Those Left Behind

by Mark Tufo

  “You’re going to have to back up out of here.”

  I thought she was joking at first. When I looked over and she wasn’t cackling I asked her just how insane she was, as I looked up the narrow, winding and steep roadway.

  “I don’t really see another way.”

  She was right and I knew it. I didn’t give a shit that it was a woman telling me something. I’m not that egotistical, or even that it was Deneaux; on a fundamental level, I couldn’t stand her but right is right, and she’d done well for herself for a long, long time. I brought the truck to a stop, to the complaints and questions of those in the back.

  “You’re going to have to watch the side,” I told her. Just so happens she was on the sheer side. I was going to have to do this without the aid of a rearview mirror or even being able to turn over my right shoulder and out the rear windshield.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Talbot?” This from BT. A middle school drop-out could have figured it out. I was heading at a decent clip to the ramp, ass backward. “I don’t like this idea!” He let me know in no uncertain terms.

  “Yeah, me fucking neither!” I yelled back. The real beauty (still trying to figure out how to use a sarcastic slant as I write) was that the truck had to stay at a particular speed as I went backward or it would start to buck and threaten to stall out. It was somewhere between first and second gear speed, going straight forward. I was not going to be able to crawl my way up.

  “You might want to move a little farther your way,” Deneaux said as the truck jostled violently. I was off to an auspicious start, the passenger wheels having already slipped off the path. That was all fine and dandy when we were six inches high, but was really going to suck when we were up sixty feet. I jerked the wheel hard my way...maybe seeing if we could climb the wall vertically. There were more cries of panic from the passengers. This was not going to be a fun ride for any involved, especially those bouncing around inside a steel box. We thumped back down as I brought the wheels back onto the path. The hits were jarring, as I was mowing down zombies and it got no better as they were run over. I could barely make out anything of substance from the side view mirror as it and I were jostled. The problem was, we were out of tune, so the image was even more blurred.

  I was going to need to stick my head out of the window as I went. The problem there was the zombies trailing. They were easily keeping pace and even now jumping up on the hood and running board doing their best to get inside to the chewy center.

  “BT, keep them off the front!”

  “What about the ones behind?”

  “There’re hundreds of them...nothing you can do! I need to see where we’re going!”

  Bullets started whining down the front of the truck; the ones to my side were killed or hindered. The ones on the hood were going to be yet another problem. They couldn’t be shot down without the risk of putting a hole in a pretty vital spot in the hood.

  “What don’t I have to do?” Deneaux sighed as she started firing through the windshield.

  “Holy fuck, woman! How about a little heads up?”

  I rolled the window down farther and stuck my head out. I was stretching my body as much as I could and still reach the gas pedal. Unfortunately, the dump part of the truck was further obscuring my vision.

  “Deneaux, you’re going to have to step on the gas!”

  “How many things do you believe me capable of?” she asked. “I cannot reach the pedal and keep an eye on the side.”

  “Fuck.” The frustration and fear was mounting within me. “Porkchop, you’re up.”

  “No way, Mr. Talbot.”

  “All you need to do is step on the gas. I need you, kid.” It seemed to take hours before he got the necessary nerve to step down, and when he did, he stomped like he was trying to drive a tent stake into rock hard soil. I pulled my foot away, to keep it from being sandwiched by Porkchop’s particularly heavy-footed approach, the truck heaved backward. I almost scraped my head against the rock wall. I was now leaning far out of the truck, my right hand on the steering wheel and my left on the door frame holding on for dear life.

  “Your way, Michael!” There was more panic in Deneaux’s voice then I can ever remember hearing.

  I wanted to ask her where she thought I was going to get that extra space, I was already within a few inches of the wall but I wisely figured this wasn’t a good time to argue the point.

  “Ease up a little Porkchop!” The truck went from seemingly flying to sputtering. My perch was already precarious and when he pulled up I started whacking my head against the side of the truck as we sputtered along. “Gas! Gas, Porkchop!!” The kid had never driven before in his life and he was most certainly not going to learn on this jaunt. I felt us careen, lurch, and was terrified we would roll.

