by Mark Tufo
“Tracy!” I yelled a little louder than I meant to. I wrestled with my emotions and tried to calm my flittering heart. “Turn on the TV, please.”
She was still in a little bit of shock. “Talbot (our family name), this is no time for ESPN,” she responded waspishly.
“You know, I would like to know how the Giants did tonight, but I was hoping for the news,” I answered sarcastically.
“Oh,” was all she could muster as the thin film of terror began to peel away from her vision.
“Travis.” He didn’t move. “Travis!” I said a little louder.
He finally broke away from his mother’s back, confusion and fear still warring for control over his features.
“Go look out the back window. If our deck is clear, I want you to make sure the back gate is locked.” Now before you go getting all out of sorts at me, our back yard is about as big as most people’s master bathrooms. The kid would be perfectly safe as long as the gate was still closed and our yard hadn’t yet been breached.
But still Travis looked at me with pleading eyes, not believing that his own father would put him back in harm’s way.
“Oh for fuck’s sake! I’ll do it!” I sighed disgustedly.
The relaxation on his face was clearly perceptible. I should take it easy on the kid, he was shaken up, and I was going to need his help before this was all over with. I peered out back through our vulnerable French doors. We hadn’t been able to afford security bars for them yet.
“Oh crap,” I muttered, I could see the gate was open. Nothing to it but to do it…right? If I die in a towel I’m gonna be pissed, though. I was able to tell in less than a heartbeat that our postage stamp-sized back deck didn’t have any unfriendlies on it. But what I wasn’t able to discover from my present vantage point was if anything (or anyone) was on the other side of the gate. It was a full picket gate and did not afford me the luxury of seeing through to the other side. I opened one of the French doors and immediately wished I hadn’t. The smell was beyond putrid; it smelled like sour milk mixed with a hint of steaming broccoli (which I hate) and a healthy dose of shit all stirred in for the fun of it.
The walking dead weren’t in my back yard, but they were close. If they came through the gate now, this was going to be a short novella. My towel caught on the next-to-useless excuse for a lock on the door. I didn’t even stop to grab it. Somehow it seemed nobler to die naked like a savage than with a terry cloth towel around my waist. I moved as quickly as I dared when it happened! I felt something warm and squishy give way under my right foot. My first thought was BRAINS, but then the unmistakable smell of fresh dog shit wafted up to my nostrils. I had to vigorously defend against the revulsion that welled up in me. I so wanted to vomit, but I pushed on. I was two steps away from the gate when I heard the telltale shuffling. Did the smell of the shit draw them, or were they already close? I threw myself against the gate, quashing down my rising panic, frantically trying to drive the lock home.
You know when you see this crap in the movies, you are always like, “Oh come on, just lock the gate, how effen hard can it be?” Well I’ll tell you. When your heart is going like a trip-hammer and your arms are shaking like you’re at ground zero on the San Andreas Fault during The Big One, it’s unbelievably hard. I felt an impact as something or somebody pushed against the gate from the other side. It wasn’t a concerted effort, which was a good thing; I might have abandoned ship and headed screaming for the house. It was one good push that sent the gate about six inches my way. I pushed back so hard that I almost pushed the gate through the backstop, which obviously would have caused its own set of problems. I was able to drive the bolt home, but I didn’t hang around long to revel in my victory.
“Talbot, get in here!” my wife screamed.
MAN, I said to myself, doesn’t she realize I almost died out here? Yeah, I was being a little melodramatic, but I think I had an appropriate excuse. I was about to ask her “what,” when she pointed to the television. The picture was horrible. I knew I shouldn’t have switched from cable to satellite. Why was I getting lost in the details when the situation was so serious? Maybe it was my way of coping, who knows. I tried to minor in psychology in college but couldn’t stand it. The newscaster looked like she had been dragged out of bed to do the report. She probably had been.
