by Mark Tufo
“My kind. They’re coming.”
I shit you not, my response was, “Walmart greeters are coming? What are they going to do? Sticker us to death.”
On some level, I knew exactly what he meant; I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Not yet anyway. We’d just barely escaped with our lives, defeated a shadow government group that wanted to rule what was left of the world, and witnessed the destruction of a fair part of the zombie population in this part of it. My family was supposedly safe and heading home, as were we. This was a time and a cause for celebration, not for gearing up for another conflict.
“Are they just going to have the smiley face stickers, or will they have superheroes, too?
Porkchop asked.
“Eliza and you weren’t the only ones?” My head sagged.
“No.” His head sagged to match mine.
I probably shouldn’t have said her name aloud, because suddenly Porkchop looked like he might be…no, scratch that, he was going to be sick.
“Pull over, Tommy!” I was barely able to open the door and get Porkchop out before he started heaving.
I’d finally caught a break when his first projectile of bile shot over my left shoulder as I was helping him out. As his feet touched down, I stepped to the side. That seemed to be the worst of it as he hunched over like he saw a particularly shiny rock.
“You okay, kid?” Sometimes I could be an insensitive shit.
He’d lost his mom and dad on the first night. Then lost most of his second family to the very vampire I had just mentioned, and now Doc, his surrogate father, was gone as well. The kid probably thought he was driftwood with nowhere to place his roots.
“Sorry.” He didn’t look up but stayed fixated on that mythical, shiny rock.
“I’m the one that should apologize.” I was rubbing his back. “You know you’re part of my family now, right? I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about, Mr. Talbot.” He stood up. I steadied him as he looked a little unsure on his feet. “It’s everyone around me. Everyone I care for ends up dying.” His pleading eyes were looking at mine.
“I’ll make sure we’re alright, Porkchop.” I tried to be as sincere as possible.
I truly meant the words, but it was an impossibility to guarantee such a thing. Even if the world was normal, and I had moved them all into the woods, hundreds of miles from people, one of them could get Lyme Disease from a tick and die. There is no such thing as safety, only the obscure illusion of it. Sure, you can take steps to be safer, like maybe don’t take up chainsaw juggling, but that’s about it. I think in the movie Jurassic Park one of the characters was quoted as saying, “Life will find a way.” The converse is also true. Death will find a way, and if it’s looking for you, there is no place to hide.
“I think I’m okay now.” He looked better; however, I don’t think he believed a word I said.
He walked toward the side of the road. I was going to ask him where he was going. Should have known the kid was smarter than me. He wanted Tommy and me to finish what we were talking about before he came back in the truck.
“Is he alright?” Tommy asked as I hopped back up into the cab.
“Better than me, I would imagine. Let’s not make this like pulling teeth. Tell me what is going on.”
Tommy looked like a whipped dog. “When someone as powerful as Eliza is killed, it can be felt. You felt it.”
“How could I forget?” When Tracy was finally able to shove a knife into her withered heart I felt that she’d done the same to me, the pain was that acute. For a while I doubted I would be able to go on, and if I did, it would only be a fragmented part of me…like a hollowed out egg…brittle and easily broken on the outside, empty on the inside.
“Others felt it, too. I had hoped that maybe they would disregard it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“Is your vamp-dar going off?”
“My what, Mr. T?”
“Your vampire radar?”
Tommy looked at me like most do when I open my mouth—confused and maybe somewhat disappointed. It was alright. I’m used to it.
“I guess…sort of. Nothing quite as detailed as radar, more like feelings. Her passing was noted, and I’m fairly certain someone will come to check it out.”
“Like a vampire bureaucrat? Someone to rubber-stamp her demise? I’m not sure I get what’s going on.”
“There will be those who want to know how it was done and by whom.”
“Is Tracy in danger? Is there some sort of atonement for killing her?” If that was the case, I was going to snag Porkchop and we were going to push this truck as far and as fast as we could until we caught up with her.
