'Til Death Do Us Part

by Mark Tufo

  I clutched my shirt as if I had one underneath. “Not yet. Not sure I want to, either,” I told him.

  “I get you, I mean the only way you could, would entail being face-to-face with a zombie and I don’t want to do that. Already been close enough a few times, no desire to do it anymore and willingly. Besides, Kong said he tested it and it worked, his word is good enough for me. And if it does work it’s worth what we’re going to do.”

  “Do you even know?” I asked him.

  “Well I know that Eliza woman has a personal vendetta to settle, that’s about it.”

  “So you signed up with her not caring the consequences?” I asked.

  “Why should I?” he shot back. “As long as I gain from it, that’s all that really matters.”

  “Fuck everyone else?” I asked.

  “Basically. I don’t know why you’re getting all judgmental on me, you signed up for the same damn mission,” Fritzy said indignantly. “You know, I’ve known Kong a good many years now.”

  Shit. Alarms started going off in my mind’s early warning detection system.

  It must have for Azile, too, she pressed the barrel of an as yet unseen weapon—at least to me—up to Fritzy’s head.

  “Yup I figured, he never once did say anything about a niece. I’m getting hijacked by my own pistol,” he said, looking over slightly at the revolver. “Well isn’t that wonderful.”

  “Is it the name?” I asked aloud, but to no one in particularly.

  “Huh?” Azile and Fritzy asked.

  “I haven’t had much luck with people named Fritzy or similar sounding anyway,” I told them. “Stop the truck.”

  “Pretty please,” Azile said as she pulled the hammer of the pistol back.

  “You gonna shoot me now?” he asked nervously as the big rig came to a halt.

  “No, something much better,” I told him.

  By the time Azile was putting the truck in gear, Fritzy, his vial and that stupid fucking cat were neatly tucked away in the trailer with a few hundred zombies.

  “Should have just shot him,” Azile said. “It would have been more humane.”

  “He was going to wipe out my family just because. Fuck humane.”

  We could hear him screaming for mercy occasionally, then some heavy duty sobbing. A few times I thought I heard some serious hissings from a cat, but that just may have been wishful thinking on my part.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Deck

  Tony was on the deck reassembling one of his rifles after a thorough cleaning when he heard the shot. He grabbed another rifle to go investigate. The rest of the family was trying to get some sleep as he did his watch. At first, he thought that perhaps someone was up and decided to take out a little frustration on the zombies, but when he turned the corner and saw that one of the spotlights was out he knew what was happening. The other side had decided to fire back.

  He dipped down below the edge of the railing which had been lined with half-inch steel plating, trying to see if he could possibly figure out where the shots were coming from. Travis came running out when he heard the shots. Tony’s cries of warning were intermingled with the sound of the rifle shot as Travis went down. Tony stood and peppered the location where he had seen the muzzle flash, then he ran back to his grandson.

  “I’ve been shot, Pops,” Travis said. “It hurts so bad.” His teeth were chattering between words.

  “What’s happening?” Nancy asked, coming towards the door.

  “Get down!” Tony yelled. “Help me get Travis back in.”

  Help was coming in droves now. BT was next, he quickly traversed the length of the room and grabbed Travis as Tony kept them covered.

  Nancy swept everything off the kitchen table as BT placed him gently down.

  “Hurts so bad, BT,” Travis said, his eyes clenched shut, tears of pain attempting to push through.

  “It’ll be alright,” BT said stroking the boy’s head.

  “Nancy, get some towels, water and a knife,” Tony said as he put his rifle down. “And then get his mother.”

  BT looked over at Tony with concern.

  “I...I’m so cold,” Travis said. “I could use a shot of whiskey for the pain.”

  BT ran over to the liquor cabinet as Tony cut Travis’ shirt off. “Well De Niro you’re not,” Tony told him. He grabbed the bottle from BT, popped the top off, and took a long pull. “That’s for not being careful,” he told his grandson, “and this…well this is for scaring the hell out of me.” He poured a fair amount over Travis’ wound. Now Travis’ howls of pain were real.

