Etna Station

by Mark Tufo

  BT almost immediately reverted back to clubbing the zombies.

  “I’m out,” was all I needed to hear to know why. A window opened up to our side, Travis poked his head and rifle out and was doing his best to make us some room. My sister was on the top floor, she nearly pelted Travis with a rung from a handy rope-style fire-escape ladder–you know, the kind you’re only willing to risk your life climbing if your life is in peril. Kind of weird when you stop and think about it; out of the frying pan and into the fire type scenario. Well, it sure wasn’t like we weren’t in danger, so, ladder it was. The ladder passed by the first floor window, giving one a view of the living room as they scaled upward or hastily downward, as the case may be.

  “Toward the house!” I yelled

  BT was still trying to make it around to the other side where we didn’t even know if there was an opening. Jesse had joined his mother, but he was firing down into the heads of zombies. We had the tiniest of openings; Nicole and Wesley pressed through and to the ladder. If I harbored any question that my waif of a daughter could drag her injured leg and a baby up a flimsy, swaying ladder, it disappeared as I watched her scale that thing like a monkey up a banana tree. Never doubt the resolve of a woman protecting her baby. She had a brief moment halfway up where the ladder moved off the house at an awkward angle; she was holding on by the tips of her fingers. My sister reached out and grabbed an arm, pulling her close. Jesse was holding on to his mother, who had not quite thought out the distances involved and almost pitched out herself. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get Gary up because he still looked like counting to ten might be a little beyond his capabilities. I think the only reason he hadn’t dropped the rifle yet was that it was now basically glued to his hands. His coordination would have got him pulled over for a suspected DUI; if you couldn’t walk a straight line, there was no way you could drive one.

  Tommy took care of that. He jumped up onto the ladder and basically forced Travis to take Ryan through the window. Then he wrapped an arm underneath Gary’s left armpit and heaved him up. I didn’t think the ladder was designed for two adult males at the same time, but if it couldn’t hold those two then BT was in a lot of trouble. Gary wasn’t complete dead weight, but close to it. He tried valiantly to get his feet on the individual steps but was having a monumentally difficult time. Looked like he was trying to thread a needle with silk during a gale. Tommy just kept grunting and heaving until he was within the reach of help up top.

  “You next, BT!” I know he wanted to argue, but I still had bullets. Not many, but he didn’t need to know that. He was halfway up when the well went dry. I thought about hopping on the ladder behind him, but the rope above him, bearing all the weight, looked like it was stretched as thin as it could get.

  “Dad, come on!” Travis urged through his window. It was a ground floor window, but the way the house sat on the landscaping, it was still a couple of feet above my outstretched hands. Jumping up was the only way to get to it. I looked like your prototypical middle-aged white man jumping; meaning, I launched not at all. Of course, I’m planning to blame that on the knee-capped zombie that had grabbed my calf and ankle. My chin bounced off the side of the house. I was somewhat happy that it was aluminum siding, as it gave a little, but it was still a hard-enough knock that I’d split my lip, I’m thinking busted my nose, and I was going to have a wallop of a knot on my forehead. And then, just to put a cherry on top, I slid the rest of the way down, grinding the side of my face against the concrete foundation. Going to have a serious case of raspberries. Rifle shots exploded all around me as those in the house began clearing out the riff-raff that had gathered around me waiting to do their version of a pig pile–or a pig-out pile might be a better name.

  The zombie that had crushed my dreams of pulling an Air Jordan was headless, yet I still had to pry his cold dead hands from me. Must have been a die-hard NRA member.

