by Mark Tufo
“Hercules? Oh, he’s fine. He’s just a big old teddy bear.” She laughed.
If by teddy bear she meant, psychotic, rabid grizzly then we were in agreement, I thought.
I sat, Hercules growled again—or a fissure had opened up in the earth—I figured both would sound the same.
Luke and John were sitting at the small kitchen table, alternating hits on a Jamaica envious-sized bone.
“Wowee, that’ll make your toes curl and slap a turtle!” Luke said as he leaned back in his chair.
“That’s good stuff, right? Got it from that guy over there,” John said, pointing at me.
“Mister, you want a hit? ‘Sidering it’s yours and all,” Luke asked.
“I’m good,” I told him.
“You want some possum pie?” Mirabelle asked me from the kitchen.
I thought about taking a couple of hits from John’s weed, thinking that would be the only way I would get strong enough munchies to actually try possum pie.
“It’s not really possum,” she said when she saw my face. “We ain’t been able to find them since the zombies came.”
My stomach was roiling a bit. I tried my best to cover up its gurgling sound. I changed the subject away from food in the hopes I wouldn’t have to pretend I was on some hillbilly version of Fear Factor. “Thank you for taking us in.”
“It’s what God-fearing people do,” Mirabelle said. “They help other God-fearing people. Are you God-fearing folk?” she asked.
“Um I don’t really fear him per se. Is a healthy respect okay?” I asked back.
She thought about it for a moment. “I s’pose that’ll do. What brings you folks around this way?”
“We’re trying to get to John’s wife in Philly, then I’m trying to get home,” I told her.
“Without weapons?” she asked astutely.
“We’ve had a few hardships along the way.”
“Fell out of the damn sky!” John shouted after taking another hit.
“Get outta here?” Luke asked incredulously.
“Unfortunately it’s the truth,” I told Mirabelle.
“What is?” John asked.
“You been dealing with him long?” she asked me.
“Long enough.”
“And he hasn’t got you kilt yet?”
“I figure the score is about even. Every time he tries to kill me, he saves me.”
“Hey, Poncho, Luke wants to know if you have any of this killer weed you can sell him?” John asked me as he started to laugh.
“Fresh out, man, check your pockets. I gave you the last of my stuff,” I said as I shrugged to Mirabelle.
“Whoa, man!” John said as he pulled baggies of stuff out of his many pockets. “Thanks, Poncho!”
“Any time,” I told him. “Have you been here the entire time?” I asked Mirabelle, wondering how a trailer could possibly hold up to a zombie invasion.
“We have.” She looked at me a little guiltily. “Our neighbors all either left, were turned, or were kilt. We’ve been foraging from their stuff.”
“There’s no shame in that.”
“Man what’s with the diapers?” John asked Luke.
“Smell of shit keeps the zombies away. They think it’s more of them and don’t want anything to do with us,” Luke answered.
“That’s brilliant,” I said.
“We noticed when the zombies were attacking our neighbors that none really came around here, and the only thing we could think was different was Hercules,” Mirabelle said.
“The dog’s shits are the size of bread loaves, and I ain’t talking those normal sized ones either, I mean those fat-sliced Texas toast ones.”
I didn’t want to tell him that the Texas-sized toast referred to the individual size of the slice not the loaf itself, but I got the visual anyway.
“The dog laid those monsters around the yard like land mines and the zombies really just kind of ignored us. It was Mirabelle’s idea to string some diapers up around the yard as an added precaution.”
She blushed a little, well that answered that question—they didn’t have a child. Better off in this new world…and then I panged for my daughter and my grandbaby that was on the way. It was a horrible time and place in our history to have a baby, but I also couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around the infant and the new hope he or she would deliver.
“You guys ever thought to look for a more secure location?” I asked.
“Why, mister?” Luke asked.
“This is home,” Mirabelle said. “It ain’t much, but it’s what we know. Our neighbors left us just about everything we need and more.”
“Cept for a little of the green,” Luke said, swinging a baggie back and forth in front of his face. “And since Belle found Jesus I don’t need to share.”
Mirabelle threw a dishtowel at Luke’s head which he had no hopes of dodging. “I didn’t ‘find’ Jesus, he was there all along, waiting for me to ‘see’ him,” she said to her wayward husband. “He’s a little rough around the edges, but he treats me good and I love him.”
“My wife would probably say the same thing.” I smiled at her.
“You haven’t been home in a while then?” she asked.
“Seems like a lifetime ago,” I answered vaguely.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“You were right to stay here, there’s not much good left,” I answered honestly.
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like. You could both even have your own trailer if you wanted,” Mirabelle said.
I got the feeling she was lonely and frightened, and I couldn’t fault her on either count. “The offer is very much appreciated, but I have to get home. I have a wife, kids, friends, and a dog I need to get back to.” Hercules perked up when I said dog. “You could come with us.” The range of emotions from hope to despair ran across her face, it was like looking at those posters that show pictures of the human face and all the different internal feelings we can emote. “I’ll tell you what, do you have paper and a pen?”
She handed me what I needed.