“…By all accounts it appears the threat (‘Oh for God sake’s lady! Call it like it is, a spade is a spade already’) is overwhelming our ground troops! Estimates have it that nearly a third of our country is already in enemy hands and spreading fast. Do not let one of the infected scratch or bite you. In a matter of hours the virus will kill and then reanimate you. If you or someone you know becomes infected, the only way to stop them is to destroy the brain. Do not approach them. Do not try to reason with them. The worst is yet to come.” She continued, “It also seems the pathogen is airborne!” (My heart skipped!) “Even if someone were to die of means other than direct contact with the infected, they also will become reanimated within a few hours of their death.”
“What does that mean?” my wife asked. I knew she knew the answer, but she was dealing with her shock in the only manner she knew how…denial.
“It means we’re in a lot of trouble,” I answered solemnly.
“What the hell is that smell?” she snapped as she also jolted out of her stupor. She was looking directly at the source of the stink. I wanted to blame it on the zombies, but I had Henry’s crap halfway up my ankle. Henry was our English bulldog, and I loved him to death. Before this, I would have even said his shit didn’t stink, but I can now tell you that is a lie. Gotta love English bullies, the world was going to hell in a hurry and he hadn’t even left the comfort of his dog bed yet to see what was happening.
My son Travis still seemed fogged over, so I wanted to give him something to do to keep his mind and body occupied.
“Travis, go load the guns,” I said.
“Which ones?” he countered.
My heart leapt when I realized he was rebounding. “All of them,” was my reply. Just as quickly as my feeling of elation rose, the spirit of dread brought me crashing back. “Where’s Justin?” I asked my wife.
Justin is my middle child. He’s nineteen and had recently moved home after a brief stint living with his sister up in the town of Breckenridge. He’s a good kid with a huge heart. He doesn’t always prioritize his life correctly, but then again, how many teenagers do? I needed him here, not only because he’s our kid and I wanted to make sure he was safe, but he’s a hell of a shot, and I needed the third man of our fire team present and accounted for. Preparing like I had been for the aforementioned zombie invasion entailed taking my two boys to the shooting range as often as possible. I made sure that they were well versed in the ins and outs of handling firearms correctly, no matter the caliber. They could shoot everything from my illegal (shhh) fully automatic M-16, to my small cannon (my 30.06), to the various .22 caliber rifles and pistols I owned. I needed my flank men!
My wife’s face dropped; the fear in her eyes made her forget the rancid excrement I was leaving on her carpet. The thump against the front door steeled her resolve. She moved back from the abyss she was heading toward.
“He’s at work,” she answered. Work was Walmart, and it was exactly three-point-seven miles from our house. I knew, because on most days I drove his ass to and from. He didn’t have his license yet, refer back to the part about his prioritizing skills.
“Travis, how’s it coming with the guns?” I hollered up the stairs.
“Almost done, Dad,” came his reply.
The front door shuddered again, but it wasn’t going to give anytime soon. I slipped the dead bolt in place anyway. “I’m going to get some clothes on.” I grabbed my wife’s shoulders and swung her towards me so she was staring at me. “We’re going to get him,” I added reassuringly.
She nodded in agreement and muttered the same words she said on our wedding day as part of her vows: “Uh-huh.”
“Hon.” I held her firm. “Get some food together.” She looked at me questioningly. “We’re going to get Justin and then, I hope, come back home. But I want to be prepared. Go get the boxes of MREs.” (The military had developed these Meals Ready to Eat; they taste like dirt, but pack all the caloric intake one needs to fend off the undead. Or does the word ‘undead’ refer to vampires? Okay, okay, so the zombies would be the ‘living’ dead, is that better?) “Hon, you’ve got to come back from Traceyville.”
We sometimes joked when my wife had a blonde moment or just lapsed out of our reality into her own made up one. Life came back into her eyes, and just like that, she was back. She had a mission: saving one of her offspring. Don’t ever get between a mother and her young.
“I’m gonna get some clothes on and then we’re going, okay?” I questioned.
I was a little worried about her, but I didn’t need to be; she was back and nothing was going to deter her…unless of course the damn lights went out. The TV announcer was now telling us we should stay in our homes. ‘No screaming eagle shit!’ I was about to tell her, when she was cut off in mid-sentence as the electricity failed. Tracy latched on to me. Only the occasional thumping on our front door broke the sudden quiet. Those Girl Scouts are persistent kept flashing across my brain plate. Hey, nobody said I didn’t go to Mikeyville occasionally.