  “Talbot, get your ass in the house!” BT shouted. He made it sound like I was twelve and was out playing touch football after the street lights came on, but the girl next door was still out and I was in no mood to leave her behind to wash up and do my damn homework. Even in the dire straits I found myself in, I very much thought of flipping him a bird. Survival won out as I propped myself up against the house and began to scramble; there was no way I could get a running leap now. Travis was reaching down and we locked hands-the kid was strong, no doubt about it, as the death grip he had on my wrist did not break, but I didn’t think he had the leverage to pull me through. Bullets were whizzing by me, dangerously close; I mean, closer than they ever had from the enemy during a firefight. Knowing it was coming from loved ones didn’t make it much less frightening. An inch one way or the other and I was done for.

  Travis and I were in an agonizing equilibrium, I was basically stuck about a foot off the ground. I jerked on his leverage in an attempt to pull myself up. I used enough force that I broke free from him, yet I missed the fucking sill by a good six inches. Thank God for BT. That massive arm shot out, and he not only halted my downward trajectory, he yanked me through like I was on a springboard. I had enough upward flight that I slammed the top of my head on the window casing. Hurt like fucking hell. I shouted out about it, but how do you fault a man that just saved your life…again?

  “You alright?” BT was flipping me over and looking around my body. “Shit,” he said as he manhandled me.

  “Hey. I usually like a good meal first. Unhand me, sir!” was all I could think to say through my heavy exhalations.

  “You bit?” Travis was concerned, now looking with BT.

  I finally flipped over onto my ass. BT had turned the bottom of my jeans so I could see the hole one of the zombies had torn through the thick denim, it was rimmed in a heavy coating of blood. I pulled the jeans hurriedly past my knee and felt around.

  “Is it mine?” I asked in desperation.

  “You’re good, you’re good.” BT let out a sigh.

  I sat up and let my head sag. I’d fucking dodged another one. Seemed like these days I was dodging one and moving right into another. But for now, we could stop, at least for a moment. Gary had draped himself over a couch and was already asleep. At some point, those that had been upstairs had come down.

  I stood, my legs surprisingly supporting my weight. “Travis, sis, can you get Gary up? If he has a concussion I don’t think he should be asleep, and get whatever ammo we have left divvied up. BT, you think we can set an ankle?”

  “Not really my level of expertise, but I’ll give it a go.”

  “We need some splints, fabric of some sort, and tape, if we can find it.”

  “Uncle, we have zombies on the porch in both the front and the back,” Jess said. His warning was punctuated one second later as they began to break out the glass. Wouldn’t be long before the press of bodies burst through the locks.

  “Alright, Gary and Ryan will have to wait. You know the drill, heavy shit to block the doors.”

  BT was a one-man forklift, taking a full china cabinet right off its hutch and crashing it into the back door. The sound of arms breaking was both satisfying and sickening. Travis and I were mostly right behind him, stutter-stepping the heavy ass hutch to back up the other piece. Tommy and Lyndsey were sliding, carrying the living room couch (sans Gary, whom they had gently put on the floor), toward the more stout front door, though this would yield just as easily as the back if pressed. In five minutes we had every stick of furniture piled up and braced. Without a bulker to fudge things up, we were in pretty good shape. Thought that right up until we heard a loud thud on the floor above us. Then another.

  “What the fuck?” I asked, just now noticing that my rifle was propped up against the wall on the far side of the room. I didn’t yet know why I needed it, but the thought that I did was running increasingly rampant through my head. I grabbed my rifle and ran to the bottom of the staircase only to realize that the enemy was not only at the gates, but had waltzed right through them. A zombie was at the top
of the stairs looking down at me. Before I could get a shot off the bastard moved to the side and out of my view. I was readying to launch up after him when BT’s hand clamped down on my shoulder.

  “It’s a trap.”

  “Okay, Admiral Ackbar,” I said, trying to shoulder off his grip; would have had an easier time unwelding steel. Is that a thing? Doesn’t matter; It was impossible.

  “That a Star Wars thing? You gonna pull a nerd reference on me right now?”

  “Shit, when you say it like that…”

  “Dad!” Travis yelled out from near the window I had come in from.

