by Mark Tufo
“Don’t think?” He paused to catch his breath. “Or know?”
He kept running. The wheelbarrow was about as comfortable, Mike imagined, as the old time, horse-drawn buggies of a bygone era, and probably worse because they at least, had some sort of crude, spring shock absorber.
“Mush,” Mike told Gary.
His comment did not elicit a remark. Gary was scared and running for both of their lives and Mike didn’t think he had the steam in him to make it.
“Gary, get me out of this thing.”
Gary didn’t say anything or slow down, at least not consciously, but he was flagging.
“Can’t…touch…you,” he said.
“If you don’t, we’re both toast,” Mike said and Gary winced. It was not the wording he was looking for. “Now, Gary,” Mike said with as much force as he could muster. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.
The wheelbarrow almost tipped as he came to a stop. He quickly came around and picked Mike up underneath his arms, Mike was standing on shaking legs. “Run now!” Mike told him.
He looked to Mike and then directly over his shoulder at the zombies rapidly closing the gap.
“Run fucking now!” Mike told him, gingerly placing his smoldering hand on top of Gary’s shoulder. Layers of skin stayed behind as he removed my hand.
“No,” he said.
“Gary I…I can hold them from eating me, but I cannot protect the both of us, will you make me watch them kill you? Please don’t let that happen.”
“Are you sure?” he asked desperately. “I can keep pushing the barrow.”
“Absolutely,” Mike said, although he had no fucking clue.
“I love you, Mike.”
“I love you too, Gary. Now, get the fuck out of here!”
He wanted to hug his brother, but thought better of it. He turned and started to run. Mike stood there for a few seconds, contemplating how he was going to get his legs moving, when cats in varying states of disrepair began to stream by. Some had been burnt as badly as Mike had guessed. He had yet to take a complete inventory. Some had bites taken out of them and at least one or two looked like they might survive the entire ordeal. And then Mike heard their pursuers; zombies were coming up behind him and he didn’t have the strength to even turn around and look.
“Time to find a happy place,” Mike said aloud. Gary gave one long, woeful look from a few houses down before he turned the corner and was out of sight.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What do you mean you left him behind!?” BT was asking, clearly agitated.
“You weren’t there, BT, he begged me to. I didn’t want to,” Gary said, finally catching his breath.
“I know, I know how he is. Stupid Talbot and his death wish persona.”
Mrs. Deneaux had not said anything from the corner of the room, but secretly she was overjoyed. Surely any questions of her culpability in the death of Brian and Paul’s disappearance would die with Michael.
“You ready to go back out and get his ass?”
“You know it.”
“You coming?” BT asked Deneaux.
“Not a chance. He got himself into this mess, he will have to get himself out,” she replied.
“I would have expected nothing less,” BT said flatly. “That’s the woman whose words you want to believe,” BT said to Mary. “If she had to step two feet out of her way to not step over you, she wouldn’t do it. We’ll be back.”
Josh raced out the door before his mother could stop him.
“Josh! What are you doing?” Mary cried from the front door; she was too afraid to follow him outside.
“I’m the man of the household now and I’m going to help them get Michael Talbot back here,” he answered not once raising his voice, just stating a factual matter.
“You will do no such thing!” she screamed, her face turning a bright crimson.
“I am and I will. Let’s go,” he motioned to BT and Gary. “I know all the short cuts around here.”
“Joshua Hilop! Get back here!” she screamed uselessly. “Do something!” she asked BT desperately.
“He’s safer with us than with her,” he told Mary, looking back at the hawk-eyed Deneaux.
She grabbed BT’s arm, but he shrugged her off. “I don’t have time for this little family drama. I have a brother to retrieve. I promise he’ll be as safe with us as he would be at your house.”
Mary was now beginning to doubt the sanctity of her own home, and looked to be moments away from joining the rescue party. “You hurry up and get back here,” she said to Josh. “I love you.”
