by Mark Tufo
I nodded.
“On some level I knew it was my uncle, he had finally won his freedom I guess.”
“Do you blame yourself for it?” I asked.
“I did…for a while, but it didn’t make sense to. Everything traced back to Eliza. She killed my mother, my father, and my uncle and she should have killed me. In a way, I guess she did. There are parts of me that will never function properly, starved of nurturing as they were. Is that too dramatic?”
“Not at all, if that’s what you feel.”
“So back to your original question, Eliza’s death is the only reason I hold on to this life. Until I kill her, I don’t think I can find peace. So yeah, I’m sure I want to come with you.”
“Fair enough. Most people I have this discussion with don’t normally have as much insider knowledge about Eliza as you do. I’m glad you’re coming if only so I don’t have to drive this thing.”
“I think it was your driving more than anything that got me out of my stupor.”
“Great, another smart ass, just what the world needs.”
She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth at me.
“What’s your family like?” She sounded genuinely curious, or she might have just wanted to while away the time as she drove. It wasn’t like she could turn the radio on and listen to America’s Top Forty.
That side thought hurt a little more than I wanted it to; I’d loved music since I was a kid and my parents had bought me a Realistic transistor radio. I think the first song I ever listened to on it was While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the Beatles version. I knew I was hooked from that moment. Music had been a constant component of my life, from the hundred or so concerts I’d attended, to listening to it while I worked—my desk job and my construction one—during the commutes to and from work or errands. It would be safe to say that I listened to more music on average per day than I watched television. And now my life had another little void in it where music once filled it.
“Mike?”
“Sorry I have a tendency to lose focus every once in a while.”
“Your family?” she asked again after waiting a polite amount of time for me to continue.
“Yup, sorry, completely spaced it. Well let’s start with my dad, Tony. He’s a World War Two vet, saw a lot of action. Sometimes he’s as tough as nails, and at other times you can see he’s on the edge. Wait…not the edge…that sounds wrong. I don’t mean of breaking down or anything like that. If you look long and hard at him when he’s quiet, you can see what his stint in the war did to him. It fundamentally changed him, and at times I think it’s a daily vigilance for him to have it not affect him. My mom passed a couple of years ago. I miss her, but she was far from the easiest person to love. She had great difficulty expressing concern for anything that did not revolve around her.
“Then there’s my oldest brother Ron. He’s all that a big brother should be, always looking out for his siblings—sometimes more than we would care for, but always appreciated. I know he’s kind of grooming himself to become patriarch of the family as our dad passes the torch, but I’m not sure if he’s relishing it right now. The stress of keeping your family safe weighs heavy. He’s married to Nancy, great lady, she can make a can of beets into a soufflé. Don’t ask me how, it’s like fucking magic.”
Azile snorted.
“They have four kids, Melanie, Meredith, Melissa and Mark. Melanie hasn’t been heard from since after the first day of the invasion. Ron went and looked for her once, and so did Meredith—both times almost compounding the disaster. Then there’s my brother Gary, he’s a twin with my brother Glenn who again we haven’t heard from since the start. I have my reasons to believe he’s since passed. Gary is the free spirit of the group. Of all the people I’ve ever met in my life, he’s easily the most comfortable in his own skin and some of that passes off to you when you’re around him. There’s my sister Lyndsey. She could easily make cheerleading an occupation. She’s not that crazy bubbly ‘rah! Rah!’ crap. She just genuinely enjoys life and lets everyone know about it. She’s married to Steve, kind of a reserved man, almost as quiet as my sister is talkative. They have a son Jesse, good kid, always willing to lend a hand.
“Then there’s my wife Tracy, the love of my life,” I said with what I imagine was a faraway stare. “I cannot wait to hold her in my arms. This time I will never let go. She is my strength and the reason I continue on when all seems lost.”
“She sounds very special. You’re lucky.”
“She is and I am, and she lets me know it at every opportunity.”
“That’s funny, do you have kids?” she asked.
I let out an involuntary gasp of air, just thinking of my kids knocked the air out of my solar plexus. Why the fuck did I risk my life on this journey when I should have been with them?
“I do,” I continued when I thought I had composed myself enough. “My oldest, Nicole, is pregnant. Her fiancé Brendan died saving my stupid ass from another of my hair-brained ideas. I guess that’s not entirely fair, he had been bitten before he came…long story that I have no desire to revisit. My daughter reminds me so much of my wife. I hope that someday she’s able to raise a family with a man that is deserving of her. My middle son Justin is a good kid, hell of a shot, he would do anything for anybody, he’s had a tough go during this whole thing.”
“How so?”
“He was scratched by a zombie.”
“He lived? I’m sorry was that callous?”
“That’s alright, and yes, he’s alive. It was touch and go for a while, and a lot of the time he had to battle constantly to hold onto himself. Eliza invaded his thoughts and sometimes he didn’t even know which team he was playing for. Then my youngest, Travis, it’s hard for me to see him any older than the seven-year-old boy that he was when we would build Lego castles together. But that boy has got me out of more scrapes than I care to count. Sometimes I’m afraid this world is going to harden him to a brittle shell of himself and at other times the scared boy shows through. Well that’s the condensed version of my family,” I told her as I wrapped up. I really didn’t want to dwell on it anymore. I still had to contend with telling my father that I had no idea where Gary was. Last I had seen him he was alive, and that was at the point in which I was going to stop pondering his fate. There was no way BT would let anything happen to him.