  “How the fuck did we miss that?” I didn’t dare leave my post on the stairs. I could see a line of zombies climbing the damned fire-escape ladder. Occasionally one would fall, even take a couple of his buddies with him, but otherwise, they were having surprisingly good luck making it up. Much better than Gary, in fact, who had just suffered a head injury. I was looking from the window to the staircase and back; it was one of the interludes between that nearly got me brained. I ducked just as a heavy metal lamp crashed into the wall behind me. The zombie that had tossed it looked genuinely pissed off that he had missed. I gave him two shots to the chest to help him get over it. He absorbed the blows and let out a hellish shriek. I wanted to believe it was his lungs releasing the pent-up air, but nope–he’d really screamed in pain and anger. This was confirmed as a few of his buddies rounded the corner and he moved aside as they rushed the stairs. The problem was that they weren’t overly interested in the stair part so much as they were in getting to me. They flat out jumped. Fortunately, a low hanging ceiling about midway down the flight of stairs stopped them from crashing right into me. Seemed they weren’t quite as smart as they thought they were.

  As it was, I found myself back-peddling until I hit the wall not three feet behind me. This was one of the most sphincter-clenching moments I have ever had in my entire life. It was just so unexpected; caught me completely off-guard. Fired three wild shots into the clusterfuck of zombies scrambling over each other in their haste to get to me. If not for their in-fighting it would have been a lot closer. Travis was picking off climbers, BT had helped me up as my sister was dealing with the three, coming head-first down the stairs, looking like some version of a zombie centipede. If you thought the movie with the similar title was gross, it had nothing on this. They were looking at me and chewing on each other as a poor substitute for what they were trying to get. It was my sister that put an end to the nightmare; she went all commando and put a well-aimed burst into their heads.

  “Th..thank you,” I said when I was able to get coherent words from my misfiring head past my voice box. I was talking to both my sister and her new boyfriend; that thought was both steadying and destabilizing.

  “What do we do now?” BT asked as we all looked up the stairs.

  “We need to get that ladder down or they’re just going to keep coming in until they overwhelm us. “Travis shoot the rope!” I shouted across the room.

  He turned to look at me, there was some doubt in that gaze; to be fair, it did sound like a sharpshooter request. Three shots later he told me the thing was moving too much to hit it.

  “Fuck this,” BT said as he ran toward the kitchen. He’d grabbed a butcher knife from one of the drawers.

  “Be careful,” my sister shouted out. She looked like she was going to fret and that in itself was weird because my sister never looked like she was going to fret; I wondered if she ever fretted over me.

  One of the zombies, having caught wind of what BT had planned had parked his face right where BT wanted to cut. A head is a much easier target than a swaying rope. Travis ended that blockade quick enough, giving BT the time he needed to reach out, pull the ladder toward him and saw through one of the nylon ropes. Either that shit was stronger than it looked or the knife was just a glorified butter spreader, but it took him much longer than it should have. And before he could finish, it was jerked violently from his hands, and the knife he’d been holding spun wildly to the ground below.

  “Fuck!” he shouted as he pulled his finger in and began to suck on it. My sister rushed to his aid. “It’s alright, baby,” he told her. “Just got tangled up in the line. He looked over at me sheepishly after having said those words.

  I said nothing, just produced a small smile. It would be weird for a while, sure, but I could think of no better man I would love to call an in-law. He hammed it up a bit for her but otherwise, I think he was going to make it. Despite the activity around us, I couldn’t help thinking there was potential here for a whole new world of shit I could give him. A loud twang from behind him cut through my thoughts as new weight on the ladder finally snapped the fibers he’d cut. One problem down. We’d stopped the supply line, now we just needed to take care of what had already been delivered. The wood was cracking from the back door as the zombies exerted more force. We needed to retake the house post-haste; I just wasn’t so sure about going upstairs. The zombies weren’t in a rush to come down, meaning they were either going to wait for the cover of darkness or for our stupid asses to challenge their superior position. There was no way we could risk waiting for them to come out and play; we were going to need to force the issue at some point. But we still had some wounded we needed to take care of in the event this went sideways. So far, they’d come up a ladder, hidden, and come to another’s aid; this represented advancement, but the fact that they had the ability to use a weapon was truly concerning. Sure, it was just a thrown lamp, but even that was miles beyond anything they had done previously. How long until they swung a bat? Wielded a knife? Would only be a matter of time then until they picked up a gun and pulled a trigger. Yeah, then it was going to get real shitty, real quick, like an exploding septic tank truck in a hundred degree heat, shitty.