“Not really. Vampires are rarely fans of other vampires. They tolerate each other, more or less, as long as boundaries are not crossed. My sister cared little for these staked-out hunting grounds. She went were she wanted to and killed without impunity. She’d kill a vampire as well if it suited her needs or she was confronted. When someone like that is taken down, others will want to know how, why, and for what reason.”
“And maybe to see if a threat exists for them as well. Isn’t there like a vampire council we can tell that we want nothing more to do with their kind? Hell, it sounds like we did vampire-kind a huge solid. They should be sending us champagne or something.”
“You’ve seen too many movies. There isn’t a council.”
“What are the chances they’ll just find out what happened and leave?”
Tommy shrugged.
“Not to be a dick, but I don’t think a shrug right now is the best answer you should come up with.”
“I don’t know, Mr. T, vampires are unpredictable. Even if they come, see, and are satisfied, they’re not going to just hop back on a ship and head out.”
“This shit just never ends, it’s like an old beginning. There will be no hesitation this time on my part. I will not allow them to live if I’m given the opportunity. Which side of the fence do you fall on?” I asked him.
Eliza would always be his sister. Would he want retribution for her death even at the expense of his adoptive family? Would he take that opportunity if he received help? That made no sense. If Tommy wanted revenge, there would be little we could do to stop him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I even asked that.” I went from staring at him to looking out the windshield. “How long do we have?”
“Well, that’s one benefit to living forever, you’re never really in a rush. Payne will come with others, and they will most certainly take their time. Rounding up supplies and a means of transportation will be no easy feat. Add to that the fact that vampires really don’t like to wander too far from where they were turned.”
“Pain will come?” I asked, not understanding that part. I was clearly confused.
Tommy had to take a second to figure out what I was asking. “Not pain, p-a-i-n.” He spelled it out. “But rather Payne as in P-a-y-n-e.” He spelled this out as well.
“Fitting name.” He nodded. “And this other part, are you kidding me? You have an eternity to see every nook and cranny of the world and you stay in your own neighborhood? That’s crazy.”
“Crazy, Mr. T, but true. That’s why vampires are such a rarity in the United States. Vampirism started in Eastern Europe and has pretty much plagued that region ever since. Sometimes people have killed them, other times vampires self-regulate their population. Very rarely do they move to different hunting grounds. It could be months, maybe even years before they come.”
“I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. We’ll never be able to hold vigil for that extended amount of time. We’ll let our guard down believing ourselves safe. You’re sure they’ll come?”
“It’s in the air.”
“Like a foul breeze?”
Tommy snorted. “Not quite, Mr. T. Have you ever wondered why, at certain parts in human history, a huge, earth-changing idea or revolutionary product will be develop
ed by two people at vastly different geographical locations at the same time with neither of them having prior knowledge of the other’s work?”
“Um, vaguely.” I was lying.
“Some scientists have argued that, once a thought is created, it sends out signals and that these signals can be picked up by others. Philosophers have a slightly different view, but pretty much the same thing. That all of the ideas are out there…it is just a matter of us being in tune to collect them.”
“So boiling this down, you’re saying you have tuned in to the thought of a vampire and he wants to come see Eliza’s final resting place?”
“It’s not crystal clear, not like someone made a phone call, but something like that, Mr. T. And “he” is a “she” and there are three of them.”
I wanted the more colorful “what the fuck” phrase to come out. I ended up with, “Are you kidding?”
He shook his head, so I had to assume he wasn’t. My next thought was to slam my head against the dashboard as many times as I could until the thought fell through my ear hole with the leakage of brain matter.
“The threat is not immediate, Mr. T. I’m just telling you, the thought is out there.”
“Why couldn’t they just make another cotton gin?” I stepped out of the truck, the sun not feeling as warm or as bright, as if a thin veil had been pulled over all existence.