  “Jesus H. Christ, what the hell are you doing, Tony?” BT shouted, throwing his hands to his head, unsure what to do. “The more time I spend with the Talbots, the more I feel like I’m the sanest person in an insane asylum, but at that point what difference does it make?”

  Tracy was now at the entry to the kitchen. “Tony?” she asked, her one word question turning her face ashen white.

  “He’ll be fine, bullet went in and out. I, on the other hand, probably suffered a heart attack.” Tony sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs while taking another pull from the whiskey bottle.

  “Mom, it hurts so bad,” Travis said, reaching out with his arm from the undamaged side.

  The bullet had caught him underneath the shoulder; it was a flesh wound that had already stopped bleeding for the most part.

  “Oh, Travis,” Tracy sobbed, grabbing her son.

  Tony pressed the bottle up against his head. He hated the fiery liquid, but he thought it might be the only thing that would quell the panic of nearly seeing his grandson cut down. More shots had been going on as the rest of the clan gathered in and around the kitchen. Slowly but steadily, the compound was going dark as the spotlights were taken out.

  Tony took one more pull. “Ron,” he said as he stood, “they’re getting ready for some sort of offensive, I can feel it, we’re going to need a couple of more people out on duty. Everyone needs to make sure they stay below the lip of the railing. Shut off unessential lights in the house and get Travis down to the safe room at least until he gets patched up.” He was trying his best to walk the fine line between allaying Tracy’s fears and making sure the boy didn’t feel like he was being left out.

  Mrs. Deneaux was already on the deck sitting far enough back that the gunmen didn’t have an angle on her. “How is the boy?” she asked Tony between cigarette puffs.

  “He’ll be fine, caught him under his shoulder.”

  “Fortunate. I don’t believe Tracy could take another loss, she’s like that candy that’s all hard on the outside and soft on the inside.”

  “Better than hard and bitter all the way through,” BT said as he was almost crawling to get his bulk through the doorway unseen.

  “Debatable,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she took humor from BT trying to make himself appear small. “You look like a bear trying to fit through a doggie door. Wake me before dawn, will you, Tony?” She asked before putting her cigarette out and closing her eyes.

  “Why before dawn?” BT asked Tony as they settled in on the other side of the house.

  “Any force that has wanted to catch its opponent at their least alert always attacks right before dawn,” Tony told him, sitting with his back against the plating.

  “And the old bat knew that?” BT asked sitting next to him.

  “She’s probably employed the tactic numerous times herself,” Tony said smiling.

  “Man I see so much of Mike in all of you,” BT said sadly. “It’s like he’s not really gone.”

  “If only that were the case,” Tony said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Mike Journal Entry 14

  It was after three in the morning when we finally pulled into Searsport.

  “Now what?” Azile asked.

  “I’d rather just ditch the damn truck, but we’re still ten miles out. However, if we get too close, they’ll hear us coming and if we stop then and don’t show up they�
��ll get suspicious. How many of those driver’s would recognize you?” I asked, the beginning of an idea forming in my head.

  “Kong, Horatio, and maybe four or five others. Why?”

  “I think we play the odds.”

  “Whose odds? Vegas odds? Because those are never good.”

  “So you have the potential of nine people knowing you including Tomas and Eliza, I only have two. When I tell you to pull over, do it, then I’ll drive.”

  Azile’s expression was dubious at best.

  “It’ll only be for a little way,” I assured her.

  “Kong will recognize you. I mean he’ll recognize that you don’t belong, I mean,” Azile explained.

  “That will have to be a problem we deal with later. First things first, there’s a dry cleaner at the center of town, pull over when I tell you.”

  Between how ill-fitting and smelly my clothes were, Azile didn’t have a comment about my wanting to change.

  The sound of the idling truck barely masked the plate glass shattering as I threw an ashtray stand through it. It had been months since police had come to any crime scene and still I looked around guiltily, old habits die hard.