  Gary was pretty groggy as Travis and Tommy propped him up against a wall. I was keeping an eye on the staircase. This time I had my rifle up, completely at the ready if any of them showed, even for a second. BT and my sister were tending to Ryan’s ankle. Every time they even breathed on it, he stirred in pain. Would the zombies come running if they heard him scream out? I had to think they would; it would be like ringing a cowboy dinner triangle for them.

  “Muffle his voice,” I said softly. “Before you set that.”

  “You want me to put a gag on him?” my sister asked as if I’d told her to pretend this was a Civil War injury and just cut off the broken part with a dull saw.

  “He’s right,” BT said, and yeah, because he said it she was fine with it. I get how these things work. Whichever way got them to quiet him before he began to incite the natives was fine with me.

  I’ve seen some gruesome things–long before the zombie invasion–but that kid’s ankle bent at a ninety-degree angle to the rest of his leg, was queasing up my insides. Maybe it was because of his age or the unnatural aspect of it; maybe because in most battles you don’t get to just stare at an injury. Whatever it was, I was hoping they would fix it quickly and I could stop spending my time looking over at it like an accident gawker. I have no idea what it is about human nature that urges us to look. Perhaps it is something we need to witness as a deterrent to us, a warning not to make that person’s mistakes. Or maybe it’s our better nature coming forward, exercising empathy, reminding that it could be us next time. But then again, maybe it is a chance for us to revel in our superiority over that person’s misfortune, strengthening our position in a pack. And I would imagine there are even some that enjoy seeing or even inflicting someone else’s pain; those are the ones you need to keep an eye out for.

  The house became unnaturally quiet just as they moved the ankle into position. Could even hear the bones scraping together, which is as unpleasant as it sounds. I was somewhat happy Gary was out of it because he would have been getting sick about now. How did I know this? Because I wanted to, and his stomach was much weaker than mine. They wrapped his lower leg in a sheet, placed two makeshift splints into position, and then duct tape
d his ankle and lower leg. My sister was pale, sweating, and a little shaky when they finished the job. I gave her a quick thumbs up. She didn’t even think twice; pretty sure it was an automatic response when she flipped me off.

  “It’s going to be dark soon, Mr. T.” Tommy had come up next to me. I could see that Travis wanted to join us, but every time Gary was left alone, he slumped over. I think he needed a CAT scan in the worst way, but even if we somehow were able to perform one and found out the worst, then what? Modern medicine had its faults, that’s for sure. When doctors are said to practice medicine, one needs only to look at the verb in that sentence. They didn’t completely know what they were doing. Sure, they were working at it and getting better, but they were far from perfect; so much can go wrong with a person. But man, oh man, that was way better than it was now. Now, fairly regular, routine injuries could cost you your life. If Gary’s brain swelled too much, there wasn’t a single one of us there that would be able to successfully drill a hole in his skull to relieve the pressure, even if someone had the balls to try it. Or, if Ryan’s bone had nicked an artery and he was bleeding internally, none of us would be able to go in and sew up the damaged blood vessel. We had rudimentary knowledge at best; nothing that would stave off the Reaper if he was even somewhat persistent. Pretty soon, as antibiotics aged and became ineffectual, something as mundane as strep throat or an infected cut could be fatal. It was an uphill battle we found ourselves in, each day bringing new ways to hasten our demise.