïve, Tomas, can you? Michael has left spawn behind. I will not let them walk this world any longer than necessary, he has two boys who could spread their seed far and wide and even now the girl swells with another. No, they are like vermin. I must snuff them out while I have them at their lowest a
nd most vulnerable. But first things first, I believe that some of his traveling party are still in this city. There is time enough that we can stay and watch the festivities.”
“What have you planned, sister?” Tomas asked.
“I am going to wield my full might upon this accursed hovel of humanity.”
“Eliza, have you stopped to think what you will do for sustenance once you have wiped out the humans?”
“Relax, brother, I cannot stand the hairless monkeys, but I respect their ability to adapt and survive. Right now I just want to have some fun.”
“Having fun means laughing, being with the ones you love, go-karts.”
“I do not know about the go-karts, Tomas, but I will laugh as the humans run fruitlessly for their pathetic lives and you at least love me, is that not enough?”
“I think you’re missing the point, Eliza.”
“My zombies will be in place soon. Come, let us find a better vantage point that we can watch from. And I’m starving anyway…this will flush some of them out.”
Tomas paled.
“And I know that you are hungry, you have not eaten in days.”
Tomas could not deny the fact that his gut was twisted in knots as it begged for food. He was repulsed every time he fed, but he could not control himself, the hunger was too great. He could feed off animals in an emergency but it was equivalent to a human sustaining life by eating lettuce.
“I see that you are not disagreeing. Soon, brother, you will be able to drink to your heart’s content.”
“I curse you for what you have done to me, Eliza.”
“You should have stayed home with papa,” she sneered, recalling their days in Germany some five hundred years ago.
“You were all I had, Lizzie,” Tomas said as he bowed his head.
“It appears that is as true today as it was back then.” She laughed, but it had more to do with the irony of her statement than mirth. “This will work,” Eliza said as she stood on a small hill that overlooked a vast portion of the town below.
“Oh God,” Tomas intoned as he saw the black smudge of zombies that dominated the horizon.”
“God, Tomas? Really? You might as well ask for Jesus and that fat man the children seem to worship.”
“Santa?”
“I suppose, I never stop to ask questions as I feed, I find it distracting.”
“Those are people, Eliza, with hopes and dreams.”
“I am a predator, Tomas, I care not for the prey. Does a lion sit in self-doubt about the harm it bestows upon the gazelle?”
“I understand what you are. What we are,” he corrected when Eliza arched an eyebrow at him. “But what you are doing now is not the natural order of things. Lions don’t kill indiscriminately, wiping out everything.”
“Spare me the lesson in morality, brother, I care not. I like to watch the humans suffer, it brings me enjoyment. And stop trying to control my herd, I can feel you trying to send messages to them. They will listen only to me.”
Tomas looked back at his sister, unsure what to do next. He sat on the grass to watch as the first of the zombies entered the town. His vision alternated between looking at the ground and watching as the zombies advanced, he was caught completely unawares as he sensed something. He wasn’t sure what it was, and was fearful to look up at his sister lest he give it away, she was completely fixated on the town below.
Michael? He thought it without transmitting the message, his sister would surely figure out what was going on if he did that, and as of yet he wasn’t sure. It was as if he was ‘seeing’ Michael through the wrong end of a telescope. There wasn’t much to hold on to, it was so faint that he thought it was most likely just residual feelings. But still it nagged around the edges of his mind. It is! he thought excitedly. It’s probably too faint for Eliza to pick up especially with her so focused on controlling the zombies.
Tomas began to emit what he could only describe as waves of white noise, much like televisions without a satellite or cable signal.
“I’ve already told you, brother, you cannot wrest control of the zombies from me. I am in direct communication with them and this static will not disrupt that.”
Tomas began to shiver with the effort to broadcast even louder as the signal from Michael grew from imperceptible to miniscule.
“What are you doing, Tomas? You begin to annoy me.”
“I thought that I might be able to stop them this way,” Tomas lied.
“I already told you this would not work yet you continue.”
Tomas could ‘feel’ Eliza probing through the ‘noise’ trying to figure out what he was up to. He literally began to vibrate from the effort of expanding so much energy and was unsure how long he would be able to conceal Michael’s presence.
