by Mark Tufo
My third mouth breaching came as I grabbed onto some kid’s jacket. He was wedged under the body of a female that suspiciously bore a family resemblance. The family that eats together, stays together you know. Whether in life, in walking death or in absolute death, there was something about killing a family that tore something free from within me. I wanted to be out of this split femur soup. I reached under and grabbed the thing from underneath the armpits. I pulled with more exertion than the task demanded. I was rewarded with a wet tearing sound as the boy’s top half came loose from the disengorged innards that spilled like night crawlers from a broken bait box. I fell over still holding tight to the top half of the boys remains. Luckily, my fall was broken by the ample carcass of Frita, the Ihop waitress. Her nameplate quickly lost under my voluminous cascade of bile. I stood up quickly, a dizzying spell nearly bringing me to my knees again. Flesh, saturated with bodily fluids, slapped against my blood soaked jeans. I dropped the boy to the ground. When I felt the worst of the attack had passed I reached down and grabbed the boy’s hand, not in a gesture of good will, it was what allowed me the greatest grip. I did not turn around as I dragged the boy to his final resting spot.
Jen had somewhere acquired a snow shovel and had cleaned up what had spilled out of the boy, my burden had been getting lighter as I walked but I would not turn to detect the reason why. One more violent stomach outburst like the previous one and I would have left my spleen on that parking lot pavement. For the next hour I went through my duties like an automaton, bend, lift, drag, bend, lift, drag. I had become more like our enemy than I would have ever thought possible. BT for all his bravado was two pukes ahead of me, fine by me he was welcome to that trophy. And winner of the 2010 Lord Upchucks Cup goes to Big Tiny! Huge applause! I grinned. Nuggets of some distant forgotten meal bracketed my goatee. Pain wrenched my gut. My knee was on the verge of collapse and my smile resembled something closer to a scowl. But still I soldiered on. Tracy, Nicole and Brendon had spent the better part of the morning getting our belongings back into the minivans. They had just about finished, when me, and the death detail were down to single figure leftovers to remove, when Denmark’s warning came.
“Michael you best come up here and take a look.”
I hobbled over to the ladder, the blood of a hundred bodies was solidifying on every article of clothing I was wearing. Between my knee and the inflexibility of the frozen blood my navigation of the ladder was haphazard at best. ‘If this is the way I die I am going to be seriously pissed off.’
"You say something?” Denmark asked as he reached out to help me up and over and then abruptly thought better of his gesture. He warred within himself, the disgust of possibly touching anything that was attached to me or the common courtesy of helping me up the ladder. Courtesy won out as he reached his hand out again.
“I’ve got it, don’t worry Denmark.” I wanted to laugh as I watched the relief on his countenance.
“Dad, hurry!” Travis yelled.
Denmark went to clap me on the shoulder in an act of shared camaraderie and then pulled back as not even that innocuous part of me was free from debris. Within a few moments of caked blood cracking movement I was standing next to my son. I saw…nothing. Nicole and Tracy had packed the rest of the food into the back of the minivan. Brendon was finishing strapping something to the top of his minivan. BT and Jen were sharing a smoke that looked so good, the savory tobacco smoke wisping up into the cold winter air. Even from this distance I could tell BT’s hands were shaking. Jen had to try and time her placement as she went to hand him the cigarette.
“What?” I asked perplexed.
Travis’ pointing finger led my vision higher up the horizon. I saw a black smudge, a stain upon the skyline. I saw a plague upon my family. Hundreds, no thousands, tens of thousands of zombies blotted out the distant boundaries of my vision as they marched forward toward us.
“My God.” Denmark noted.
“Time to go Mr. T.” Tommy said as he reached to grab my hand.
I pulled away before he could make contact. “Oh Tommy I don’t think I could stand it if I passed on what I’ve been touching.” He understood, even if he wasn’t a tenth as concerned about it as I was.
“We leaving now?” He begged.