Porkchop came up to me when he saw me exit and grabbed my hand. “There’s a good place to puke over here, Mr. Talbot.” I may have thanked him as he led me away. He was rubbing my back. “It’s okay, Mr. Talbot, just let it all out.” He rubbed a little more, when he realized I wasn’t going to yield any results, he stopped rubbing. “Are you hungry? I’m pretty hungry. I could really go for some corn dogs and beans. Maybe some fried dough, too, that would be great. Been a long time since I’ve had any of that. We went to Five Banners.”
“Six Flags?” I asked, thinking he’d got it wrong.
“Nope, Five Banners. My dad took me there a couple of years ago. Said it was cheaper, and with the money he saved, he could get a better bottle of hooch. I never heard of hooch, I thought maybe it was orange soda, and I was really looking forward to it. When we got to the amusement park, he pulled out a big bottle of his hooch. I knew what it was then. He sat on a bench by the front of the park and drank the entire day. I was really hoping he’d go on rides with me.”
Now I found myself rubbing his back again, this time to comfort him for his asshole of a dad.
“I had some money my mom gave me. I think she knew he wouldn’t give me any. I rode just about every ride that day and ate everything I could afford. By the way, I don’t recommend fried Twinkies, made my stomach cramp up pretty bad. Had fried dough, corn dogs, pizza on a stick, icees, sodas, french fries...”
Porkchop was ticking off all his entrees on his fingers. It was fairly impressive, he had to use some of his fingers twice to get them all.
“...chocolate covered pretzels. I think that’s it. I had to wake my dad up on that bench. He had passed out and wet himself. When we got back to his car, it was so hot inside and his pee smelled like boiling cabbage. I can’t stand boiling cabbage. I threw up, I threw up everything. There where pieces of pretzel, fried dough, half a Twinkie...”
“I get it.” My stomach was starting to roil.
“It was all over the windshield and dashboard. It started to sizzle in some spots, like it was cooking or something.”
“Are you just messing with me now?”
“My dad was so drunk he didn’t even realize I had gotten sick, he reached over and grabbed the half a Twinkie to—”
“Heard enough!” I said loudly, walking away with my arms up in the air.
“Okay, you should have just said something,” he told my retreating form.
The thought of the vampires took a distant back seat, like they were sitting at the rear of a stretch school bus in comparison to Porkchop’s recounting of his dad eating regurgitated fried snacks. It took a long time before I felt comfortable enough with my inner piping to get back into the truck. Tommy and Porkchop were both smiling at me. Porkchop had shared the same story with Tommy, and now they both found it hilarious that the whole thing distressed me.
The truck moved down the roadway in near silence. I caught Porkchop elbowing Tommy more than once to look over at me so they could both grin anew. Still, for the most part, the ride was uneventful and quiet.
“We’re going to need gas soon,” Tommy stated. I had been dozing off.
“And food,” Porkchop chimed in.
“I wouldn’t mind stopping for the night, Mr. T. I’m kind of exhausted from all that’s happened.”
“I can’t imagine why. Yeah, I’m pretty tired and beat up myself. I wouldn’t mind taking a break either.”
Part of me wanted to press on and make sure my family was okay and to thwart this latest threat along with the countless others my over-active imagination hadn’t even come up with yet. Tommy, however, didn’t seem overly concerned or at least he wasn’t letting on. We had time, so it seemed, and Porkchop could do well with a decent meal and night’s sleep. It would probably be a good idea to not stray too far from the Demense building before our stop anyway. The closer we stayed, the less likely we were to run into zombies, and that was fine by me.
Tommy pulled off the highway and up onto an overpass. We could see for a couple of miles in either direction north or south on the freeway and even to the east and west the trees had been cleared for the clover of road. Nothing short of the invisible man was going to sneak up on us and why the bastard wouldn’t be in some women’s locker room anyway was beyond me.
“I’ll get some gas,” I told Tommy.
“Alone?” he asked. Porkchop was in the back of the truck pulling out some boxes. Some were medical supplies and a couple were MREs. The boy looked absolutely ecstatic at his find.
