Etna Station

by Mark Tufo

  “His wife might shoot him just out of principle,” BT said.

  “Got movement.” Winters was looking out the window. “Drone operator and two armed escorts walking straight down the roadway like they own the place. Look like they’re mighty interested in this spot. They’re pointing.”

  “I think I know why.” Meredith hobbled over to the back door. “Ninja over there left a trail.” She was looking into the backyard at the bent-over tall grass Biddeford had compressed.

  “I hear an engine,” Kylie said.

  Wasn’t a few seconds later we all heard it, or more accurately, them.

  “I’m sorry about this,” I said to Sanders.

  “Not your fault. Now, Biddie could shoulder a little bit.” He looked over at the corporal.

  “Must be getting rusty. The zees are easy to evade compared to the living.”

  “Shit,” BT and I said together when a tractor-trailer pulled up and parked down the road a bit.

  “There’s another truck coming,” Travis said. He was upstairs. “This one is different, dad. It’s a cattle car.”

  “Cattle car? Now they have trained pigs?” I asked aloud.

  “I think it’s people.” Winters had a set of field glasses.

  “Zombies?” Sanders asked.

  “I don’t think so, Major.”

  “Combatants,” BT observed.

  “I’m more inclined to think fodder. They look malnourished and beat to shit but they have weapons, melee ones, anyway. Bats, sickles, pitchforks, that kind of thing.” Winters replied.

  “What the hell?” Sanders said as he borrowed the binoculars. “Forced conscripts? This guy is one sick fuck.”

  “Sir, what do we do?” Biddeford asked, but we were all feeling it. They were slaves. Killing those that were forced into doing the sick bidding of a megalomaniac was not something any of us were comfortable with.

  “They probably don’t want to fight and are most likely being compelled to do so for a variety of reasons. But make no mistake, people, they will kill you. Killing us is still better than whatever alternative there is for them. That makes it an ‘us or them’ scenario. We cannot be swayed by our moral compass or get mired in why they are doing what they are doing,” Sanders said.

  “They’re opening up the other truck,” Meredith said.

  “They must have really liked that toilet,” Winters said, looking over at BT.

  “Just my luck to get stuck in a house full of crazy Marines.” BT shook his head.

  “So, the rats come in to drive us out into their suicide army. Alright. Time to evacuate,” Sanders said. Winter, Biddeford, and Kylie began to move.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked. BT had a point–it was kind of nice to have one in place.

  “Like you give a shit.” BT was going over to help Meredith. I frowned at him.

  “All of our safe houses have an alternate means of escape. The person that lived here supplied most of New Hampshire with weed; he converted an old Cold War bunker into a grow room for his plants. Only took us a couple of days to dig out a small passage from there to the neighbor's house, went right through the foundation.”

  “I like these guys, BT, they know what they’re doing, unlike you,” I said as I grabbed Meredith’s free shoulder. “Shouldn’t we be going downstairs?” I asked, thinking that the entrance would be through the basement somewhere, but Winters was halfway upstairs and telling Travis to turn around.

  “The entrance is through the fireplace in the master bedroom,” Sanders told me as he brought up the rear.

  “Gonna be a bit tight for you, big fella. Hope you’re not claustrophobic,” he said to BT.

  “How…um, I mean, how tight is it going to be for me?” I was nearly in a panic thinking about being surrounded on all sides by brick. I’d read more than one horror story about some over-zealous dad disappearing around Christmas, wanting to surprise his kids as Santa Clause. Then, instead he gets fished out weeks later when his rotting corpse begins to foul up the house.

  “Everything but your mouth should fit down nicely,” Sanders said.

  “Well, good to see he knows your type,” BT said.

  “We should make sure he goes last. He can plug it up like a wine cork, that way nobody else will be able to get to us,” I said.

  “I realize you’re nervous and that makes you say things you might not normally, but you’re still an asshole,” BT said.

  Winters got down on his knees in front of a small fireplace. Whoever put this chimney in was definitely not looking to impress anyone. Winters pulled on a small catch and the entire floor of the fireplace, including the wood and the grate the wood was on rose up into the chimney above.