  “Hurry up!” Azile said through the window. “And no suits.”

  “What are the odds they’ll have jeans here?” I asked her.

  “At a dry cleaners? Just hurry,” she reiterated.

  I stepped into the blackness of the store, the echoing engine vibrations were slightly disorienting. The long ‘ess’ of plastic wrapped clothes was directly in front of me as were every conceivable nightmare I could think of. I was convinced a horde of zombies laid in wait. I quickly moved behind the counter and scooped up a handful of clothes off the rack. I brushed anything that looked remotely like business wear off to the floor. I wasn’t left with much to choose from.

  “Who dry cleans a skull cap?” I asked the non-existent attendant. Someone was still in my corner as I grabbed the small bag off the line. It covered my Eliza blocker perfectly and gave me sort of a World War 2 James Dean look. Hey it’s my mind I can live in any fantasy I want and this way I could get rid of the dreaded Yankees cap.

  There was a long sleeved shirt that didn’t look too bad; it had the name of a bar on it, Rollie’s or something close to that. It was a little snug when I put it on, but nothing like my previous duds, and I knew this was clean. Now I needed some pants that didn’t look like I shopped in the boys’ department. This was proving a little more difficult. First off, most of the clothes were women’s, I thought I should still be alright, Maine is known for its stout women. They were of the power suit variety though and then I came across not what I wanted but what I could use.

  “They still make Chino’s?” I asked holding the pants up to the near non-existent light. It was difficult to tell, but they looked brown from where I was standing. I turned so that I wasn’t facing Azile and quickly stripped out of the old and into the new.

  I ran back to the truck much more comfortable than when I had departed. The brightness of the dome light took some time to adjust as I got back in my seat.

  “Well you look good,” Azile laughed.

  “My pants are purple,” I said horrified.

  Azile was laughing, but she didn’t really let loose until she had me show her the back of my shirt.

  “What?”

  “It says you won a wet t-shirt contest.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I pulled the shirt over my head, and dammit if she wasn’t right. For reasons known only to me, I looked at the care tag, ‘dry clean only’. “Why the fuck would they make a wet t-shirt, shirt, dry clean only?”

  “You want to get different clothes?” she asked.

  I did and I didn’t. Nothing happened and I didn’t hear anything in there, but that dry cleaners just didn’t feel right. Plus, being this close to my family, I just wanted to get there. “Let’s go,” I told Azile, taking one last look back.

  “Last chance,” she told me.

  I sat steadfast. When we took the final road before my father’s dirt road drive I had Azile pull over.

  “It’s not far is it?” she asked as I ground the gears into drive, forcing rather than allowing. The truck was bucking like a bull with his balls cinched tight—although, if my balls were cinched I’d probably just be crying in a corner.

  “You should hide,” I told her as I came up over a small rise. Trucks were lined up on both sides of the roadway, zombies were everywhere. Occasionally I would see a human, but for the most part, they were staying out of the way of the zombies. I eased the truck into the back of the last truck in the line. And by ‘easing’ I mean ‘tapped’ the bumper and by ‘tapped’ the bumper I mean did damage that would have entailed exchanging insurance papers in an earlier version of the world. The noise should not have gone unnoticed, but the sound of gunfire was prevalent. It didn’t stop the owner of the truck from coming out of his cab to investigate.

  “Hey, you fucking nimrod, what is your problem?” he yelled as he hopped down, shying away as a couple of zombies checked him out, then moved on.

  “I’m real sorry,” I told him.

  “Oh, you will be, dipshit,” he said as he moved closer. “Get out here!” he shouted as he walked past the damage I had done to his rig.

  “I’m trying…the seatbelt is stuck.”

  “Let me help you with that!” he said angrily as he opened my door and hopped on the running board.