“Mom, you’re embarrassing me.”
Mary went back into the house, shut the door and watched the small party of three head down the street from the vantage point of her living room window.
“They’re probably all going to die,” Deneaux said from the chair across the room. She lit a cigarette and took a long slow drag.
“What?” Mary didn’t think that Deneaux had just uttered those words because no one with a soul could have. She chalked up her missed hearing to stress. “There’s no smoking in this house.”
“Sure there isn’t,” Mrs. Deneaux said, shaking her ash on the carpet.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tracy was alternating between sitting at the radio, pretending to read a series of books she couldn’t get into and working on the beefed-up fortifications Ron was installing when Henry started barking. A sound that was much closer to a sound a seal might make than any dog.
Tracy crossed the room quickly, trying to follow Henry’s line of sight, but since he was looking at a wall, she didn’t understand what he was getting all riled up about.
From Ron’s front door, you could see the long gravel roadway that was his street and that was where she went. She was slightly hesitant to open the door, lest something previously unimaginable was on the other side. But Henry never turned to look at her as she disengaged the lock and pulled the door open quickly. Kind of like the band-aid removal method--do it fast before it can sting.
Ron had come quickly with rifle in hand, almost pushing past Tracy to shield her from whatever Henry was going on about. Henry was all about conservation of movement and energy and would only reveal his true inner wolf when someone he loved was in danger.
“What’s going on?” Ron asked wide-eyed, looking around expectantly for any signs of danger.
“He just started barking, but he keeps looking at that wall,” Tracy said, clearly confused.
“Mice maybe?” Ron asked, trying to fill in the knowledge gap.
“Henry? Barking at mice? Not unless they are carrying his cookies away. What’s on the other side of that wall?”
“That’s south so about a fifty-foot clearing and then the woods,” Ron answered.
“South?” Tracy asked and she began to turn ashen.
“What’s the matter?” Ron asked in alarm. “What’s south?”
“North Carolina.” Tracy was slammed with a heavy dose of vertigo. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said as Ron helped her to a chair.
“Let me get you some water.” Ron was back in a few seconds, Tracy felt a little better as she drank. Henry barked a few more times and then yelped once before he walked out of the room with his head down. Tracy’s glass shattered to the ground as she passed out.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“We were about three or four streets over,” Gary said.
“By the Fredericks’ house?” Josh asked, cutting through some hedges that had looked impenetrable.
“I don’t know; how would I know that?” Gary asked.
“Did you see a bright, bright blue house?” Josh said, extending his hands.
Gary couldn’t see how stretching your hands equated to brightness, but he went along. He thought for a few moments. He hadn’t really been taking in any qualities of the neighborhood. Houses, even garish ones, tend to become less important when one is looking for things that will possibly get them killed. “I don�
��t…wait, I think it was further up the street. I kept thinking that I hoped they got a good deal on the paint because it was pretty ugly.”
“Do we know where we’re going?” BT asked, clearly agitated.
“Yup.” Josh seemed to be reveling in this. He’d probably played this game a hundred times before, hiding from the enemy. It would have never been a real life scenario like it was now, but practice does have a way of making things perfect. Josh pulled two slats from the fence to the side so he could fit his slender form. BT ripped another five off to get through. Josh did not seem pleased, but he pressed on. Within a few minutes, they were assailed with the smell.
“This is the place.” Gary said.
“What gave it away?” BT asked, wanting to hold his nose.
Josh opened the gate from the homeowners’ backyard and was heading to the front when BT grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground.
“Hold on. Gary, go check,” BT said. “You’re the fastest at the moment,” he added when Gary passed on by.
“I think that honor goes to Josh, but I’ll check.”
“Any chance you’ll let me down now?” Josh asked, his legs kicking in the air.
“Do not go anywhere, unless it is back to your house,” BT said as he gently placed the boy on the ground.