The scene, while not nearly as heroic and without the accompanying foreboding music, reminded me of the Lord of the Rings when the orcs and cave trolls descended on Helm’s Deep. I was transfixed. Stay and fight or just run. I looked to Denmark’s fear lined face and the consternation of his wife Maggie as she looked on and even to a lesser extent the misery that was etched on Greta’s face. My mind was made up. These people had opened their home and their hearts to us. What right did I have to bring this grisly end upon them.
“We’re leaving Tommy.” I said. Tommy was relieved.
“Michael.” Denmark peeled his eyes away from the abysmal vista. “I thought you were more of an admiral man than that.”
“What? Did you mean admirable?” I asked. I didn’t have the foggiest clue about what he was talking about.
“You are just going to leave me and Maggie and Greta like this?” He asked
“Oh.” I started. “Denmark it’s not like that at all.” His arched eyebrow let me know exactly what he thought of that response. “First off you’re welcome to join us, although I don’t see the benefits for you to that decision. Secondly we’re not leaving because we’re afraid of a fight. We’re leaving so that there won’t be one.”
“Huh?” Now it was his turn to question my words.
“Denmark do you really think it was a coincidence that we had that assembly of zombies here this morning?” He was not following the general drift of the conversation. I was going to have to forcibly show him the way. “Denmark we’ve been singled out. We’re being hunted. Some lower power has decided that our time on this glorious planet must soon be concluded.”
“Michael I know this event has caused a lot of strain on folks, better than you have wilted, but what makes you so special? Why would the zombies ‘hunt’ you?” Denmark begged.
I wanted to tell him that I was merely a by-product of the hunt, maybe a 6-point stag. The prize 12-point trophy was Tommy. Eliza wanted Tommy. I didn’t know if the kid knew it for sure or not but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. Denmark was about to pepper me with more accusations when Maggie interceded.
“It’s true Denny.” She said placing her hand on his taut shoulder.
“What are you talking about Maggie? All I see here is a coward, a man that runs from his responsibilities. Oh, he’s all bluster when he’s sitting by a stove eating a home cooked meal. Put the iron in the fire though and you can test the true strength of the metal.”
I knew his words were borne from fear and desperation. They didn’t even contain an iota of truth but still they cut to the bone, if only because he believed what he said.
“Look at him Maggie! He can’t even defend himself now! How much do my words hurt Michael? Will you be able to sleep tonight while my wife and I fight for our lives? Probably won’t be a problem for the likes of you!”
“Dammit Denny! Stop it!” Maggie grabbed him by the waist and turned him so that he could see the rage coursing through her body. “Justin! Justin told me everything!” She screamed.
“What are you talking about!?” The anger that mired his capacity to reason was blinding him.
“Since they have left their home in Colorado they have been followed. The one who calls herself Eliza has some sort of hold on the zombies.” Denmark was looking as his wife as if trying to figure out how hard it would be to get a hold of some anti-schizophrenic pills. Iffen there was such a thing. “Justin knew they were coming, he just didn’t know that they were this close.”
Justin silently cried behind her. “I’m so sorry Dad.”
“This isn’t your fault Justin, you’re caught up in it just like the rest of us.” I told him. It was of small solace to him but he accepted it like a stranded wandere
r in the desert accepts water, greedily.
“What is going on?” Denmark cried, the whites of his eyes threatening to become the dominant force on his strained features.
“I’m trying to tell you Denmark. That if we leave, odds are that horde out there won’t even stop here.” I told him. He understood the words. He was just having a difficult time reconciling the validity of them. “Denmark, I swear to you, as much as you can trust a man in these dark days, trust me now. You are welcome to come with us. Hell with the firepower you carry I’d be thrilled if you came with us. But that would be the worst decision of your life. I’m not going to guarantee to you that zombies aren’t going to come your way eventually but that legion out there.” We all turned to look. “That’s especially for us.”
Denmark looked to the gathering, then back to my face and back to the mob. He licked his lips and then the next words out of his mouth nearly crippled me.