“Here is our address and a rough map. If you ever have to leave here or just want a new start, you come our way. There probably won’t be possum pie, but we’ll treat you like you’re one of our own.”
“Thank you.” She sobbed a little clutching the piece of paper close to her breast like it was the Word of God. “We can get you a car and some guns.”
“We can’t take those things from you,” I told her.
“We have more of both than we could ever use.”
“Really?”
“Come on, I’ll show you. Luke, we’ll be right back I’m going to get Poncho some supplies.”
“Mike,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“My name is Mike. John gave me a poncho to wear when we first met and that’s kind of stuck in his head.”
“That’s funny. I thought it was a weird name for a Yankee,” she said.
“I prefer Bostonian.”
“Yankee…Bostonian…same thing isn’t it?”
“Not really.”
She laughed again. “Come on, Herc,” she said to the pony hybrid.
He didn’t need the summons when he saw Mirabelle heading for the door, he was already up and waiting. We walked a couple of trailers over, one of them had a small steel garage that housed two cars.
“We checked ‘em all out these were the two best.”
There was a beautiful Ford Thunderbird; looked like someone had poured a lot of money into its restoration. Its beauty was so overpowering that I barely noticed the thing sitting next to it.
“Wow!” I said as I ran my hand down its side.
“That’s kind of the one we decided to keep,” Mirabelle said. “But this was the second best one,” she said proudly.
A lime green Gremlin stared back at me like some hideous engineering experiment gone wrong. “I can’t catch a break,” I muttered. The thing assailed my vision, ev
en more so because it was next to such a marvel of perfection. It was the old standard just like high school girls; the pretty ones would surround themselves with the Plain Janes who would invariably make them look that much better. It did seem that this was having the opposite effect, though; the beautiful car was making the ugly one that much uglier—all the bubbled glass, and lime green color, the thick set of its body—it almost made me want the Terrible Teal machine back. “It’s wonderful,” I told her thickly, careful not to touch it.
“Full tank, too,” she said proudly.
“This was really the second best car in the complex?” I asked, hoping against hope.
“By miles,” she said.
Hercules walked next to me. He lifted his leg and proceeded to piss a small river coming off the small car’s front tire and past my shoes.
“He doesn’t much like that car,” she told me. “I think it had more to do with the old owner. She always yelled at him.”
“No, I think it has to do with the car,” I said as I patted him on his head.
“Come on, let’s get you some guns.” I hoped this was going to cheer me up. We headed back towards her home. She pulled a small key ring out of her pocket. “These are yours now.”
“Thank you.” And I meant it. The car might have been uglier than bloated, blue, bull balls, but it was ours, and if it was a necessary evil that got me back to my family that much quicker, then I would suffer through it. I just hoped I didn’t run into anyone I knew along the way.
She opened the lid up to a good-sized plastic bin more commonly used to house gardening equipment. There were a good ten or twelve guns in there with a decent amount of ammo. Most of it looked to be of the .22 caliber variety.
“You keep these out here?” I asked her. She nodded. “What if something happens?”
“The Lord will provide.”
“Mirabelle, there’s nothing wrong with your faith, but remember…he helps those that help themselves. There’s a lot wrong with the world today and we can’t afford to lose more good folks to the oncoming evil.” I didn’t seem to be winning her over with my argument. “Okay, wait new tactic. You said the Lord would provide, right?”
She nodded again.
“Well didn’t he provide these then?”
“I’m not sure that’s what that proverb pertains to.”
“Listen, Mirabelle, I’m not going to tell you how to live your lives, you both look like you’ve made it through better than I have so far. You just need to know that the evil that walks this earth is not merely relegated to zombies. And crap-filled diapers aren’t going to stop them, more than likely it will alert them to the fact that someone is around.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’m just not a fan of guns.”
“Fair enough. I’m going to take two…a rifle and a pistol.”
“What about your friend?”
“He’s much better off without one. I’m afraid he would think it was a squirt gun and blow his lips off trying to get a drink of water.”
Mirabelle laughed.
There was a 7.62 caliber semi-automatic that looked Chinese built; I really wanted to take that one as it was by far the best thing in that box, but I kept digging. I ended up with a twelve-gauge shotgun from the Depression Era. It was a single-shot breech load and well taken care of, but unless we were taking on slow deer, it was not the optimal weapon of choice. I added to that a nine-inch barreled .32 caliber revolver. I’d never even heard of the manufacturer. All I could think was that someone had watched Dirty Harry with Clint Eastwood and wanted to own the same gun. That same person then went down to the local gun store, and when they realized how much a .44 magnum cost, they opted out for the lesser imitation model.
There was a box of twenty-five rounds for the shottie, and maybe thirty-five to forty rounds for the .32. I thanked Mirabelle profusely, she waved my gestures away.
“It’s the least we could do,” she said.
“I really hope you take me up on my offer,” I told her as I held her door open. Hercules scooted in after her. I looked out once for any signs of danger and closed the door after me when I didn’t notice anything.
Luke and John were in the midst of some epic laughing and hadn’t realized we had returned. Probably didn’t even know we had ever left.