Gary got up close to the side of the house and inched himself around, taking a quick peek. He immediately turned back to where Josh and BT were. “Send him home NOW!” Gary yelled as quietly as he could.
“Now, kid, go home! Do not turn around! Do you understand me!” BT yelled.
Gary had started firing his rifle. BT urged Josh in the opposite direction as he brought his rifle to the ready. He was wholly unprepared for what he witnessed as he turned the corner to stand side by side with Gary.
Michael was completely surrounded by zombies. His skin was the color of burnt hamburger and large curled flaps of skin were peeling away from his singed chest and shoulders. These were being torn off by zombies, struggling to get at the flesh. Michael was screaming as pink, oozing, tender flesh was exposed while the zombies tore off the blackened parts.
At least a dozen zombies were dropped by Gary’s and BT’s rifles fire before Mike’s attackers took any notice. At first, two or three went after the pair and were quickly dispatched, but as Michael went to his knees and then his face, the rest turned and went for the new meat.
Gary was dry firing, screaming in rage as the zombies approached. BT was afraid that Gary was going to go into berserk mode and just start swinging his rifle like a club. BT was getting low on ammo. “Let’s go, Gary.”
“He’s my brother!” Gary yelled, looking up at BT’s face with tears coming from his eyes.
“There’s nothing more we can do here.”
Gary took one final look back at his brother who had not moved since his head made impact with the pavement. He sobbed as he ran, tears so occluding his vision, he had to be guided by BT.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“What is the purpose of waiting here, sister? Now is the time to pull back and regroup. Michael is long gone now, yet we have wasted days here.”
“We have wasted nothing,” Eliza hissed. “While you have been having secret rendezvous’ with the enemy, I have been summoning a vast zombie army to destroy everything in our path toward getting Michael, starting with this little town.”
With Eliza’s human sympathizers out of the way, Tomas had hoped his sister would give up her foolish quest, or at least, postpone it. In the meantime, he had kept tabs on Michael when he could. His former father was getting good at disguising his presence. Mike had delivered a victorious blow, and for the life of him, Tomas could not figure out why the man had not collected his things and gone home. Even with the infection in BT, that should have only delayed him a day at the most. And now his sister was planning on bringing thousands upon thousands of zombies to this town.
“What do you hope to accomplish here?” Tomas asked his sister.
“Either you are still trying to cover for him or you are not as powerful as you imagine yourself to be, but Michael is still around. And even now, he uses his limited powers to save himself. If only he would fully reveal himself to me, I would finish him off myself.”
Tomas was taken aback, he had not known his sister realized Michael was still here, but what was more unsettling was he did not know Mike was in distress.
“Don’t be so confused, brother. I have blocked you from him. This is one battle the great and mighty Michael Talbot will need to finish on his own without any outside help.” Eliza laughed as Tomas tried desperately to get around whatever she had put in place to hinder his ability to talk to him.
Tomas could feel the psychic push of thousands of zombies as they closed the distance from their original locations to get to where their mistress beckoned as he extended his powers to try and encompass Mike.
“This is insanity, sister, he is gone from here.”
Eliza was still for a moment as if she were listening for a pin to drop on a faraway floor. “Perhaps you are right for once, little brother,” she said as she turned to walk away.
Tomas was relieved, maybe something could be salvaged out of this after all. Then the barrier that had been erected between Michael and himself crashed to the ground. Tomas nearly fell to his knees as he felt the screams of Michael, and then there was silence, soulless black silence. “What have you done, Eliza!?” Tomas screamed, chasing his sister down.
“I have done nothing, dear brother.”
“Why did you let me hear that and then cut it off again?” he demanded.
“I wanted you to hear that, but I most certainly did not cut it off at the end. That was the end. Michael Talbot is no more. He is no longer alive in a dead world!”
Prologue
Story takes place December, near Christmas 2009, written December 27th 2010.
