Etna Station

by Mark Tufo

  By the time we got to the village, it had been two days since the insurgents had worked their nightmare. Men, women, children–didn’t matter. Every single one of them had been bound up and positioned so that they could watch neighbors and loved ones die next to them. Only one woman, one, eighty-five-year-old woman had survived. For forty-eight hours she had fought to stay alive so she could tell someone, anyone, what had happened there. I heard she died three days after we’d freed her; her injuries too great. More likely she died of a broken heart; she’d only kept living to accomplish what she’d set out to do–to carry her people’s pain to an ear that might give a shit. Why’d I relate that…? Because right now, being in the pool was a form of torture, and I wanted out of it in the worst way possible. Not in an hour, not in ten minutes, but right fucking now.

  BT’s voice came back over the fence, swear to God just the sound of it brought me back. “Going to do a smash and grab, Mike! Get to the far end of the pool!” he shouted.

  I was already there, so that wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t keen on this idea, as my brain slowly processed what he’d said. I heard the revving of what sounded like a diesel truck, I hadn’t realized there was still some adrenaline in there, but I got nervous. If they misjudged their approach, I was certain I would not be able to jump out of the way, and it nearly went down like that. The Ram truck burst through the wooden fence sending a fence slat nearly three feet long right at me. It missed impaling me by inches, and that it missed had nothing to do with my cat-like reflexes. The flying stake had been coming in so fast I hadn’t even had the time to shield my face; I just closed my eyes. It was sharp enough and had enough force that it went through the vinyl siding like a skewer through the skin of an orange; I would definitely have been kabobbed good. The Ram symbol on the front of the truck was looming larger and I had nowhere to go. The first zombie that impacted the front end was sent spinning wildly off to the side, as was the next. The bumper was taking some punishment, but Dodge’s advertising claim seemed to be holding strong–built Ram Tough. Gunfire was coming out from both sides in sustained bursts and still, that grill grew larger.

  “Close enough, man,” was what I said as the truck obliterated the far side of the pool. As seems to be the case when the action starts, multiple things happened simultaneously. Sparky, the zombie who had a sense that I was there and trapped, so named for his spark of intelligence, grabbed the back of my head and a fistful of hair. As he was wrenching my skull backward, the truck plowed through the pool wall before coming to a skidding halt. Water did what water does–it rushed for the low ground. I was sucked out toward that opening like a turd in a previously clogged toilet. So, flushed with a vengeance, if that wasn’t clear.

  Sparky had such a good handhold, he decided to come for the ride. My ankle, which was still throbbing in pain, was nothing compared to the fresh feeling of being scalped. I was heading straight for the front end of the truck and was in danger of splitting the tires and going completely underneath. My guess is I wouldn’t stop until I made the curb and finally the storm drain, and by the way things were going this fine fucking evening, odds were there would be a red balloon tied on the cover. All of this action was Broadway show-illuminated by the high beams of the truck. I was literally traveling toward the light, though I didn’t think this was the way that scene was supposed to play out. My head was mostly underwater, Sparky had yet to let go, I was choking on slime again. Then the light dimmed and was nearly extinguished, I figured I was at the end. But, unbeknownst to me, BT had exited the vehicle and was, mitt out, going to play first baseman with me as the baseball that dribbled down the first base line.

  If you don’t realize where I’m going with this, you aren’t a baseball fan or don’t know that I bleed red not because that is the color of blood but rather that of my beloved Red Sox, and that runs deep. If you’re following, let’s just say I hoped he didn’t Billy Buckner me. A leg and a foot hovered above my head, I felt like a prehistoric rodent attempting to dodge the footfalls of a Titanosaur. There was a sickening crunch behind me as Sparky had first his arm crushed, then his skull. BT wrapped an arm around my side and hefted me up into his arms. I’m not sure if I should be ashamed to admit this, but I felt sort of like the damsel in distress being saved by the dashing hero as he swept me up. That ended quick enough when he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. If the world ever got its head screwed back on I was so going to make an action figure of him. There I was, waterlogged and broken draped over his shoulder like an unneeded coat on a warm night, while with the other arm he is firing a machine gun. I mean that shit is just iconic, right? He tossed me into the bed of the pickup truck before hopping in himself. Two slaps on the truck top and we were thrown into reverse and with a screech of tires, I was whisked away into the night. Wasn’t a few seconds later I passed out from exhaustion.