“You want to see the spare bedroom?” Mirabelle asked. “You look like you’re asleep on your feet.”
“I’d love to,” I said as I followed her down the narrow corridor.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked as she led me into the small room dominated by a queen-sized bed that looked like a small slice of heaven just now.
“Sure.” I hoped she would make it quick.
“Do you want take a shower first?” She looked me up and down and then over to her clean bedding.
There I was, I had a myriad of scrapes that had dried blood on them, and some remnants of animal lard that were caked with dirt. “That’d probably be for the best,” I told her as I looked longingly at the bed. “Is that what you wanted to ask me? Don’t get me wrong I’m surprised you let us in at all now that I’m thinking about it.”
“Luke let you in,” she answered.
“Well I guess there’s that.”
“What’s with the hat?”
Where do I go with that? Do I tell her that I can talk to vampires with it off? Maybe after the shower and eight hours of sleep.
“John wanted me to wear it. He gets very agitated if I take it off, and since we’re traveling together I figured it was best to appease him.”
I might have bought some time with that, but I figured her next question was going to be why John wanted the hats on in the first place. I didn’t have answers that would make us sound sane or not completely mollify her. “I’m going to take that shower now.”
Her eyes still held a question, but she let it drop as she led me to the small bathroom with the shower enclosure. I stripped down, making sure the hat stayed on. I cut a ridiculous figure with that piece of tin foil on my head. My facial hair, eyebrow and hair (from what I could see) were beginning to fill in quicker than I would have expected. Was it only three days since I’d lost my best friend? My body was as hard as it had ever been in the Marines, and it was in direct contrast to the quiver of my chin and lips as anguish flooded my system. I was just now realizing I had yet to grieve my loss. I wailed as silently as was possible; my mirror image cried with me as I placed my hand against the cool glass surface.
“You alright?” Mirabelle asked with concern outside the door.
“I’m...I’m sorry,” I said as I wiped the offending moisture from my face.
“I have your shower,” she told me.
I had no idea what she meant. I moved to the side so that when I opened the door she couldn’t see my bare ass. I didn’t want to wrap a towel around myself and get the thing encrusted before I even had the chance to use it. Mirabelle handed me a solar shower bag usually reserved for campers or folks holding onto existence during a zombie apocalypse.
“There’s a hook in the shower where you hang it from,” she said, looking down at the industrial carpeting. “If you toss your clothes out here, I’ll get them as clean as I can.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I know…you alright?” she asked again, bringing her eyes up.
“I...I just lost someone dear to me recently, I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. Are you going to shower with that on?” she asked pointing to my hat.
“No,” I assured her, although I didn’t take it off. I bent over and grabbed my clothing, thankful that I was about to wash off. If I looked half as bad as my clothes, I thought I might be sick.
Mirabelle looked reluctant to touch them as well. “Umm, there’s a lot of clothes around these trailers. What size do you wear?”
I gave her rough dimensions. I wasn’t really sure anymore, especially after all the weight I had lost. Seemed kind of ironic that I had lost pounds in th
e physical realm and gained them all back in the spiritual in the form of pain.
“Time heals all wounds,” Mirabelle told me, obviously seeing the hurt I was in.
Normally I would tend to agree with that phrase, but the zombies had a way of repeatedly opening fresh wounds and never allowing the last one to completely heal up. I nodded my head at the right moment and let her believe her platitude.
“Thank you,” I told her as I closed the door. She was pointing to her head to let me know I still had the tin foil hat on. I hung the bag, looked to be about two-and-a-half gallons of fairly warm water up on the hook. I opened the spigot and got a good dosing. I’m not going to lie, I was more than a little concerned. There was more lard on me than I had originally figured. I looked up at the bag that now looked entirely too small. I quickly closed the valve, went head-to-toe lathering with the soap twice. I had no sooner finished my second go round when I paused. If we were going to be attacked by zombies, I was as sure as the purity of the soap I was using (99.4% by the way) that it would happen NOW.
I was thinking about that first night the zombies came when my shower was interrupted—how I had actually hoped for that very event. FUCKING HOPED! I’d lost a brother, a best friend, a niece, and dozens of others that I cared for in one way or another, and it was far from over. The odds were still greatly stacked against me, and I still had more on the betting line than I was prepared to wager. I turned the flow of water back on, most of the dirt, blood, and lard was removed as the water ran out; the pain…well, that remained.
A soft knock came at the door. “I found some clothes that might fit. I left them on the chair by your bed.”
“Thank you, Mirabelle,” I told her. I dried off, wrapped the towel around myself and went to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
G, BT and D
The group had to stop one more time for gas. BT picked a gas station right before they had turned on to the Massachusetts turnpike. The station was of the old traditional variety; no Slush Puppies, no hot dogs, candy bars, or rows upon rows of gourmet coffee dispensers. There were no aspirins, feminine hygiene products, or even newspapers. There was a counter where a person stood to take your cash or run your card through an old handheld device to imprint an image of your card. Checks were not welcome, neither was American Express; and if you wanted the proprietor’s gun, you would have to pry it from his cold dead hands—at least according to the bumper sticker adhered to the side of the counter.