“Any chance you could take Greta?”
Maggie slapped the shit out of his head.
“BT, Jen come on!” I yelled down to them. “We’ve got to get going soon.”
“Come on Mike.” Jen pleaded. “I’m covered in gore. I was hoping to boil some water and wash up, thoroughly.”
“Sure you can, but come up the ladder a few rungs and then turn around.” Even from this distance, I could see the confusion on her face. She did as I asked though.
“Right, I’ll go grab my things.” She said. I’ll give her this, her face paled some, but she didn’t go into panic mode.
Rabid pack of cannibalistic, disease infested man-eaters or not. There was no way I was leaving without scraping the heavy layers of dirt, sweat, blood, excrement and the multitude of body bits off of me. I grabbed my k-bar knife and cut my clothes off of my body, the blood had congealed into body armor. I stood naked in that dark motel room, looking in the full-length mirror. A month and a half of zombies had done for me what no intense workout regiment could. Damn it, I looked good, I had the beginning signs of a six-pack on my stomach. My love handles were a thing of the past. My body looked lean and strong. Even with chunks of matter I could not identify stuck at odd angles and in strange places could not outdo how much my body had changed. I was close to the condition I had been over twenty years previously. Killing apparently had its perks. My black eyes betrayed no mirth in that thought.
I turned the shower on, waiting a few seconds before sticking my hand under the sand-blast force liquid. Waiting a few seconds for the water to heat up was a conditioned response but one in which I was not going to receive a favorable reply. I braced for the icy needles of pain that were about to lance my body. There isn’t a one of you out there that doesn’t know what I’m talking about. You can psyche yourself up all you want. Maybe even slap yourself a few times in the face to try and forget the infliction you are about to impart on yourself. Doesn’t matter, the moment that water hits anything above your knees the shock starts to set in. Catching a breath, all of a sudden becomes the most difficult thing in the world. You breath in these little ragged strips of air through clenched teeth. You cross your arms over your chest as if that is going to alleviate the immense discomfort bordering on psychotic pain that you are feeling. At this point you can’t even begin to understand why you are subjugating yourself to this. A failed water heater should be the most perfect reason in the world to not go into work.
This time though, was not normal. I was already numb. Numb to pain and numb to the world. I placed my hands on the shower stall wall and bathed in the bitter water as it flayed my soul into the drain. Soap was an afterthought. I watched as the man that was/is Michael Talbot spread the tiny bar across his semi-exposed rib cage. Shampoo intermingled with viscera. The humanity stew clogged the drain. The Michael man did not notice as he stepped out of the ice sharded water. The part of me that was mostly me, but not all of me, took this opportune time to reunite with the more primitive side. I gently reminded that side that he should dry his freezing ass off before he caught pneumonia.
Tracy had come in with new clothes while I had been wringing out my soul. I stood once again in front of the mirror shivering, partly from the cold, partly from the pain and mostly from the sense of loss. My body had adapted to the harsh conditions of this new life much quicker than my mind. Once that happened though, would I still be the man I wanted to be or just the man I needed to be.
Tracy’s hand seared my flesh as she touched my side. The heat from her hand flooded my senses. That mere, sheer, sensuous touch reeled me back in. My body reacted in the way it had been meant to since the beginning of evolution (or the Garden of Eden, I don’t want to deny anyone their due).
“You look tired Talbot, but you look a lot like you did the day we got married.”
I turned towards her. I was a Marine when we got married so it only seemed right that I should be at the position of attention now. If you do not know what I am referring to, just take a moment to reread this part and then rethink it. I’ll wait…...got it?
Tracy laughed. “Yep that looks a lot like it used to when we got married too, Mike.”
“And?”
“Not a chance.” She threw my clothes at me and laughed harder when my boxer briefs got hung up on their own personal hanger. “Get dressed, I want to get out of here, before we bring any more trouble on these people.”
“Are BT and Jen ready?” I asked as my ‘hanger’ drooped and dropped its ‘load’ so to speak.
