Etna Station

by Mark Tufo

  How in the fuck we were going to pull off the timing of this, I had no clue. In near pitch darkness, we needed to keep the upstairs zombies from coming down, then, as the back door was cleared, we needed to keep the outside zombies from coming in, and invariably, they would all meet up on this main floor. Which meant we had to get under the protective barrier of what we were affectionately calling the Palletonion Tank, before they could get at us. Either the gunfire or a message from above had the outside zombies stirred up because they were pressing the attack.

  “Mike, we’re a couch and an end table away from the zombies, you need to make a break for it!” BT shouted. I blasted the rest of my magazine into the horde in an attempt to log jam them.

  “Mer, Travis, go for the tank.” I was just going to cover the door when there was the twang of nails popping free. Thuds of heads, arms and bodies hitting stairs as they fell, tumbled and slid down followed me as I took over at the back door. I tapped BT’s shoulder–he needed to get with Tommy and get that thing tilted over, so everyone could get in.

  “Hurry, Mike, they’re coming.” This from my sister who was near the back of the contraption.

  The back door was a frenetic bundle of activity. The zombies, feeling that the end of us was near, doubled their attack. The lock had given out and they were actually assisting me in moving the couch backward, though it really wasn’t what I wanted. We needed to have that thing completely out of the way or it would trap us in the kitchen. I was pulling and they were pushing. We made short work of it, but I was in danger of becoming the meat in a zombie sandwich as they rushed at me from either side.

  “Coming under!”

  Tommy understood and placed his feet as wide as possible while also giving me a couple more inches of headroom. This either worked or I ended up on an ESPN compilation of the worst slide attempts. Most of the time those base runners were merely tagged out of the game; this time I would be tagged and bagged out of life. Yeah, rather dramatic, but still the truth. I took three steps before I launched headfirst. My step-off foot slipped a little on the linoleum, but I still felt confident about my trajectory and speed. I was half right; speed was up to snuff, but I was coming in high and to the left of my target. Clipped my ear as my head went under, which hurts unreasonably bad; my shoulder took the brunt of the beating and took damn near all of my momentum. I was chest deep under the contraption. I could hear the groans of those holding it up as I rocked the boat. It was a groggy Gary that reached down and yanked me all the way in just as zombies bounced into the sides. No easy feat, considering he had Ryan on him, riding piggyback.

  “Thank you, brother,” I said as I stood. “Everyone in?” I got confirmation of that comforting fact, at least we were all in the scrap-pine mobile coffin. I grabbed my handholds in an attempt to ease BT and Tommy’s burden. The zombies might be smarter, but they hadn’t yet figured out this new twist, like covering a cat treat with a cup. They were scouring the main floor for the food they just absolutely knew was there. The ones streaming in had even fewer clues but that didn’t stop them; they could smell us and forcing them back out so we could leave was going to be the hard part. It was like we had thrown open the doors at Walmart and dived behind a crate of cheese puffs on Black Friday when there were only five, sixty-inch televisions for two hundred and fifty bucks. Let the games begin.

  “TV’s are gone, motherfuckers!” I shouted as I strained to push the shoppers out.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” BT was able to grit out.

  We were all too busy straining against the tide to talk anymore. It was like fighting a rip current, no matter how hard we paddled, we made little to no headway and, in fact, seemed to be going backward.

  “Stop. Everyone stop. We let them flood in until the point of saturation.” I said.

  There were moans and groans as we set the box down and even the zombies got in on it, making sounds, I mean. We stayed quiet. There were curious zombies, but I think for the most part they really didn’t know what to think. None were making any concerted effort to get in at us. That would change when that chair sitting motherfucker made his way down here, yeah, that one would know what was up. Maybe he’d get close enough I could point a pistol out through a small opening and liberate him from his oversized britches. It took a good hour until the house reached an equilibrium; no zombies were trying to get in or out. We had some in front of us, though I was pretty sure we would be able to push them out of the way easy enough.