Eliza was closing in; she was adept with the workings of the mind after so many millennia of practice.
Tomas urged Mike on, but to where? And to what end? Eventually she would discover that her sworn enemy still yet breathed air, and Tomas could tell that the thread from which Mike’s life hung was frayed and would not be able to take much strain. Tomas amped up his concealment just as Eliza was closing in. Just when he felt that all was lost, he lost Michael completely. He rocked backwards, breathing heavily from the mind strain.
“Done now, brother?” Eliza asked clearly confused.
Tomas did not answer. He was still trying to figure out what had just happened.
CHAPTER FOUR
BT & Gary
Gary was having a difficult time sleeping. Every time he shut his eyes, he saw Michael fall over. Sometimes there was only the loud thud of his head reverberating off the ground. But more often than not, Mike would cry out in pain and anguish; first asking for Gary’s help, then accusing him of abandoning him. It was not all that hard to stay awake, the town was in the midst of a full-scale zombie invasion. Houses were burning, the sounds of gunfire were rampant as were distant screams.
Gary strode over to the couch and went to shake BT awake.
“I’m not asleep,” he said.
“We should get going. Whatever is going on out there is starting to get closer,” Gary said. “Plus, the zombies that were around the house have left about ten minutes ago, probably to go and enjoy the fun.”
“What? They didn’t want to miss out?”
“That would be my guess,” Gary answered in all seriousness.
“What about Mary? Will she change her mind?” BT asked Gary, knowing full well that he didn’t have an answer either. “We can’t leave her here.”
“We both know that, BT, but we can’t force her either.”
“The old bat was right about one thing,” BT said.
“What’s that?” Gary asked.
“Mike would have somehow convinced them to come with us.”
Gary winced at the name of his brother in the past tense. “You’re probably right. I’ll talk to her one last time, but I think we should get going while the getting is good,” Gary said even as he realized the futility of his words falling on Mary’s deaf ears.
BT saw the cherry of the cigarette glow before he realized that Deneaux was standing at the far side of the room. It startled him for a moment because he thought it to be half of a pair of glowing evil eyes.
“Weren’t planning on sneaking out in the middle of the night and leaving us here, were you?” Mrs. Deneaux asked as she took another drag. A small raspy cough following her words.
“Any chance that’s lung cancer?” BT asked Deneaux as he sat up rubbing his eyes raw. The smoke from the burning town was making its way into the house. It was subtle at the moment, but soon it would be impossible to take a breath that did not result in a coughing fit, and that would be followed soon by asphyxiation.
“You’re sounding more like him every minute,” Mrs. Deneaux replied dryly.
“From anyone else I would consider that a compliment,” BT said as he stood. He walked over to the window and confirmed what Gary had already told him, the
zombies had taken a break and were out getting some lunch…most likely fast food. BT’s mood soured at his poor joke.
***
“Mary do you have a minute?” Gary asked as he walked into her room.
She had ten candles burning as she tried to keep the dark at bay and was sitting up in her bed. Josh was asleep with his head in her lap while she was absently stroking his hair as she looked at the window across the room. Her gaze slowly swiveled towards him as she came back from whichever distant world she had traveled. “We’re all dead.” She said with conviction.
“Even Josh?” Gary asked striking out as hard as he dared, she flinched from his words.
Her eyes were vacant as she turned back towards the blackened window.
“You have a real chance if you come with us,” Gary nearly begged.
A flicker of anger stretched across her features. “Your brother was a half-vampire, former Marine survivalist, and he fell. What chance do I and Josh have?”
Gary couldn’t tell if she had given up or was looking for a real answer from him. Gary could only respond with a lame sounding, “You can’t stay here.”
He wished he could bolster her argument above and beyond their food stores, but maybe she did have it right. They were alive after so many countless billions had perished; she’d done something right to keep them safe so far. And just because Mike was dead, Gary didn’t think Eliza was done with the Talbot clan by any stretch of the imagination.
“We’re leaving within the hour.” Gary said before he turned to walk out the door. He watched as she blanched from his words. “I hope you come, but I’ll understand if you don’t.”