  6

  Mike Journal Entry 6

  I awoke with a start. I was under five blankets. At first it was comforting, and then I realized I was baking hot and started throwing covers off me.

  “Hold on man!” BT said, shielding his eyes. “You don’t have anything on under there.”

  I wisely threw only four of the blankets off and was left with a light one that made it much more comfortable. We were in a small house and I was on a couch, settled fairly close to a roaring fire.

  “What’s going on?” I repositioned myself so I was sitting up.

  “Here. Eat this and I’ll give you an update. Pork belly,” he said as he handed it over.

  “Not ham, right?” I asked, looking at the meat.

  “You’d turn down food right now?” he asked.

  “If I’d found you in the same situation and you were laying here just barely holding on and I handed you a plate with your mac and cheese mixed in with your meatloaf would you eat it?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t. Now you’re just talking crazy. Who the hell mixes up foods that have no right to be mixed together? We’re not animals!”

  “That’s how I feel about ham.”

  “It’s not ham, man. You want me to tell you what’s going on or you want to talk about pork products?”

  The pork belly was a little on the salty side but still delicious. I tore into that thing. I nodded at him to go on.

  “All the social graces of a turkey vulture.”

  I stopped eating. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

  “They’ll vomit on their food to keep others from eating it.”

  “Really man? You’re comparing me to that?”

  He shrugged.

  “Just tell me what’s going on and I won’t talk about dipping my bacon in maple syrup.” It was funny to watch the big man gag. “Or pour milk over my collard greens. Hmmm, sugar frosted collard green cereal!”

  “When are you not a dick? Since that is a rhetorical question, I’ll just start talking while you think on it. Tracy, Justin, and the rest are fine. Tommy and Travis are keeping surveillance–don’t worry, it is from a safe distance. They are using lasers and Morse code to talk.”

  “Not too surprised Tommy would know Morse, but Justin?”

  “Freeze off a few brain cells? Winters is with them.”

  “Right, sorry. Wait where’d they get lasers?”

  “Dude, they just fucking have them! Are you going to hit me up with the finer points throughout this whole thing? They all have their bootlaces tied, their rifles are locked and loaded, everyone has had a bathroom break.”

  “Who’s being the dick now?” I asked.

  “Sorry man. I’m so worried about your sister.” He looked straight at me as if daring me to say something inflammatory.

  “I already consider you a brother. Nothing would make me feel better than to say you were actually family.”

  “Still a dick by not being a dick! How do you do it? How do you make me feel like shit for yelling at you even when you deserve it?”

  “It’s a tactic I developed with my mother. I could infuriate
and confuse her all at the same time. Kept her off balance.”

  “You pull that shit with Tracy?”

  “Oh hell no. She wouldn’t put up with it.”

  “What makes you think I will?” he asked.

  I could only smile.

  “We’re in a world of shit,” I told BT. “Knox has the satellite system.”

  “I was going to wait until maybe you felt a little better, but Sanders believes he knows where Deneaux is.”

  I knew what was going to happen if I sat up too fast; did it anyway. Very nearly swooned.

  “Why aren’t we on our way?”

  “Well, the only reason Sanders knows where they are is because he stumbled into a pretty secure stronghold of Knox’s.”

  “I hate that woman and I would risk just about everything to get rid of her.”

  “He says he’s not sure if Deneaux is being held or is there of her own volition.”