  “Ready?” I whispered. We lifted the tank up, that got the natives interested, either the movement or the ability to smell us a little better, as we exposed our legs. We smacked into the first of them, he seemed slightly surprised, but even more oblivious. He did not do much of anything as we forced him along, like maybe he thought it was normal to have walls push you around, or who knows? Maybe he thought he was the one hitting us. The second zombie we encountered was compliant as well. In fact, they all seemed to go with the flow, it was just that we were racking up the numbers as we walked into ever more congested areas and soon we would not have the momentum or strength to push our way through.

  There were a few brief moments when it appeared the belly of the beast might be a tad too big to make it out the door. BT’s front cleared with an inch to spare but that amount was rapidly diminishing as we got to my holding point. We didn’t have a T-square, alright? Maybe with some speed built up we could have shaved wood off the box and the doorframe but as it was, we were wedged tight.

  “Come on!” BT urged through gritted teeth.

  He was trying to force us through, but I wasn’t certain that was the best idea. Maybe I’d get through, but if the crate got progressively wider as it went, we were going to be stuck even worse, unable to go either way. Tommy must have realized that too, because not only had he stopped but was actively pulling backward. The premium wood we’d used was beginning to protest the undue stresses it was being exposed to.

  “Stop. Both of you stop,” I said just loud enough to be heard over the creaks of the box. The zombies were becoming increasingly curious about our little hideaway and the reason why had crossed the room. The brains of the outfit had come to investigate and he saw right through our ploy. You can generally pull good and bad out of any situation, and this one was no exception. There were nuances to his groans that could imply speech, or communication of some sort, because immediately, all the zombies in the room began to slowly turn our way. Their gauzed over eyes flared illumination of understanding that their sustenance was hiding right there in front of them. We could hear the collective “Aha!” That was the bad, yeah, definitely the bad. The good was that the mad rush to get at us pushed us through the opening like a champagne cork coming loose. Of course, we headed right back into bad. BT had not been prepared to get pushed out quite so quickly and misjudged the first step. He spilled down the stairs; the front end of the tank nosedived. BT rolled clear, but barely. The front end missed crushing his head by the slimmest of margins.

  Should have had a glimmer of good here to offset the bad. We didn’t. BT’s only avenue of escape was to jump up on top of the tank. The thing had been arm-achingly heavy when he was on the inside helping heave it; with him on top, it might as well have been anchored to the ground. I wanted to yell at him to get the fuck off, but where was he going to go? I had my head back, cords on my neck pulsing out, teeth clamped tight in a grimace, and my arms burned as I did my damndest to get that thing up off the ground. I don’t know who was up front attempting to pick up the slack, but we were slightly winning the war on gravity. Had the stupid box an inch or two above the ground. If we so much as ran into a rock it would halt what glacial pace we were making. Maybe a decent portion of the zombies still weren’t sure about the moving block, but the delicious entrée being presented on top? Yeah, they were all about that. Suddenly we had become a dessert cart. In addition to trying to hold the thing up and keep moving, we were being jostled like seafarers in a hurricane. With so many zombies clos
ing in, BT was forced to stand up. His arms were out like he was surfing, only with almost zero forward momentum, it was like balancing on a board in a slow river during a hippo stampede. I was still waiting for the good to emerge from this enormous, steaming pile of corn-crusted shit we had stepped in.

  What we needed was a high-pressure water hose to clean off all our footwear and clear the sludge away; we got a lead hose, as luck would have it. The good had finally cropped up in the form of a large SUV and a machine gun-firing passenger. Sanders was driving and was backing up toward us. The rear end of the truck was taking damage as he just mowed over zombies like a combine to corn. He cut a path right to us.

  “The latch is broken!” BT said as he reached down and tried to open it up.

  “Break the glass!” Sanders yelled over the roar of the rifle.