Excerpt taken from a journal discovered in Vona, Colorado. Its location was a center console in a red Jeep Wrangler. The reader found the story humorous and decided to hold onto it, where it was finally paired together with the original writer’s works.
***
I’ve been feeling down as of late. We are on the run from zombies. This has not turned out to be the adventure I had hoped it would be. My hope was that I would make a lasting stand at my household with all my rifles, ammo, food and water. Yet, three weeks after the invasion I had been preparing for almost my entire life, my home has fallen into enemy hands. We’re cold, scared, and are draining through hope like a wino through Mad Dog 20/20. My ability to keep my family, friends, and to a lesser extent, our other traveling companions safe weighs heavily on me. My goal with these next lines is just an attempt to bring a smile in a deepening dark that is gathering.
In a time before there were zombies, we lived our lives like the vast amount of Americans in December. We overate, overspent and waited until the last minute to do our shopping around the holiday. This year was no different. I had just cashed my meager check this morning and my wife felt that we had to get a few more gifts for the kids.
“Go ahead,” I told her. Yeah, that went over about as well as you think it did.
“Talbot, get your ass up off that couch,” she said. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t threatening, but to not act on those words would have been tantamount to suicide. Kind of like the criminally insane do when they point a gun at the cops and then the cops have no option but to open fire. It was the same premise here.
So I got my ass up off the couch and off to the mall we went. Yippeee! The mall at Christmas time. I’d rather go to a drunk dentist for a root canal; it was a lot less painful. The mall was so packed, there was no place to park. They had to plow the snow off a distant field and offer a free shuttle service.
“Recession, my ass,” I grumbled as I parked the car. The mall was a distant pinpoint of light, off in the distance. “Maybe that’s where the baby Jesus lays,” I said sarcastically.
“Talbot!” My wife sma
cked my arm.
We walked up to the sign that said “Shuttle” just as a white tin can, packed with holiday revelers left.
“It’s friggin’ cold out here,” I said, stamping my feet.
“Maybe if you had worn your heavy coat like I told you to, you wouldn’t be so cold,” Tracy said, with the all knowing “I told you so” lilt.
I opened my mouth to argue the point, but she looked much more ready to do battle than I. So just a little background and you decide if I had a valid point or not, not that Tracy would have agreed anyway.
By ’09, Tracy and I had been married somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-something years. Now, NEVER, ever will I claim to know what makes a woman tick, but I’ve been around this particular model long enough to know some of its quirks. I might have written this down in one of my earlier journals. but it’s worth reiterating. My wife researches and buys her cars on the recommendation of other folks’ opinions about how the heater works. So when we go auto shopping, we have to look for heaters that have an extra setting called “lava,” and until molten magma is pouring from the vents, my wife is not happy. I’ve actually lost the bottoms from more than one pair of sneakers as the glue has melted, and the soles have become un-adhered from the rest of the shoe.
There have been days when the temperature outside is zero or less and I have dressed in shorts and a windbreaker for long car rides, because I know that most likely, my face will, at some point, melt. This trip was no different, but it was a shorter ride so I actually had pants on and a light jacket, not in any way rated for the inclement weather we were in the midst of, but still I was not going to argue the point with her. It would have been a lot colder if I had to walk home.
So I waited, gritting my teeth, feeling my nasal passages beginning to freeze up. My wife looked fairly toasty in her heavy sweater and full-length jacket, scarf around her neck and leather gloves.
The shuttle showed up seventeen teeth-chattering minutes later. I had to rip my planted feet from the ground. Seems the melted glue had frozen fast to the ice slicked surface. Tracy entered before me and then I came in after. I stepped up on the stoop and looked to the left. Seems the shuttle had stopped to pick up half the state of Wisconsin before it got to our stop. An older gentleman gave up his seat when he saw Tracy approach him and somehow the seat next to her was vacant. I was about to plant my ass in it when it looked like someone had spilled half of an Orange Julius in the plastic bucket seat. At least, I hoped it was an Orange Julius.