  “Fuck. Maybe we let her stay there, then she’ll be Knox’s problem and eventually she’ll do the same to him as she’s done to a good long line of people; maybe she’s our infectious plant, take them down from the inside. What about the rest of the people that were with her?” It hurt to ask this question. My sister, nephew, brother, daughter, and grandson had been among the people in that car. Already knew the fate of Mad Jack; it was not a stretch at all to believe that had or would happen to every one of them.

  “We’re going to get everyone back, Mike. We’ll take care of Knox and we’ll do what we’ve set out to do.”

  “Any news on Trip?”

  “Nothing. But we’re talking about Trip; good chance they’re holed up in a snack cake factory.”

  I smiled at that. “When are we going to get Tracy?”

  “As soon as you are able to move. Another thing though, Mike…Kylie is a nurse. She looked at your ankle; she knew it was broken and she knew it was healing at an incredible pace. She’s suspicious.”

  “I don’t have time to worry about that.”

  “Any chance you have enough time to worry about getting dressed?” he said. I grabbed a blanket quickly as Kylie spoke from the other room.

  “Your clothes are almost dry; you may want to put them on,” she said.

  “Are they clean?” I asked BT.

  “This look like a laundromat? I mean, sure, we wiped off some of the bigger globs but you still smell like low tide in New Jersey.”

  “Like dead fish and washed up gangsters? Is that what you’re implying?”

  “Along those lines. I’m going to get out of here while you put some clothes on. I’ve seen enough pasty Talbot ass for a good long while.”

  “Have you? Have you seen enough ‘Talbot ass’?”

  BT turned; he did not look like a happy camper. A big meaty finger came up. “That’s your sister you’re talking about.”

  “She’d laugh if she were here.”

  “That’s the problem though, isn’t it?” BT let his head dip as he walked out.

  “How are you doing?” Kylie had waited a minute while I got my clothes on. I wasn’t in the mood for answering questions, but at least it distracted me from the disgusting feel of my slightly damp and definitely moldy clothes.

  I looked up from the magazine I was loading. “Great.” I plastered on as fake a smile as I could.

  “What are you?” she asked. Without any type of warning she was going to dive right into the deeper end of the pool.

  “A husband, father, brother, and marine that very desperately wants to get his family back together.”

  “Near as I can tell you had a bimalleolar ankle fracture less than twelve hours ago. With a proper set, splinting, good diet, and positive outlook it would take a minimum of six weeks to heal, yet you seem nearly whole.”

  “Must be wrong about your diagnosis. I mean, how would I be able to step down on it?” Which I did, with maybe a bit too much vigor. Might have been able to throw a little more shade on her inquisition if I hadn’t winced as I did so.

  “Hold your leg up and rotate your ankle.”

  “I hurt it, ok? There’s no doubt about that. Right now, I’m not going to do anything to further aggravate it, not when I still have so much to do.”

  “What would I see if I took a sample of your blood?”

  “Red, I would imagine,” I told her.

  “Marines are tough, Talbot, I get that, but they don’t shrug-off broken ankles,” she said as I squeezed past her at the door, making sure she got a good old whiff of the essence I was cloaked in.

  Sanders and Biddeford were out in the garage going over a fairly decent mock-up of the house Tracy was in.

  “You’re up?” Sanders asked.

  “Yeah, ready to go,” I told him.

  “My wife said you have a broken ankle.”

  “Must be wrong.”

  He looked at me. “Good enough. We can always use the help, although I’m not going to be the one that tells her she was wrong. Good news is most of the zombies left with the pool maneuver.” He pointed to a smashed-up water bottle. “While you were sleeping, Biddeford and myself mounted some reinforced plywood walls in the truck bed. Now we just have to get the truck into position, extend the twenty-four-foot ladder, and get everyone out.”

  “Wouldn’t a bucket truck or a fire truck be better?” I asked.

  “The bucket truck is slow; remember how long it took just to get them into the attic? Getting them into a cherry picker would take an inordinate amount of time and we just don’t have it. The fire truck is unwieldy; if we found ourselves in a chase it would be highly unlikely we would be able to shake our pursuers. Besides, there’s not much room for passengers in either vehicle.”