  “You need to be quiet in here,” Winters said to us. Kylie sat down on her rear and slid forward, her left foot going in first. Her back just reached the edge when her feet must have hit a foothold; she bent up a little and then lowered herself more, she ducked her head down and then popped it back up into the chimney top, then she descended out of sight. Seemed like there was plenty of room for small, agile women.

  “You next,” Sanders said to Meredith. A light shone up the tunnel; Kylie illuminated our way down once she got to the bottom. I poked my head down the hole; there was a series of ladders–well, rungs cemented into the brick, but the opening didn’t magically get any bigger like I’d hoped.

  “Uncle, could you maybe get out of the way?” Meredith asked as she scooted over to the edge. I came face to face with her bandaged feet. She went down with no problem, Travis went next, then Tommy. I went to the window in the flying-against-the face of reality-hopes that they’d decided there was nothing here to investigate and I wouldn’t have to go down the chimney, or as I thought of it, Satan’s asshole. Knowing him, Satan, that is, there’d be some carnivorous tapeworms in there waiting for some unsuspecting body parts to enter so they could grab a meal.

  Biddeford went just as we heard the explosion of a window from the first floor, then the loud hissing of a gas canister, releasing tear gas, most likely. I convinced BT to go next–not out of any heightened altruistic reasons–but rather, if he got stuck I wouldn’t have to. Go, that is. Much easier to fight men rather than the rapidly growing legion of demons that infected my mind. I watched as BT placed a leg inside the opening; that alone seemed to take up most of the room. When he got his other leg in they were definitely scraping the outer edges of the chimney. He was going to have to do some contortionist shit if he was ever going to get his chest and shoulders through. Even Sanders had taken note of his descent–I could see him doing the math in his head as his expression changed from mildly concerned to truly doubtful. He went over and shut the bedroom door just as the gas was nefariously climbing the stairs like a slivering serpent, cascading over each riser, making its way up step by step until it could finally choke off our airways.

  Then I wondered. With all the equipment that Knox had been using, was it possible he’d just popped a nerve gas canister into the house? Because in that case, we were going to die a horrible death. That shit would seep through the cracks around our magical trapdoor and come after us brick by brick until it hit our air. Then we would bleed out through every orifice and eventually even our skin. I’d seen firsthand the effects of this particular way of dying. There was a reason most nations, even the crazy ones, had banned its use (even though everyone stockpiled it.) I’d been so fixated on watching the insidious gas work its way under the door I had not even realized BT was no longer in sight.

  “He made it?” I asked no one in particular.

  “You’re up.” Winters clapped my shoulder.

  “Rats are on the way,” Sanders said helpfully, stepping back from his view of outside.

  “Nerve gas, death by rabid incisors, or Satan’s asshole. I really wish there was a door number four.”

  “Huh?” Winters asked.

  “Fuck, I hate when I talk out loud when I don’t mean to.” I went for the asshole. Figured if there was anything in t
here that could have got me, BT would have been like the world’s biggest colon brush and just scraped it all clean. The panic didn’t hit me until I dipped my head down, under, and into the fireplace proper. Things got real small real fast.

  “Get your ass in there, Marine,” Sanders said with enough authority I became that kid again with a flat top and a rifle.

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled as my dangling foot finally found purchase and I put weight on it. In my perfect, updated, vision of the zombie apocalypse, I would be with my family, friends, and a brigade of Marines as we defended a wide mote surrounded castle in the English countryside. The moat would be stocked with bass; there would be fruits and vegetables in the courtyard, hell, my grandkids would climb stunted apple trees. We would only shoot game. We’d have more food and ammunition than we could ever hope for. Clear fields of vision for a quarter mile and not an enemy in sight because we had done such a thorough job of eradicating them, or at least we’d been able to stay under their radar. Instead, we were being chased relentlessly and I was currently in a vertical fucking tomb. BT reached up to grab my leg, at first, I thought maybe it was to pull me down because I was going too slow, but it was actually for reassurance. It worked; I was thankful for it and it brought my mind back to the business at hand. By the time I made the two-story drop, I was coated with a thick layer of sweat, and according to Kylie, I was the pasty gray color of old Elmer’s glue. She pointed down a corridor that was about the width of my shoulders, and said Biddeford was waiting.