  “Turn coming up!” Deneaux warned. It had to go off to the left because it was completely blind to me. Basically looked like we were going to go flying off the side. Must have been twenty feet high by now. Maybe those of us in the cab would survive a spill, but those in back would be thrown free like steaks tossed into a lion’s cage, into the waiting teeth of the horde or just crushed into the ground like olives being pressed for oil. I cut it too soon; it was the screams from the back that clued me in to my mistake before I could process it. The normal knee jerk reaction is to over compensate and pull the wheel back hard the other way; I fought every instinct I had in regards to that. I eased back down the side of the slope, the truck jostling even more. More rounds were being fired, some in front, some in back; that was not something I could spare even a modicum of attention for. Maybe next time I’ll rethink that stance; I felt a hand rake down the back of my head before falling away.

  “You can thank me later!” It was BT, leaning over.

  “Freaking out right now, man!” I yelled back without turning up to look at him.

  “Doing fine, buddy!”

  “Yeah...now I know I’m fucked.”

  “Buddy’s here?” I could hear Trip somewhere back there. “That dude makes the best Rice Krispie treats. There’s lime rice, pulled pork, salsa…”

  “That’s a fucking burrito you stone head,” BT told him. The rest of their conversation, if it happened, faded as I needed all of my concentration focused on trying to keep us on a path not much more than six inches wider than the truck.

  “Turn harder!” Deneaux shouted. “Wheel off!”

  “Fuck, fuck.”

  “Two wheels!”

  One more and we were done. My body was pulled at unnatural angles, my back and neck ached. My ribs were being twisted out of shape along with my spine, I was getting a severe case of vertigo as I kept looking over my shoulder and none of that mattered. I needed to keep a truck, that felt like it was in a clothes dryer, being driven by a kid with a lead foot, from falling off a rock strewn precipice. Just another day at the office. I’m not going to even try to guess how I kept that truck on the ledge. Physics-wise I’m sure we should have been heading down using the express lane. Maybe it was the combined willpower of us all that nudged us back; not sure, don’t care. If I stopped to wonder why I lived every time I should be dead, I’d be about four or five years back from my present position. When I say it like that, it doesn’t sound quite as bad.

  “Another turn!”

  This one I could see as it was heading out. Instead of turning too soon, I waited too late. The rear end of the truck slammed into the wall with a bone-jarring crunch. There was an increase in gunfire for a reason I could not discern. The roadway was littered with dead, destroyed zombies. There was a remote part of me that feared that we would slip off the edge on their blood and guts. The sheer volume of bodies was staggering. There was a loud squeal of metal on rock as I turned the wheel enough to force us off the wall. The truck began to slow, I thought Porkchop was actually learning how to finesse the gas a little bit. Not sure why I was so optimistic. Then we started slowing some more, then a little more.

  “Porkchop—more gas!”

&nbs
p; “I haven’t let up,” he wailed back.

  “Deneaux, are we out of gas?”

  I hadn’t at any point even thought to check out that fairly important piece of information. Although in retrospect, what would it have mattered? Our bed was most definitely made and we were going to have to lie in it whether it had bedbugs, clowns hiding under it, cum stains...well, preferably none of the above, but in any case, we were in it now.

  “Plenty!” she called out.

  All I could figure were mechanical issues, then BT shouted.

  “Mike, we have bulkers, they’re trying to hold us back!”

  Trying? I thought. They were doing a pretty damn good job. We were as close to stalling out as one can be and still be moving.

  “Kill them! Fucking kill them all!”

  I know he wanted to tell me “What the fuck did I think they were trying to do” but he didn’t.

  It sounded like everyone that had a gun was blowing holes in zombies. The truck bucked one final time and then did stall. “Move, Porkchop!” I dove back in and sat. Not only were we rolling back down, but we were also being pushed to the edge by the press of the bulkers.