  “Pickup truck it is,” I said.

  We took a stealthy approach to where they had left the truck, and in ten minutes we had arrived. Biddeford spun the wheel and was going in reverse nearly as fast as he had been going forward. He did his best to avoid the zombies, though he still hit two. A decent spray of misted viscera came up and over our impromptu wall and splashed across my chest.

  “For once I’m glad I’m not clean,” I said as I plucked something that looked a lot like an optic nerve from my pants. There weren’t many zombies around, but let’s be honest–one is too many. We were dealing with twenty times that number. Sanders was adamant that we were not to use firearms as Knox’s patrols were running all through the city, and our earlier shots had drawn them closer. The truck was taking some dings as zombies were running into it. Biddeford was working on the ladder. I was trying to slam zombie heads with my buttstock, but I didn’t have the heft or the angle to do it well. And, let’s be real. It wasn’t like I was swinging an M1 Garand around, the wood on that thing was designed to become a headbanger when ammo became an issue. But the lighter 5.56s had composite stocks designed to be lightweight. It was more likely I’d break the stock than a zombie’s head. BT reached down into the truck bed and picked up an aluminum bat. He stood tall, rolled his shoulders and his head a couple of times, took a breath, admired the bat before turning to absolutely destroy the zombie I could barely shoo away. The classics; am I right?

  He brought the weapon over his head again, moved slightly to the side, and caved in a zombie’s skull so deeply the rest of the head appeared to fall into its neck. I did what was prudent and just stepped back and into a squat as he swung another ten times; each time a kill was visually confirmed–it was up there vying for a spot on the most disgusting things I’d witnessed award, not to mention Hall of Fame RBI stats. By the time he was done, he was breathing heavy, the bat had some serious dents in it, and he’d spilled enough brain matter he could have painted an elephant with it.

  “You look like you enjoyed that,” I said to him, breaking through the haunted look he was wearing. “You alright, BT?” I asked when he didn’t respond.

  “I will be,” he said, looking for something else to annihilate.

  I turned my attention to where I could help. Biddeford had the ladder against the roof
and the evacuation was happening. Justin had brought Avalyn down and went back up to grab Angel from Tracy. Once he was down with her, I had to go up and get Henry–first because he was a big dog and unwieldy and if anyone was going to take a tumble saving him it would be me, and secondly, he wouldn’t budge for anyone else. He was having none of that ladder. I had to promise him a box full of cookies, even though I could not deliver on that just yet. The look I got from him when I put him down on the truck bed and didn’t give the four-legged stomach anything to eat was priceless. Then I remembered that bulldogs had perhaps one of the strongest bites in the dog world and thought better of my smile. I scowled and solemnly promised he would get the first goodie I found.

  Justin was coming down again with the other dogs when I saw Carol got a bit of vertigo; it was touch and go there for a few seconds as Tracy did her best to keep her mother on the roof. I moved Justin out of the way; if there had been a ladder racing event I’m pretty sure I would have taken home a medal as I went up to make sure she was staying put, along with my wife. The zombies that were still in the house, once they realized that their guests were leaving were coming outside to see them off.

  “I can’t go down that,” Carol said as she tried to squeeze my hand off.

  “Not much of a choice,” I told her.

  “The zombies are gone now. I’ll just go down the stairs.”

  This was my mother in law and I loved her, but I was starting to see why some married couples moved away from their families.

  “We don’t have time, Carol. We could be spotted at any moment, and we’d still have to get you out of the attic. You forgetting how difficult it was to get you up there?”

  “I understand, Allan, I do. But I left the oven on.”

  Tracy looked at me. “Stress sometimes forces the issue.”

  Alzheimers or dementia or maybe a little bit of both was rearing its oh-so-ugly fucking head. None of us were taught to deal with this in a battlefield scenario; someone said something crazy you just shoved them on forward. I rubbed my head before I spoke.