by Mark Tufo
She looked over at me from the corner of her eye and through clenched teeth and a strained voice she said to me. “It might be better if you start shooting and stop watching me.”
“Oh yeah, sorry. It’s just that if I had known how cool that gun was going to be I would have grabbed another one.”
“Grabbed another what?” BT asked as he shouldered his way onto the porch.
“HK.” I told him. “Look what that thing is doing.”
“Holy shit.” BT said after a few seconds.
“Guys! Come on!” Jen shouted.
“Right.”
“Sorry.”
Although it didn’t really matter, our shots were more of a morale booster on our side. No amount of firepower we could muster was going to stop them. My barrel would melt before I so much as made any sort of noticeable difference. No, this was a show of defiance under insurmountable odds. We would not go like sheep to the slaughter. I scanned the zombies for any sign of Durgan. Just one shot, I just wanted one shot at his ass. Okay so not really his ass but you get the point. I wanted to kill him now so that I’d also have the opportunity to kick his ass as we made our ways to our respective resting places. No such luck though, he was out of sight.
“Mike.” Jen said pulling up from her sights.
BT was still happily triggering away, his semi-automatic 30-06 making short work of whatever got in its way. “I hope hell’s got some extra people working at the reception desk today!” He yelled.
“Hey that’s pretty good.” I told him.
“You liked that!” he yelled, still firing.
“One of your better, I’ve got to admit.”
“GUYS!” Jen yelled. “You two are worse than seven year olds.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I told her. BT laughed.
“I figured you would. BT stop firing, they’ve stopped.”
And they had, the zombies had paid a dear price for the ten feet of real estate they had captured. If lives were money, they were a very rich opponent.
“What are they doing Mike?” BT asked me.
“Well seeing as I am the imminent zombie zoologist expert, I would assume that they..”
“Fuck you, I get it, you don’t know either.” He said plainly. “This plan looked a lot better on paper.”
“Yeah smelled better too.” I said pulling one of my sweaters over my nose. “You tend to forget how much they stink.”
Jen added her own refuse to my cooled bile pile. “Eww fucking gross.” She said as she spit to get out the last remaining bits of ort. “I’ll never be able to eat again.”
“Might not be a lasting situation.” I told her.
She shrugged. We had known the odds were for shit. See this is exactly why I never liked to gamble.
“Talbot!” Came an artificially enhanced voice. “You ready to give up yet?” The bullhorn infused voice shouted again.
Shouting was not necessary over the shuffling zombies, but I was looking more for dramatic effect. “Durgan, come out from whatever hidey-hole you’re in and I’ll give you my answer face to face! Man to man, if I thought you were one!” His laughing cut off short.
“I’m going to kill you for that Talbot!” He shouted, this time without the aid of the bullhorn.
“Just for that?” I questioned Jen. “There’s so many other things he could have hung that card up on.”
“Come on big man!” BT yelled disparagingly. “I‘ll take you on without my gun!”
“What makes you think I would sully my purity by tangling with the likes of you.” Durgan shouted.
“Wow, I honestly didn’t think he could become any bigger of an ass than he already is (was) but then he goes and surprises me and adds racism to the mix. He’s really almost sort of amazing. That’s a lot of hate for one person.” I said to Jen and BT, making sure it was loud enough to be heard by all that were willing to listen.
That must have struck a chord in Durgan somewhere. He didn’t say anything else, at least not anything we heard, but the zombies started their relentless march up to the house.
Jen took a controlling breath like I had taught her and brought her rifle up. “Fuck my shoulder’s going to hurt tonight.” She said before she started pulling the trigger.
“Let’s hope so.” I mumbled as I brought my rifle to bear.
BT had not taken the opportunity to reload during the break in action and was struggling to catch up now. “Why doesn’t he just send them all out Talbot? Why this fucking game?” BT asked as he nearly shoved his bullets through the bottom of his magazine well.
“He’s like a little kid that just got a lollipop and he had no idea when he might get his next one.” BT looked over at me trying to figure out my bad analogy. “Savoring BT, he’s savoring this. He wants to be able to replay this whole thing over and over again in his pathetic twisted little fucking...”
“Racist mind.” BT finished.
The snow turned a rusty red as drums of blood were spilled. This ground was going to be the most fertile it had ever been next season and there would be no one here to tend the fallow fields. I shouldered my weapon, careful not to touch the dimly glowing barrel. I reached out and grabbed BT’s and Jen’s shoulder.
“Stop for a second!” I shouted. "You’re going to want to see this.” The echoing from BT’s last shot had just completed its airwave rippling when the first of my surprises struck. The loud metallic clanking was muffled by the foot of snow it was under, but the effect was not. The lead zombie crumbled face first into the snow, in what I could only imagine was extreme pain, although stoically he didn’t show it.
“What the hell happened?” Jen asked as another and then another zombie fell in succession.
“Bear traps.” I said triumphantly. With 1250 pounds per square inch of pressure, the device designed to incapacitate a bear would sheer right through the comparatively fragile leg of a man. This tactic would normally have a demoralizing affect on the enemy but for that you had to have a conscience. The following rows of zombies merely stepped onto and over their ground- wriggling brethren.