  The light glinted off the silver of the chain he wore around his neck. I snatched it before he could react, then I pushed him with my hand on his face off of the truck and onto the pavement. Zombies swept in before he could sound the alarm. It was gruesome being this close to a person being eaten, the sounds of lips smacking and teeth cracking into bone. I hoped no one else would notice the zombie congregation as they knelt at the altar of flesh.

  A few zombies looked up at me as I came out of the truck. I put the vial around my neck and they went back to the business of orally eviscerating my accident victim. I hastily walked to the back of my truck and moved the latch. Fritz was no longer clutching the cat, for better or worse, the vermin had decided it was better off on its own, I’m sure the stringy thing hadn’t tasted any good, but I won’t lie and tell you I wasn’t happy to see it gone.

  “Oh thank God,” Fritz said. He was huddled up against the doors, nearly falling out as I opened them, snot, tears and the drool of the closest zombies covered him from head to toe. I ripped the chain from his neck quickly closing the door to his screams. The trailer rocked a little as Fritz became a late night snack.

  I climbed back into the truck and handed Azile a necklace. “Take this,” I told her as I handed it into the back of the sleeper.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Do you really want to know?” I asked back. She accepted it without a response. “I’m going to see if I can find anything out.”

  “What about me?”

  “I’ll lock the doors. I should be right back, if I’m not, consider me lost.”

  Her eyes got big at that statement.

  “Azile, if that’s the case, unhitch the damn trailer and get out of here, just leave. If you do stay close enough to figure out what happened and you see Eliza leave, go west or north, just get out of here. If not, come back. Whoever is left standing will take you in.”

  “Mike, I came here to kill Eliza. I’m not leaving until that’s done.”

  “Okay, let me see what I can find out,” I told her as I got back out of the truck making sure to lock both sides up.

  The zombies had pretty much stripped the truck driver clean. Most had left as he was down to about bone marrow; but a few of the more ravenous were even going after that. I pushed them away and I kicked what remained underneath his truck just to avoid any prying eyes. We were far enough from the action, but there wasn’t any reason to take unnecessary risks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so much a kick as it was a push with my boot, because there just wasn’t enough of him left for my
sole to find purchase on.

  “Fucking gross,” I said looking at my boot that was now covered in what I was going to call ‘goo’. I walked the rest of the way down Dowboin lane, then took the left down onto my father’s lane. I was still about a quarter of a mile from the house but this was where all the activity was happening. The zombies were present but they were very sparse, those that I could see where heading towards the Talbot compound. I saw a knot of men and had to imagine that Eliza was in the middle of it.

  I had my gun and I was weighing out the odds of success. If it were just zombies I had to deal with I might have taken a chance, and I still wasn’t sure she was in the throng. I caught a glimpse of her as the group broke up. A large man was walking in my direction. Eliza went to wherever evil bitches go.

  “I need prior military volunteers!” the large man was shouting.

  “Fuck it,” I muttered. At least I wasn’t lying when I told him I was prior military. “Here.” I raised my hand.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asked stopping right in front of me.

  “I came in with Fritz. I helped him fix his truck, he told me what was going on and I wanted in. My name is... (what the fuck is my name?) Josh, Joshua Buker.” No clue where that came from but happy for the inspiration.

  “You all vialed up?” the man asked.

  I showed him. He seemed to have completely missed my pause as I sought to name myself, understandable with how much was going on, add to that the repeated rifle shooting.

  “Well, if he trusted you enough to give you his spare, then that’s good enough for me.”

  He had a spare? I thought.

  “Where’s he at?”

  “He’s working on his trailer, told me to see what was going on.”

  “You’re prior military?”

  “Marines…Afghanistan and Iraq,” I told him.

  “Good enough for me, I’ve got a team with two Navy Seals, one Army Ranger and a Green Beret.”

  “Great,” I said. Why don’t we just add in some fucking special forces ninjas to make it interesting? I thought. The Army guys would be tough, but the Navy Seals would be brutal, I love my Marine Corps, but the SEALS were second to none, not only in the US, but the entire planet.