“Dad?” Travis half-moaned from upstairs. I snapped back; if not for me, then for him.
“I’m here, bud, give me two seconds. I’m going to get some candles and a flashlight.” I’d been meaning to get that circuit breaker fixed, but I wouldn’t be going to Home Depot tonight.
“Umm, could you hurry?” he asked. I could hear the panic welling up in him.
There’s something to be said about being a survivalist. Most people think we’re nuts. Hell, I think that and I’m one of them. We’re always preparing for what we think is an eventuality; Doomsday, the end of the world, invasions from another planet, when the odds say the worst that might happen is an errant tornado. But one thing about always preparing for the worst is that, well, we’re always prepared. Isn’t that the Boy Scout motto? I thought. I hauled myself back from Mikeyville again and turned back to my troops.
“Travis, next to the left hand side of the gun safe, on the wall near the floor, you should see a small light. That’s a flashlight, grab it and I’ll be right up. I want to get your mother some light, too.”
“Got it!” he answered triumphantly. I could hear the tremor in his voice relax as I saw the beam of light cut a swath down the staircase.
I padded upstairs with my own candle. Tracy went to the basement to grab the grub. On the bed, Travis had all the weapons laid out; locked and loaded. There was the M-16, then my ‘elephant killer,’ the 30.06. Oh, stop your PETA protests, I already told you I don’t hunt. I continued my visual inventory: Two shotguns, a .22 caliber rifle and a pistol, my .357 Magnum, my 9mm Glock, and my .17 caliber lever-action rifle. I had over a thousand rounds for each weapon, and all I could think was, I should have bought more. Survivalism is addictive. You can never have too much ammo.
The front door thumped again. “BITCH!” I said as I grabbed the .357 off the bed. I ran downstairs and peeked through the spy hole, thankful that there was a full moon tonight; although, was I? Was that the reason the dead were walking around? I didn’t know. All I could see was the douche bag that was still licking my peephole, and that still sounded a little disturbing, even to me.
I held the Magnum up to the eye slot and pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening in our quiet home. I looked through the now gaping hole in my front door. Sir Licks-A-Lot was dead for the second time around, and he was not going to be getting back up any time soon. He lay on his side on my front porch; the back of his head was just gone. The bullet had entered his mouth and had blown away most of his teeth and that god-awful tongue. There was some blood and a little gristle hanging out the back of his melon, but that was it. His compadres did not even take note of his passing, but the noise sure got their attention. I hastily opened the front door and kicked Sir Licks’ foot out of the way so I could shut the security door. Even though the glass pane was gone, the door would still afford some much needed protection against the zombies’ unwelcome advances.
The noise of the gun might have the natives restless, but the sight of fresh meat stirred them into a frenzy. The shuffling turned into an ambling and the ambling turned into a slow trot, eh maybe more like a power walk. Okay, they weren’t going to break any land-speed records, but this wasn’t the slow shuffle the visionary George A. Romero envisioned in his documentaries.
I had just kicked the zombie’s dead...undead...re-dead? foot out of the way and shut the door, much more easily engaging the lock this time around, when the first of my uninvited guests slammed up against the metal casing; the bars were intact, but that did nothing to stop the impact of the foul odor that he gave off. I slammed the front door shut and only then realized I had just killed my first zombie and I was buck naked.
CHAPTER 2
Journal Entry – 2
On hearing the shot, Travis had run halfway down the stairs, 12-gauge at the ready (bless his heart). “Everything all right, Dad?”
“Everything’s cool, finish packing up,” came my measured response.
Tracy yelled from the bottom of the cellar stairs, “What’s going on?”
I don’t know why I didn’t tell her the truth. “Accidental discharge,” I answered.
“Be careful, that’s what you said the night Nicole was conceived, and look how that turned out,” she said plainly.