  I’d not been expecting the big man to go all PCP-crazed on the heavy glass but he did, rearing back and punching through like he had a hammer wrapped in his hand. I was figuring he was going to pull back a bloodied and mangled tangle of flesh and bone, but apparently, he’d done this before; he had a small scrape on his left-hand pinkie finger, could have been a hangnail for all the trouble it was causing. By now we’d let the box down, the trick was how were we going to get out from under it and into the back of the SUV, seems BT had the cure for that. Got to admit when I picked him as a friend I definitely got the better end of the exchange. He also recognized our dilemma and grabbed the pallet in front of him. At first, I didn’t figure there was any way he could pull it loose from the nails; when I started to hear the high-pitched squeal and squelch as metal was yanked loose, I finally began to figure out what he was doing and that it could work and I moved to help him, placing my back against the pallet and pushing up in concert to his movements. We had two of the three inches of the nail exposed.

  “BT stop!” I had to shout to get his attention.

  “What Talbot!” He wasn’t having any of it.

  “We’re about loose, you want to go hurtling into the zombies again?”

  He eased up, realizing I was right. He peeled the top off like a Tupperware lid and tossed it like a huge square frisbee with nails in it onto a couple of zombies; it crushed the skull of one unsuspecting zee, got to figure one doesn’t expect to be done in by flying pallets. I started handing him people as fast as I could reach out and grab them, he was tossing them into the back of the SUV like one might sacks of potatoes. The zombies were pressing in on the far side of our people-shipper, and we were pinned against the car up front. The jaws of the vice were closing in, beginning to crush us. The wood creaked and complained at first but this quickly gave way to cracking and splintering. Without that fifth side to brace our construction, we were just a tea-crate in a damned trash compactor. Finally, I could say I knew exactly what Luke’s team had felt like on the Death Star, but there was no droid we could call to shut it down.

  “We’re it, Mr. T,” Tommy said as he assisted me up. BT shoved me over and in; I pitched forward and Travis then yanked me the rest of the way through. “Go, BT!” I heard Tommy shout as one side of the tank finally caved in. Tommy’s exit had just been pinched shut. BT had lost all balance with the collapse; he was hanging half in the bed and holding onto the crumbling tank, still reaching for Tommy. I had grabbed ahold of his belt and was tugging him through, he had been rocking with the tank and was in danger of falling out into the throng. Travis and I both struggled to pull him back.

  “Tommy’s stuck!” he cried out. The cracking sounds of the pallet box breaking were directly competing against the sounds of bullets being fired, and in some cases the wood was winning. Tommy’s livable space inside was shrinking rapidly. In direct contrast to the rest of us watching, he seemed serene; he was waiting for an opportunity, a split-second window, which was coming at him at breakneck speed. Once the wood structure finally gave out, he was all action, moving with a speed that defied the senses. He launched through the back window like he’d been shot from one of those spring-loaded circus cannons. I’d pay to see them used to send the clowns into a wall embedded with spikes. Comparatively, Tommy had a soft landing, at the expense of the rest of us, that is.

  “GO!” I shouted to Sanders who needed no further prompting. “Glad to see you guys,” I told him. We were crammed into the car but it was worlds better than our previous ride; just feeling movement under us was space-age. Unlike the Flintstones, we didn’t need to carry this one–sure could go for a rack of those Brontosaurus ribs right about now. Sorry, brachiosaurus ribs.

  Sanders told us we were racing back to the safe house and that, yes, everyone there was safe. Words couldn’t even begin to explain the relief I had. BT clapped me on the shoulder, a big smile on his face.

  “After what we just went through you’re already smiling?” I asked him.

  “This?” he asked, pointing to his face. “Oh hell no. This is what fear, anxiety and a heaping helping of relief looks like–and maybe some gas.”

  “Not packed in like this; don’t do it,” Travis begged.

  “Well, for you and your aunt, I’ll refrain.”

  “Consummate gentleman,” I said. “Hey Sanders, not to minimize your awesome and timely rescue, but I figure finding us wasn’t all that difficult. What I want to know is how did you get away from the initial zombies?”

  Sanders looked over to Biddeford; there was a knowing exchange, though neither said anything.

  “Why aren’t they saying anything?” BT asked me in a stage whisper. I shook my head, I didn’t know why either. When we got to the house, their methods were painfully obvious. Deneaux, that sallow, smoke-sucking succubus was on the porch, head slightly back as she plumed poisonous fumes like a volcano on the verge of erupting.