  I cranked the ignition. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting differing results?

  “Diesel engine, Michael,” Deneaux said.

  “Fucking diesel!” If the inventor of that engine had been anywhere near I would have given him a piece of my mind. I waited for the glaciers to recede, or for the glow plugs to warm up, then proceeded to flood the engine. We got a whir of engine noise and nothing more. “FUCK!” I slammed my hand against the dashboard.

  Deneaux was peeking out her window while simultaneously, and I think unconsciously, sliding my way. I fought with the wheel to keep it turned to the safety of the wall, the bulkers had other ideas. How the fuck they were managing to move a twelve-ton truck like it was a Tonka toy was beyond me. I waited again for the glow plugs to ignite, this time laying off the gas. The engine came to life. I put the stick in forward and slammed into the zombies in front of us. I wanted to give a little distance between the bulkers and our ass end.

  “Get ready, Porkchop.”

  “I really don’t like driving,” he told me.

  “Yeah, me neither.” I didn’t even try to completely stop before I forced that fucker into reverse, sheering through gear teeth as I did so. We lurched backward as I built up some speed to hit the fat bastards with. There was an extremely satisfying crunch as I won the war between steel and flesh. The truck bumped upwards as I went up and over the first of them.

  “Yeah! Hit them!” BT was shouting. “Keep going!”

  “It’s on you Porkchop.” I didn’t even give him the chance to protest, as I again went out the window.

  “Gonna make it!” BT was giving updates.

  What was left of the windshield exploded outward, Deneaux was almost firing across her chest to keep the zombies from grabbing a hold of me. If they got me, they got me, I couldn’t spare the time to look at how close they were. Let’s just say I could hear the bullets whizzing by my ear, like a persistent deer fly. Porkchop was crying, Deneaux was shouting, BT was screaming encouragement. Me? I think I was laughing. I could be mistaken, there was just so much going on I couldn’t even begin to fathom being normal at the moment, my mind was stretched as far as was capable, maybe it snapped right there and then, might have been the only fucking thing that saved our asses.

  I cannot even recall the moment we were no longer climbing the hill but rather were out on level ground. I suppose it didn’t matter because we were still in a hell of a jam. When I realized there was no longer a wall on my side I was in the process of pulling my head in when we hit our largest obstacle. Could have been a wall of bulkers or a building. Porkchop, who had been on the edge of his seat pushing the gas, now found himself pushed down into the pedal compartment.

  “Straight Michael, do not move that wheel,” Deneaux said calm enough but she was as pale as the wrapper of her cigarette. We weren’t just hugging the edge, we were riding it. I could not turn the truck to angle us out of there or my front tire would have dipped down and taken the rest of the vehicle with it. I locked my arms, not even daring to move my head to look for fear that I would subconsciously turn the truck to my gaze. I could see the pit in the periphery of my vision and that was enough. We were surrounded by zombies on three sides and Porkchop was wedged down on the gas, we were picking up speed as we jostled.

  “You need to move, Porkchop.” Poor kid was just about upside down, his face mashed up against the gas pedal and his ass presented to me.

  “Stuck,” was his muffled response. “Need help!”

  “Deneaux help him.” I don’t want to move, she was transfixed by the potential for devastation to our immediate right.

  “Deneaux!”

  “I was unaware of the extent of my aversion to heights.”

  On one end, it was nice to see that she shared something with us lowly humans. But of all the times she chose to show her weaknesses, this wasn’t the best.

  “Help the kid! Help Porkchop up. We keep building speed and I’m not going to be able to keep this truck on the straight and narrow.

  “Yes, yes...” But she was still looking out the window. Maybe some part of her knew that if we rolled down that canyon wall, and she died, she’d be that much closer to her final destination. She moved closer to me, grabbed Porkchop by the collar and waistband and strained as she tried to extract him from the floorboard. “Maybe if you laid off the cake,” she puffed.

  “I’m big boned,” came the muffled excuse.