  I felt better by the time we were all in the shelter slash grow-room. It was decent sized, twenty by twenty with an eight-foot ceiling. The fact that it had no windows and was underground was beginning to unravel my psyche at the edges and I could only hold that off for so long. As much as I would have liked to hang out there and regroup, I knew resting comfortably was out of the question. The walls would begin their slow press inwards and the ceiling would invariably begin to shrink down. It would be slow at first, almost imperceptible, but quarter inch by quarter inch it would come until I woke from a slumber to find it pressed up against my nose and I would not be able to do much more than wiggle my toes.

  “Talbot, you listening to me?” It was BT. I was busy looking at the ceiling. I knew that if I kept doing that it would not be able to move. Sort of like a game of red light, green light.

  “I’m with you, man,” I told him.

  “Not what I asked, but okay. We’re leaving now. There’s a tunnel up ahead; you’re going to have to low crawl through it. I’m told it’s bigger than the chimney.”

  Deer in the headlights, kid lost in Walmart, parent looking for his lost kid in Walmart. I had all of that accumulated paralytic anxiety surging through me. Trip’s spelunking adventure was still vividly fresh in my mind. I looked around and did not see any vats of lard, so that was a good sign, right?

  “Mike. Winters is going to go first and secure the other house. You’re going in right after him. That clear?” Sanders asked right in my face.

  I nodded because that was the appropriate thing to do. Really wasn’t feeling it, though.

  “Autopilot, Talbot, don’t think, just do. That should be second nature to you.” BT was doing his best to assuage my fear.

  I found it amazing. When I should have been thinking, I often just acted, but now that I needed to just act, I was thinking. When the day came I met my maker, I was going to ask for a refund, or at least leniency because of all the head maladies that I’d been given or had been afflicted with.

  There were two blinks of a light from Winters when he made it through to let me know it was safe to go.

  “You got this, dad,” Travis told me.

  “It’s barely twenty feet across. Close your eyes and low crawl like you mean it. You’ll be through in ten seconds,” Sanders said.

  “Could you order me through please?”

  “Talbot! Get your fucking ass through that opening or I’m going to have you cleaning latrines with your tongue,” Sanders said.

  “Yes, sir.” I took his advice–kept my eyes closed and moved with a mission. I may possibly have broken a land speed record. Didn’t hurt that when I was halfway through I heard gunfire; it was muffled but distinguishable. There are certain sounds that trump even the voices in your head.

  “Not coming this way,” Winters whispered when I got through. “I think they’re just randomly shooting at the house–or maybe some of their people aren’t so willing to go in.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” I said as I checked my rifle. We’d come in through a panel behind the wall-mounted water heater. “Neat trick,” I said as I saw how tightly it fit together when it was swung back in place. The relief I was feeling was palpable.

  “Do you mind?” It was Meredith who was trying to come out.

  “Sorry.” I helped her out.

  Winters held his hand out and down at me. “Have everyone be quiet. Someone is in the house,” he whispered and pointed up. We could hear the sound of footfalls above us. He pulled out a large knife and sidestepped out of the utility room we were in. I followed him to the doorway, watching as he moved to the stairs.

  BT sounded like a freight train rolling through a tunnel. I think he was cutting his own wider path through. I wasn’t so far off the mark. When he popped out of the wall his shirt was dirty and ripped up around the shoulders.

  “Shh.” I put my finger to my lips, effectively diffusing the swear bomb he was ready to let go as he climbed out.