Are you kidding me? I thought. How does she remember these things? Yeah we were young when Nicole was born, and I might have been a little overeager in bed, but I’m sure I didn’t say “accidental discharge” it was probably more like “uh-uh-uh—aahhh.”
I was still a little shaken from the killing. Sure it was a zombie, but at one time he was a normal, air-breathing, hamburger munching individual. I tried my best not to think of the person he had been, but more of the monster he had become. There would be time later to ruminate. Now, however, was the time for action, and Justin needed our help. I went upstairs. Travis had begun to bring the weapons and the ammo boxes downstairs. The fear was wiped off his face now that he had a purpose and protection. I grabbed the first shirt I got my hands on. It was an old Widespread Panic concert t-shirt, one of my favorites. I no sooner pulled it over my head and I froze. The feeling of the collar scraping and tugging against the dirt and dried soap on my neckline made me want to jump out of my skin. It was akin to someone dragging their fingernails down a chalkboard with a megaphone for amplification. I almost couldn’t move, I was a heartbeat-and-a-half from saying ‘FUCK IT!’ and pulling the t-shirt off and hopping in the shower real quick, but I knew every second counted getting to Justin.
“Damn!” I bellowed as I pulled my arms through the sleeves, wincing every time the fabric scraped against me. If I had known what kind of shape Justin was in already, I would’ve just taken the shower.
As I was coming down the stairs, Tracy looked up, holding her cell phone to her ear. “I can’t get a hold of Nicole, the line is just busy,” she stated.
Nicole was our oldest child, and by far and away my favorite daughter (and our only daughter). She now lived in the city of Lakewood (having lost her job in Breckenridge) with a man I hoped would eventually become part of the family, Brendon Van Hutchinson. Our family was quirky and he fit in just right. I was hoping that my wife would have been able to get through to Nicole. It would have been one less worry on my head. From where we lived, Lakewood was about eighteen miles away. I had no illusions that getting to Walmart was going to be easy. Getting to Lakewood seemed a logistical nightmare.
“Hon, they live on the third floor and Brendon has a pistol and a shotgun. Their place is much more defendable than ours,” I said, not sure whether I was trying to make her or myself feel better.
She nodded in agreement, but it
didn’t seem to make her feel any better. The crowd at the front of our house had swelled to about fifty. I wasn’t going to sit at the window and get an accurate count. I would love to have a kegger with this many people, I’d make a fortune. Even I had to marvel sometimes at how my brain makes some of its connections.
“Dad, the car’s packed,” Travis announced.
“You got the food, too?” I asked. He just looked at me in outraged disgust like any normal teenager would. “All right,” I answered. “I was just making sure.”
Henry had finally managed to pull himself off his bed. All the activity had aroused his curiosity level, which usually isn’t all that high unless it involves a Meaty Bone treat.
Our townhome came with an enclosed two car garage. However, it was a detached garage, which was no big deal considering that it was on the far end of our back yard, which put it exactly ten feet away. There was still some moderate shuffling signs beyond the gate, but it was nothing like the wholesale special going on in the front. I was tempted to climb on the gate and take a peek over, but I couldn’t see the upside to it. Henry had followed me out and took a moment to sniff at his freshly disturbed pile, he then started sniffing my crap-covered foot. He was able to put two and two together pretty quickly. He snorted at me as if to say, ‘Dad, how could you mess with my masterpiece?’
I slammed my fist up against the circuit breaker mounted to the wall of the garage. I think I hadn’t fixed this yet because I always felt like Fonzi from Happy Days turning on the jukebox. Power surged back on. Had I been more vigilant, I would have noticed that the entire complex had been in the dark and the lights coming on had more to do with Jed (who you’ll meet later) than with my smooth moves. I went back in the house to shut the nonessentials off, including the now static-laced television, and headed back to the garage. I picked Henry up and placed him in the rear of my wife’s Jeep Liberty with the ammo. He wasn’t happy about sharing his bed; he snorted one more time before he lay down. My wife came out last, remembering to bring the eight-pack of PowerAde we had in the fridge. She stopped short at the garage door.