“Mike, they’ve been ready for over half an hour. You were in the shower for forty five minutes. How the hell you could stand it, I’m not sure.”
“Forty five minutes?” I could scarcely believe it myself.
“Maybe if you had got out sooner.” She said tauntingly.
“Oh that’s fair!” I yelled. “Now you tell me!”
“Maybe next time.” She said wistfully as she left the room to let me get dressed.
“I hope there is a next time.” I said to the closed door.
Within five minutes I was dressed and back outside. The brisk January North Dakota winter had nothing on the cold I had just endured both physically and spiritually. It almost felt balmy in retrospect.
BT was at the railing smoking another cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” I commented as I put out my hand to take a drag.
“I don’t.” He replied as he handed it to me. “And you?”
“Me neither.” I said as I took a big draft of the sweet leaf. I savored my long exhalation of the vapor. “You know BT, you don’t have to come with us?”
“I know that Talbot.” He said as he took his cigarette back.
“You know that throng out there is coming for us right?”
“I know that too Talbot.” He said as he handed the cigarette back to me.
“If we left here and you and Jen stayed behind. You’d be safe, you know that right?”
“That I don’t know Talbot. Stop bogarting and give me my cigarette back. What kind of man would I be if I left you now?”
“A live one.” I answered honestly.
He laughed at that and tossed his used cigarette over the railing. The cherry fizzled and smoldered out in a puddle of blood. He didn’t notice, I did.
“What do you expect me to do Talbot?” He wasn’t questioning me so much as he was actually asking my opinion.
I shrugged my shoulders. “There’s a good chance BT that my road leads to a giant fiery dead end.”
“That seems better than whiling away my days with a lesbian and a shrew. I’m going to smoke another cigarette Talbot, weigh the consequences of my actions and then get in that fucking ugly ass minivan of yours.” My cue given, I left, saddened in the fact that I wasn’t going to get another drag of his cigarette.
I walked away just as Tracy was just becoming extracted from a hug with Maggie. “You’re getting better Talbot.”
“Huh?”
“I saw you smoking that cigarette.”
“Aw shit, didn’t mean for you t
o see that.”
“Relax I wasn’t talking about that I meant that two months ago you would haven’t taken that cigarette from the Pope himself even if he had blessed it and dipped it in Holy Water first.”
“Huh. I hadn’t even thought about it.”
She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed me. “You taste like an ashtray.” And with that she walked away to descend down the ladder.
I gave Jen the same opportunity of Rights of Refusal to leave our merry band of misfits her answer while different from BT’s was eerily similar.
“Would it be better if I spent the rest of my days with a muscle headed man and a shrew?”
Tommy was crying as he disengaged from Maggie. “Are you sure Miss Maggie you won’t take some of these?” Tommy asked as he shoved his pillow full of Kit-Kats at her.
“Oh no dear, they just get stuck in my teeth and I never did have much of a sweet tooth.”
Tommy cocked his head to the side, like she had just uttered the craziest thing in the world. “Really?” His earlier distress somewhat relieved.
Tommy and I were the only ones of our gang left upstairs. I went over and gave Greta a perfunctory hug. I could feel her tense up as I moved in. I’ve gripped furniture that had more love in it. Maggie was the complete opposite. She apparently had enough love for the both of them. Her tears nearly soaking through my jacket.
“Maggie let him go.” Denmark chided her softly. “You’re gonna suffocate him.”
“I’m not going to do any such thing.” She told him but the mild rebuke seemed to work as she let me go.
“Thank you Denmark.” I shook the older man’s hand. “This has been a respite I will not soon forget.”
“You had better not.” He answered me, his lip quivered a bit but the staunch old bastard didn’t let any tears fall.
Once down in the car we all took our turns to wave. I beeped the horn as we headed North to our next destination.
Tommy kept turning so that he could keep seeing the motel. It wasn’t until it was completely out of view that he spoke. “They’re not going to make it through the winter.”