  I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough–had to push my way past two bodies in an effort to do so. Sanders was already out, doing his best to keep me from getting my weapon into the ready position. Biddeford helped his Major as I was about losing my shit in an effort to kill her.

  “Let me go! I am going to rip her charcoal corrupted lungs right from her body!” I shouted.

  BT was out now as well, indecisive on whether to help Sanders or me.

  “Hello, Michael. What’s with the theatrics?” she asked.

  “Theatrics? You crazy bitch. You threatened to withhold help if…” I faltered. Sanders and his team didn’t know about my condition, and I didn’t think this was the time or the place, even if such a time or place existed, to reveal that.

  “What Michael, what exactly did I hold out help for?” She had a twinkle in her eyes as she rested against the porch support column.

  I changed tactics immediately. “Knox had her. No way he just let her go, she was too valuable. If she’s here that means he knows we’re here. We need to get rid of her, dispose of the body. The three Bs for sure!” I was hopped up.

  “Three Bs?” BT asked.

  “Behead, burn, and bury. Then, and only then, will we be sure that monster is dead.”

  “Monster? Which one of us is actually closer to that distinction?” She lit another smoke.

  “What is she talking about?” Sanders asked looking at me.

  “Nothing, forget it,” I said as I shrugged him off. I brushed by him, though he stayed apace as I approached the house, fearful I might take a swing at Deneaux as I went past, and he was right to do so. At first, I hadn’t wanted anything to do with her, but the closer I got and the smugger that pucker on her face got, the more I wanted to rip her throat out or something equally as disgusting and painful and damn the consequences. She nonchalantly tapped her ashes on the porch as I stomped past. When I walked into the house, Kylie was in the kitchen coming out with some water bottles.

  “She’s downstairs,” she said when she saw me. “Her mother may have had a stroke.”

  All thoughts of Deneaux were flushed down the toilet. I had Kylie point me where I needed to go and I raced to get there. Tracy looked up when she saw me coming; tears streaked her face
. Kylie made it sound like there was doubt about the prognosis; there wasn’t. Half of Carol’s face was slack, her mouth pulled down into a perpetual sneer. Tracy continually wiped away at the spittle that formed there.

  “Oh, Mike,” she sobbed as she got up to hug me. “I’m so glad you’re back.” She rested her head on my chest. “Mom isn’t weathering this so well.”

  That was an optimistic viewpoint. She was the grey of forming storm clouds. Her skin looked ashen, her breathing, thready at best.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “She fell yesterday. I don’t know if striking her head caused it, or the fall happened because of it.”

  Didn’t matter much. She’d needed a real hospital hours ago for any attempt to mitigate the damage. Now? I doubted a recovery of any substantiation was possible. Moving her was out of the question; she would never survive on the road. Staying here wasn’t the best-case scenario either; there were still thousands upon thousands of zombies a few miles from here.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Biddeford said from the bottom of the stairs. “I was going to be a medic, once upon a time.” We looked at him. “I know Kylie was down here earlier do you mind if I take a look?”

  I looked to Tracy, she nodded.

  He spent a few moments checking her pulse, shining a light into her eyes, reflexes, that kind of thing. I took Tracy upstairs so she could get a drink of water and maybe a couple of hours rest.

  “I’ll watch her, won’t leave her side,” I told her, and I meant it.

  “How’s she holding up?” BT asked before I went back downstairs.

  “Tracy’s a wreck and Carol is worse,” I said honestly.

  “You want me to kill Deneaux?” He wasn’t kidding.

  “No, wait for me. I want in on it.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  Biddeford was waiting for me when I came back down.

  “I talked it over with Kylie, it’s not good. We were hoping it was a mini-stroke or a warning stroke, as they call them, but looks like she had a full-blown hemorrhagic stroke. Maybe, maybe if she’d had it in a fully staffed hospital that deals with these things, she’d get a fair amount of her strength and faculties back after some serious rehab. But now…” He left it there. Really what more could he say?