“Well not exactly what I was looking for, but entertaining none the less.”
“Good one.” BT said with a smile on his face.
“Men! And people wonder why I’m a lesbian.” Jen said as she brought her HK back up.
Fun time was over, I went into the house and grabbed my Dick’s sporting Goods pilfered 30-30, the AR was going to need a few minutes to come down to a serviceable temperature. I had a good ten seconds to think, which was nine more than I wanted. I wished that Tracy had left while the opportunity was available. I knew she wouldn’t, but still, it would suck to go ahead and sacrifice ourselves for nothing. It would be cramped in the van and the truck with the 14 of them, but cramped beats dead all the time. And we still come back to the original problem. IF, Jen, BT and I somehow survived, how the hell would we all fit? Sure we could sit in the back of the truck for a mile or two before we froze completely solid.
But making this stand was not completely about escape. It was about creating a chance to end this thing once and for all. Eliza not showing had thrown a serious wrench into my plans. I needed to kill the bitch. Without her death, her inexplicable link to Justin would remain and through him she had us. No, there was another way around that problem I could sever the connection on my side. I banged my head against the wall. No, that was not an option.
“You coming back to the party.” BT shouted from the porch.
“Just getting a sandwich.” I told him as I collected my wits, which were nearing their ends, and headed out again.
Again the zombies stopped, they were no more than 25 yards away from the us.
“Aw this shit is getting old Durgan!” I yelled.
“Any chance our boy is pulling an end around?” BT asked.
“What?”
“You know, while we’re all out here going to town out front he sends all of his boys in the back.”
“Oh shit, that
would really not work out to our advantage.”
“I’ll check.” Jen yelled, already half way down the hallway.
“She’s fast.” BT noted.
“Who would have thought a lesbian would have that kind of speed?”
“You get into a lot of trouble with that mouth of yours, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question from BT it was a statement.
“Now that you say it, more than you’d figure.”
“Oh I doubt it.” He said.
“They’re about the same distance away back here as they are out there.” Jen shouted from the kitchen.
“Do you think lesbians are more spatially aware than your normal female?” I asked BT. “I mean they have to put their own furniture together and shit. Use a tape measure to hang shelves, that kind of thing.”
“Do you ever think before you start spewing from the mouth?” BT asked me.
“What? It’s an honest question.” I pleaded.
“What are you two children talking about?” Jen asked as she rejoined our small fire team.
“I was just wondering...”
“Nothing.” BT said as he thumped my chest with his forearm.
“I don’t even want to know. If it came from you two it must have to do with farting or something as equally juvenile.”
“Hey don’t lump me in with Talbot.”
They might have continued on for a few more seconds if I hadn’t intervened. “Wait something’s happening.”
Zombies were shifting their positions, turning completely sideways when possible.
“What now?” Jen asked.
“It almost looks like they’re moving to get out of the way.” I answered her.
“Getting out of the way for what?” BT asked. “They can’t have cave trolls can they?”
“Holy shit BT, are you a Lord of the Rings fan?” I asked him.
“Must have seen it ten times.”
“I didn’t figure you for a fantasy movie type.” I told him.
“Yeah that war at Isengard..”
“Oh God no!” Jen wailed.
I turned from her terrified face to the yard beyond. I wished I had shoved a bayonet into my eyes instead of looking out there. BT added his own pool to the up chuck muck.
“I can’t Talbot! I can’t deal with this!” She screamed.
Children from the earliest stages of walking to somewhere around ten years of age began to spill out into the front ranks of the invading horde. Jen’s gun clattered to the deck as she turned around. Placing both hands over her eyes, trying in vain to suppress the image, forever burned in her retinas. They were five feet thick before they stopped coming. Some were in pajamas. Some just in diapers and nothing else. Some completely naked and still others that looked as if they had changed into zombies mid snow ball fight.
So many of them! My heart was crushing in on itself. Breathing was becoming more difficult than it was worth. My instinct was to go out and comfort each and every one of them. Their flat black eyes belied no need for alleviation of their hurts. Never again would any of them need a boo-boo healing kiss on a scraped knee. Never again would they need a kind word after tough loss in pee-wee baseball. Never again would they need an ice cream cone after Susie called them a doo-doo head. I dropped onto my knees from the pressure of the heartache. I just wanted to roll over and watch the stars travel on by in my last moments on earth. Of all things, Durgan saved me.
Not so much him, as his personality, but it was a fine line anyway. And definitely not anything he did on purpose. But the cocksucker took my misery and despair and magically transformed it into rage. Pure unadulterated rage.
“How do you like me now, Talbot?” Came his derisive voice.
“How could you do this!?” Jen shouted to the house. “You’re crazy, do you hear me, you’re crazy.”
Durgan’s laugh echoed all around us. “Those small little teeth are going to feel like puppy’s teeth when they tear into you.”
Jen sobbed even more loudly.