  “Bassly! I’m going to check out the basement. Go on and check upstairs,” we heard the man that was going to try and expose us shout out to the person he was with. There was a response–though it was difficult to tell whether he’d said, “can do” or “fuck off.” Winters was under the open framed wooden staircase. I had my rifle trained on the upper steps. When the door opened, sunlight streamed through. I pulled back, fearful that he would see me. He paused at the top. Not sure if maybe he sensed something, but more likely he was waiting to see if any zombies sprang out. He placed a foot one step down, then another before pausing again. He bent over, leaning into the darkness so that he could look around the nearly barren space. I was too far in the shadows for him to see me.

  Winters was pressed up against the wall, doing his best to impersonate concrete. I’d know what it was later because I would pry it from the intruder’s mostly cold, dead fingers. A Heckler and Koch 123 machine gun. Wasn’t sure what it was when I was looking at it, other than it looked wicked and extremely dangerous. Made my AR look slightly anemic, like maybe it should eat a little more red meat. He came down another step, slow and cautious. He knew something was up, could probably feel it in his bones. Then it dawned on him. The most vulnerable place for him was the stairs. He turned and his rifle was pointed down, pretty much where Winters was; not much chance of avoiding a hail of bullets, should he decide to pull that trigger.

  Back to not thinking, I put my rifle down and stood with my hands up in the air. “I’m here, unarmed. Don’t shoot!”

  He turned quickly. I was staring straight down that barrel topped by a smug smile. “I knew you were here. Could smell your fear…”

  Not sure if he would have continued his victory speech because this was when Winters stabbed him through his calf. Must have severed everything that kept him standing because he collapsed faster than a teenage girl on the Ed Sullivan show the day the Beatles played. His head struck six steps down at terminal velocity. Either the wood cracked or his skull did. Either way, he was out cold. I ran over and dragged his body away and into the shadows, though how anyone was going to miss that blood trail was beyond me–had to have been a foot wide. He was going to bleed out long before he ever regained consciousness. On a scale of ways to go, this was one of the better. We had everyone through by the time Bassly finally decided to see if his friend found anything.

  “Yo, Craigs. You find anything?”

  “Yeah, check it out!” I mumble-yelled into the utility room, hoping that the diffusion of m
y voice would lead him to believe it was his friend, or at least, associate.

  “Better be some fucking food. I’m starving.” We could hear Bassly trudging through the house. “Craigs!”

  Winters ran up the stairs just as Bassly shouted out. I watched as the Marine brought the near-sword knife over his head and chopped down–not going to lie–I was pretty happy I didn’t see it connect, heard it though. That wet, sickly sound as it sliced through the side of Bassly’s face and lodged into his shoulder produced all the visual I needed. There was a keening, hitching sound, as the hungry Bassly was fed something I’m sure he had no desire to eat. Winters yanked the blade free from the neck and drove it through his rib cage and into his lungs in an effort to keep the man from alerting anyone else who might be nearby. I was going up the stairs just as he was easing the petrified, dying man to the ground. I felt for the guy, as I stepped over him and out into the hallway to cover Winters, but when you set out to harm others it shouldn’t be all that big a surprise when they strike back. We used to call it Karma.

  The hallway was clear, as was the rest of the house. The rats had already stormed the beach of Normandy; that is, the house we vacated was surrounded and rats were streaming through a half-dozen different weak spots they had found or made. The conscripted that were being forced to fight had taken spots all around the house to intercept us when we attempted to escape from the rodents; I wondered if the rats would consider them when they didn’t find us. There were three bedraggled people standing pretty much right over the bomb shelter. We’d put some space between us and our pursuer, but it wasn’t much and they still had a drone up in the sky. There was a high probability we would be spotted if we made a run for it.

  “We can’t stay here,” Tommy said to me as I kept a look out from the kitchen window. It afforded me a decent view of what was going on.

  I knew this: Bassly and Craigs were going to be missed soon and it wouldn’t take much effort to redirect the animals or the humans. I supposed wrongly we could bounce back and forth between the homes, I shuddered at the thought of going back through that claustrophobic deathtrap, plus the rats, yeah, they’d find us soon enough. Running in the great wide-open sounded way better.