My thoughts turned sour instantly as I began to think of the loss of my lifelong friend Paul. I had always considered him my fourth brother and his death was a tangible hurt. I could touch it, it had so much presence. How I was going to walk in that house and tell his wife Erin was beyond me, the tears cascading down my face would be all she needed to know as I hugged her. There would never be a reason why I would tell her how he had met his fate. And what of Cindy and Perla? They would always hold me responsible for what happened to their significant others; no matter that I had nearly begged them not to come with me. Much like I had asked Azile, maybe I should just kick her out of the truck, or better yet, maybe I should just hop out. No, that wouldn’t work. She knew where the convoy was going.
I was still thinking as the uncaring sun began its descent on the horizon. It had shined when the earth was nothing more than a caustic stew of magma. It had shined down for hundreds of millions of years as dinosaurs ruled. It had heralded in the dawn of man and it would once again rise on our plunge into extinction. Zombies would be the dominant predator for a while, but if the tree huggers thought the average man was an earth destroyer, they would change that tune after the stripping of life the zombies incurred. As horrible a beast as they were, why they weren’t cannibals was beyond me. Did they have that modicum of a moral compass? I sat up quickly when that thought came to my head.
“What?” Azile asked. It looked like I had taken her out of a state of road hypnosis.
“You look half asleep.”
“I’m fine,” she replied while also stifling a yawn.
“It’s not going to do us any good if you crash.
Find a good spot. I’ll take the first shift while you get some sleep.”
She looked like she was going to protest, but that was right before her next yawn. “Sounds good. We’re going to need some diesel soon, too.”
“I hate gas stations.”
“We’ll worry about it in the morning.”
“Oh I can guarantee I’ll worry about it all night,” I told her as she pulled off the highway. It looked like some sort of industrial park and she found the oldest, dilapidated piece of corrugated crap to park behind. Seemed perfect for what we wanted, but on the flip side, it looked like the setting for ninety percent of every horror movie. It was four stories of scrap metal; meth heads would have avoided the thing it was so far gone—even they had standards. Sleep would not easily be forthcoming.
It wasn’t three minutes after the engine noise stopped echoing through the abandoned building when I heard the rhythmic breathing of Azile. I’m glad she pulled over when she did. There was a slice of moon in the otherwise cloudless night; the stars were beginning to make themselves known, although I did not think they would honor my wish. My gaze alternated between the brilliance of the night sky and that damned building. The broken windows with panes of glass hanging out of them looked like eager jagged teeth that wanted nothing more than to kill what was left inside of me. I heard a bottle skitter along a concrete floor somewhere within the structure. I peered at the windows, willing myself to evolve a few millennia further when man could finally see in the dark. It wasn’t working. Then I fell into the trap that every—and I mean EVERY—person in movies, literature, and real life situations fall into.
I waited and expected more noise, another hint or clue to what had made the original sound. When it was not forthcoming I tried my best to rationalize it away, reasoning that it was most likely a rat, or the wind, or even a ghost. But never once thinking that it was truly what it was, something out to kill us. Wouldn’t something with nefarious reasons that had just given itself away with some blundering move, immediately try to become a black hole of sound? Unmoving, ultra-cautious? It only made sense.
How many times have you been in bed, and in the middle of the night you had been awoken by an unexplainable sound? You sit up rapidly; your heart is crashing against your breast plate. You struggle to adjust your vision to your surroundings. Alert for danger from any quarter, ears trying to pick up the minutest of sounds. When you realize that the threat is not immediate, you begin to relax, starting to find rational causes: the over-stacked dishes in the sink toppling, the dog knocking over the trash can, maybe even a particularly heavy gust of wind causing the drapes to push over a lamp. Never once believing it to be the man right outside your bedroom door holding an eight-inch curved blade, but he’s patient, he knows he should have been more careful when he knocked the family picture off the small table in the hallway.
He’ll wait until he hears your soft snores before he slowly turns the handle on your bedroom door, when he hits that creaking floorboard right next to your bed, it’ll be to late as you catch a glimpse of the steel glinting in the sliver of moonlight shining through your window as the blade is drilled into your neck, severing you carotid artery. Screams will escape you as he places his gloved hand over your mouth. Thoughts of your children in their rooms will fleet through your mind as your life slides away.
I sat up, there was a malevolent force in that building, and it was staring at me I could feel it’s gaze upon me like a physical presence. I brought the M-240 up to rest on the windowsill. I would light that fucking building up like the Times Square Christmas tree if given half a reason. Azile was young enough that she probably wouldn’t have a heart attack when that first round went down range.
“Show yourself, fucker,” I whispered. I was calm, mostly. I was hoping I wasn’t making any mind phantoms. There were enough demons and monsters running around without the need for me to create mythical ones.
“Mike?” Azile asked.