“BT get her in the house.” I said coldly. BT didn’t look much better than Jen sounded.
“What are you going to do Talbot?” He asked as he grabbed at Jen to bring her into the house. He winced as he bent over to grab the discarded weapon.
“I’d like to tell you that I was going to do what I should have done a long time ago and go and kill that bastard. But that’s going to have to wait. No I’m just going to watch your backs while you go in and then we’ll just have to start phase two of our plan, I mean idea, a little earlier than expected, is all.”
“We’ll meet again Durgan!” I shouted out into the night. He responded before I had a chance to close the door.
“There’s no room for me where you’re going Talbot.” And he laughed some more.
Was he that far gone that he didn’t even realize what he’d just said? Are there many people that think going to hell is the epitome of a successful life? I wanted to open the door and get some clarification but that didn’t seem like a great idea. Insanity by definition is not rational and besides there was no sense in refreshing the image of hundreds upon hundreds of hungry zombie children in my head.
BT and Jen were huddled by the fire in the living room. Jen was shivering uncontrollably.
“BT get her down into the basement, I’ll take care of what needs to be done up here.” He nodded at me and scooped her limp but not lifeless body into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into his broad chest. The added weight was causing him some serious pain in his injured leg but besides a small grimace he never voiced concern one over it. The house was bathed in darkness. The small candles and fire in the living room could only chase so many shadows away. The diffused moonlight that filtered through the storm shutters did more to stimulate this affect than diffuse it.
It was in this setting that I splashed gasoline across every treasured belonging that Carol and her family had ever owned. The propellant washed over and around picture frames, bleeding pictures into first something that resembled something from the twisted mind of Salvador Dali and finally into unendurable blotches of bled color. Like so many other things in this life that were now irretrievable. I had covered the house in nearly five gallons of the volatile fluid, upstairs and down. There was more than triple that amount laid out in various containers located strategically throughout the house. This house was going to burn like the fires of hell. My only concern was the hope that it took some of Eliza’s earth-wandering despots with it.
Jen’s fits of shivering had nearly stilled by the time I got down there, but she had not let go of BT’s neck as he sat in an old chair that had been relegated to the basement before it was to become a permanent fixture at a land fill.
“She going to be alright, when the time comes?” I asked BT.
“I’ll carry her if I have to.” BT said.
Jen didn’t move from her spot. Her words were muffled. Her message was not. “I’ll be fine, when the time comes but for now I’m staying where I’m at.” That didn’t seem to bother BT in the least. He was getting as much out of her as she was from him.
The smell of gasoline had begun to settle into the basement, it did wonders to mask the stench of death. Not sure if this was an angle Glade would want to use – NEW Gas scented plug-ins for all your zombie stench needs. Is grandma’s rotting corpse beginning to embarrass you? Do guests avoid coming to your house because of the decomposing children? Whisk away those horrible odors with our new GAS plug-ins, now available in Diesel and Oil fragrances! – Yeah you’re probably right, not much of a market for that.
We didn’t have long to wait as the first thump of a thwarted zombie hit the front door. The sound was not as loud as it should have been in the quiet house. Mostly because the zombie that walked into the frame of the door was probably only a girl of seven. An involuntary tremor of revulsion coursed through me. It was an instinctual response. I could no more control it than the weather. The thumping began to pick-up frequency and intens
ity as if who ever had been holding the invisible leashes had let go.
Dust from the floorboards above our heads showered down upon us as the house began to vibrate under the assault.
“You should get some Prell.” BT said. “It might help with that bad case of dandruff you’ve got going on Talbot.”
“Prell! Prell? How fucking old are you BT? They don’t even make Prell anymore.”
“Sure they do I bought some the da...”
“Stop it you two! Don’t you realize what is going on?”
I did it, I don’t know why but I did it. “No, what?” That set her off. She went on and on about being in the midst of some sort of apocalypse or such. I kind of lost the train of her rant.
“Stop it you two, just stop it!” Jen looked up from BT’s chest, her face looked like she had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. And not the soft, brain addled Mike Tyson but the lean mean ear biting machine.
The house was shaking on its foundation as the zombies closed in from all sides. I didn’t even want to think about the children that were pressed up against the walls. An explosion of glass tinkled to the ground in first one and then two and then a dozen different locations. This was followed almost immediately by the crashing open of what sounded like the backdoor, at least by the location of the many footfalls now above our heads. The front door lasted the longest but ultimately could not withstand the assault. Zombies had breached our meager defenses. The floorboards above us creaked and protested against the strain of so much weight.
Zombies rushed in to fill every void within the house looking for tasty treats. Furniture splintered and knick-knacks were ground to dust under so many feet. I waited as long as I could, allowing as many as the enemy as I could into the house. It wouldn’t be a fraction of the number it needed to be but my options were rapidly becoming diminished. Someone had smelled our hiding spot and zombies began to bump up against the cellar door. It was reinforced with two by fours that I had nailed across it but they wouldn’t hold forever. Although I was more concerned at this point with the ceiling over our heads giving out first. There was a noticeable bow to it.