“Fine dining tonight,” I told him, enjoying his happiness. Enjoying the MREs? Well…that wouldn’t nearly be fantastic. “Yeah, alone,” I told Tommy. “There are no zombies, and you can even see the gas stations from here.” I pointed at a small strip of stores about a quarter a mile down the road. Two were gas stations, three were fast food joints that I would have paid a handsome price for anyone of them had they been open. “Eating Fresh” right now would have been many times more preferable than to what Porkchop was digging in to. Looked like something a homeless person may have put together after some particularly bad Dumpster diving retrievals.
“I’ll be fine. Just keep an eye out on Porkchop.” After being cooped up in that prison, I needed some time to stretch my legs. “I’ll call when I get there, Mom.”
I left before he could protest or offer to do it himself. I really just wanted some alone time. I’d actually gotten precious little of it since this had started. There was no imminent threat, the day was gorgeous, and I was free. I could feel Tommy’s gaze on my back nearly the whole time. He was taking his guardianship duties entirely too seriously. I waved over my head. The first station I reached was in pretty bad shape. Two of the six pumps had been either pulled or pushed free from their moorings and were nowhere in sight. Can’t imagine who would have taken them and for what reason. The covers to the underground tanks were all lifted up. One of them even had a siphoning hose sticking out of it.
“Someone left in a hurry,” I said as I walked over to the contraption. There was an electric pump attached to the hose along with jumper cables, apparently having used the car they rode in as a power source. “Hope they shut the car off first,” I said. “Your loss is my gain.” I grabbed the equipment, although I didn’t have a car battery or a container to put the gas into.
If the gas station looked bad, the Subway sandwich shop was destroyed. I’m not even sure the building could have been salvaged. A war had apparently been waged for cold cuts, because bullets holes riddled the entire structure. And by the sheer number of holes and the line of damage they did, someone wasn’t playing fair; it was easy to see
they’d had a machinegun and a shitload of rounds. Whatever, or whoever, had been in the shop had long departed either physically or metaphysically. I thought about going in to see if something edible survived, but I’d swear that building swayed in the breeze. I wasn’t going to chance it.
The second gas station looked similar to the first. This one at least had a smattering of cars in it, and not all of them had holes in their gas tanks. I walked up to the plate gas windows, unsure how this one could still be intact considering the damage suffered just next door. How one stray round from the thousands shot had not hit this building was fairly impressive. The sun was glaring, I had to cup my eyes as I peered inside.
“Well, hello there,” I said as my eye spied something worthy of my attention.
I looked for a few seconds longer, wondering if it were a mirage. I mean, how this particular treasure was overlooked was beyond me. Of course the paranoid part of me thought it could be some sort of elaborate trap.
“Fuck it. Not the first trap I’ve walked into knowingly.”
I was just about to pull my face away from the glass when a zombie ran headlong into it at a full sprint. I thought that I’d broken my nose as I was thumped off the pane.
“That’ll get the old adrenaline pump working. Cheap thrill that was!” I muttered.
Still, I really wanted what was inside. It was then that I realized I wasn’t armed. I looked around at the cars. I wasn’t fond of a tire iron as my primary weapon, but it would do in a pinch. The first car was a cheap foreign model, the iron tool inside it having about as much heft as a loaf of bread. I tossed it to the side. Next to it was an old T-Bird, looked like the owner of the garage was, at some time, going to restore it. When I found the tire iron that belonged to it, I figured if the metal got reworked it could become a broad sword.
“This’ll work.”
I walked back up to the storefront. Murph, an employee I gathered by his name-tagged shirt and pimply face, was waiting not-so-patiently for my return. He was pressing up so tightly on the glass his pimples were bursting like tiny volcanic pustules, smearing white, thick oil all along the interior. I tried not to look because it was gross; it looked like he was coating lard all over the place. I went to the door and pulled. It was locked.