I jumped. Thankfully my finger was not on the trigger or I would have certainly blown off fifty or sixty rounds before I knew what I was doing.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she saw the gun in the ready position.
“I heard a noise in there,” I said pointing. It sounded a lot weaker when it was verbalized, and I didn’t tell her about my feeling.
Now she was listening. After a while she spoke. “Probably just the wind.”
“And wouldn’t that be what they wanted us to think?” I asked her before I truly thought about my word choice. Oh boy, my paranoia was on high alert that fine evening.
“Who, Mike? Do you see something?” she asked as she was peering over my shoulder.
“I don’t see anything. Something sees us, though. I can feel it.”
***
“Do you think he sees us, Dave?” the dark haired man asked nervously.
“I don’t think so Greg,” Dave said, putting his night vision scope down. “But I swear he keeps looking right at us.”
“Why don’t you just shoot him?” Greg asked.
“First, because Kirk hasn’t told me to…second, because it’s not an easy shot…and mostly because of that fucking gun he has. If I miss, he’ll punch holes through this piece of shit building. A lot of fucking holes,” Dave said, again picking up his scope and looking at the barrel of the death dealing machine. “I can guarantee one thing, though, Kirk is going to want that gun.”
“You saw the gun. You should tell him,” Greg stated nervously.
Their leader Kirk was a scary, solitary, psychotic man, who ruled more by abject fear than through any true leadership qualities. The last person that had left their group had been hunted down mercilessly. When caught, Kirk had ordered him to be hung upside down and whipped until foot long strips of skin scraped against the ground as he swung back and forth on the chain that secured his ankles. Dave shuddered as the man had screamed for mercy that wasn’t ever going to come. And what had made it worse was the man was Dave’s friend, and he had done nothing to protect him.
Dave had convinced himself that it wasn’t so bad under Kirk’s regime. They were safe, they ate every day, and as long as they did exactly as they were told, there was nothing to fear. That wasn’t always the truth; sometimes Kirk forgot what orders he issued, or if the outcome wasn’t to his design, someone would pay. But for the most part, if you did what you were told you were safe. Dave’s friend Bill had begged him to leave with him. Dave had refused, not because he didn’t want to go but because he was petrified of what Kirk would do.
When Bill had come up missing during morning roll call, Dave had not even hesitated when asked where he was or where he might have gone. In fact, it was Dave that had to deal a significant amount of punishment to his ‘friend.’
“We’re friends, Dave. Don’t do this,” Bill had begged. “We grew up together for Christ’s sake. Dave, stop this!” Bill had screamed as he was hoisted in the air.
“Five lashes,” Kirk ordered.
“Five lashes? That’s it?” Dave asked, hoping that his friend would someday be able to forgive him.
“Yes, five lashes from you. And hit him like you mean it or I’ll make you do it again,” Kirk said.
Bill screamed as Dave whipped him across the back.
Kirk said, “Zero. Hit him harder or I won’t count them.”
Dave reared back and struck again. Bill writhed in agony, screams, tears, and blood coming from his body.
“Better…one,” Kirk counted. “Continue.”
Dave delivered four more brutal blows. Angry wet, oozing welts as thick as breakfast sausages criss-crossed Bill’s back. His body heaved as he sobbed.
“It’s over, buddy, it’s over. I’m so sorry,” Bill said as he headed over to the chain release.
“What are you doing?” Kirk asked.
“Letting him down,” Dave said with a confused look on his face. “You said five lashes.”
“Yeah and your five lashes are done, I meant five lashes from each of us
.” Kirk said sweeping his hand across the twenty-eight-person populace.
“You’ll kill him,” Dave stated.
“No shit. Hand the whip to Chad,” Kirk stated as he went back to playing his Nintendo DS, the beeps and whistles the game produced doing little to drown out Bill’s whimpers and groans.
By the time the whip made it all the way to Kirk, Bill had come to the last link in his chain of life. Dave was amazed Bill had anything left, but when Kirk began to whip his face, he managed three more screams as his eye was torn free from its facial moorings and his lips were flayed off. The affect was grotesque as his face began to slough away. More than one person in the group had to walk away. Dave didn’t, though, because Kirk was watching him intently as he finished his friend off.
***
“Let me see the scope,” Kirk said as he came up next to Dave, startling him out of his memory.
“Jumpy?” Kirk asked as he grabbed the night vision glasses.
“Sorry, the guy in that truck sort of scares me.”
“More than me?” Kirk asked smiling. “Just busting your balls,” Kirk said as he looked through the scope. “Holy shit, did you see that gun?”
“I did. That’s why I had Greg get you.”
“Well go get it then.”
“Wait…the gun…by myself? How?”
“Relax, you take shit too seriously,” Kirk said smiling. “Just busting your balls again.”
“Ha ha,” Dave laughed insincerely, hoping Kirk didn’t pick up on it.
“Hey, dipshit!” Kirk yelled.
Dave was about to ask ‘Him?’ when Greg called out ‘Yeah?’ from behind them.
“Go release the zombies,” Kirk said.
Greg raced away.
Those fucking zombies, Dave thought. They gave him the willies just thinking about them and that they housed them in the same building had been one of the reasons he had a major loss in sleep.