  “Yes, yes, you’re just husky. That’s what all mothers tell their children to make them feel better about being fat.”

  “What the fuck, Deneaux? I said get him out, not drive him into therapy.” I couldn’t tell specifically what she was doing, but by the way Porkchop was squealing and the way Deneaux was gritting her teeth I’d have to say she was pinching the hell out of him. This had the unfortunate consequence of making the kid rock back and forth on the pedals. I bounced my head off the steering wheel the first time he slammed the brakes.

  “Come on Lardy, get your ass up!”

  “My name is Porkchop!” he cried out. He finally popped out of that hole like a champagne cork.

  “Works every time,” Deneaux said as she looked at her claw-like hand.

  Porkchop was furiously rubbing his ass, fat tears streaked down his face. He tried to push as close to me as he could without being in my lap. The truck bucked as I regained control of the foot pedals.

  “Need an update, Deneaux.” I was sweating profusely, I was afraid my hands were going to slip with how slick they were.

  “I did not know you had the capability to hover,” she was gripping the door tightly. “From my angle I cannot see wheels on terra firma.”

  “Wonderful.” We were a butterfly kiss from being pushed over and I had at least another hundred yards before the pit finally curved away from us. I’m not proud of this, but I shut my eyes. No, I wasn’t going all use the force-y, I was just trying to keep from doing what I so naturally wanted to do, which was look to my left. Unlike Deneaux’s, my fear of heights is well documented and there’s no telling what I would have done if I only saw air and the occasional eagle flying by. Much like Porkchop’s wedged-in body I also kept the gas shoved to the floor, there was no room or option for finesse. We would brute force our way out of this or we wouldn’t.

  Five seconds...no more than ten, before someone shouted: “Clear!” I think I re-lived every highlight and lowlight twice in that time period. I braked and opened my eyes at the same time. When I got her stopped, I shoved it into first. By the time I got it up to third, the zombies were nearly back upon us, I was turning away and they were chasing. I was bathed in enough sweat that if someone were to gaze upon me they would think I’d just climbed out of a pool. Nobody said anything for a few miles, each of us attempting to move past this latest chapter in our live
s. No one had been hurt, but there would be a lot of sleepless nights to come, rehashing this one in our memory. After a bit, I got the wherewithal to look at the gas which was sitting comfortably at a half. Next I started to figure out where we were and where we should be going. I had been driving just to drive, basically like I was on auto-pilot.

  “You did alright, Michael.” Deneaux was attempting to act like this hadn’t ruffled those feathers of hers. The way the cigarette jiggled in her hand betrayed her composure. “I didn’t mean anything by the things I said,” Deneaux was talking to Porkchop, who was still sniffling. “I was afraid and was trying to anger you into moving faster.”

  I wasn’t liking this humanistic Deneaux, it was like watching a reptile try out emotions. Unnatural. I drove in the neighborhood of ten miles farther before I felt we had sufficient distance on the zombies. I wanted… no, I needed to hold Tracy and check on how everyone was doing. I’d not been expecting the amount of pain when I moved from that seat. I had been clutching every muscle in my body to the point where my bones hurt. It took a few minutes before I could stand straight up. There was a myriad of injuries from those in the back, contusions, bumps, bruises, fat lips, bleeding heads, very bad moods.

  “Want me to crack your back?” BT asked my hunched over form.

  “I’ll be alright in a minute. Help everyone down; we’ll take five.”

  Trip was one of the first down. “Ponch, do you realize there’s an infinite number of alternate realities where we didn’t make it out of there? Glad this wasn’t one of them.” Then he walked away.

  “Yeah, thanks for that,” I told him. He couldn’t hear me over the crinkling of the chips package he was opening.

  Tracy said nothing as she hugged me, just hugged me. One lone sob escaped my mouth as I buried my face into her shoulder. “It’s okay, we’re okay,” she said softly. We were given space as I did my best to recollect the pieces of me that were cracked or had broken off.

  “How about we don’t do that again?” she said.