by Tufo, Mark
“How long is this thing?” I asked Hannah, coming back in.
“Grampy said it was longer than a football field,” Johnny piped up.
Tommy had stepped back from the window and taken a couple of shots as zombies were getting into a better position. BT was leaning a little outward at his window, he was using a boat oar that had previously been a wall decoration, to push zombies away.
“Fuck you!” BT spat, giving the zombies the finger.
“Stop it. You’re enticing them with those sausages.”
He swung around so I could get a sampling.
“What’s at the far end?” I asked, ignoring BT.
“Huh?” Hannah asked.
“At the end of the zipline, what’s there?”
“Umm, a tree,” she answered as if I were the densest material known to mankind. (Which is osmium, in case you were wondering. Tracy once called me dense during a disagreement, and for some reason, I thought looking up the densest material known to Man and telling her I wasn’t that bad, was a good idea. Again, I sometimes give credence to other’s arguments against me; I happen to find it endearing.)
“Big tree?”
“Mike, the cable probably weighs in excess of five hundred pounds and then it has to support the weight of the person riding. I’m going to go out on a limb and say yeah, it’s a big tree. And just FYI, the limb thing was a pun, because there’s no way I’m going out on one. Not to ride some cord through the woods. You whities do some of the stupidest shit. Rock climbing, hang gliding; those idiots that think they’re flying squirrels, all of them are white guys. Like the world wasn’t a dangerous enough place, they had to manufacture ways to mainline adrenaline. Only white folks do that shit. Not once have I ever seen a brother jumping off a cliff, head first. Want to know why?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because we know better.”
“You’re just afraid the thing won’t support your weight,” I replied.
“And that’s another thing. Why do we always have to do shit where my size becomes a factor? I never have to worry about that shit when my feet are on the ground.”
“Maybe you should have stayed away from your mom’s collard greens. You wouldn’t have grown up so big,” I said.
“You stay away from my momma. She was a saint.”
“Can you imagine if you were one of the Wright brothers? Would’ve set flight back fifty years.”
“That’s not bad; been saving that one up?”
“Did it on the fly.”
I was looking at a large coil of rope at the bottom of the cabinet, attached to a loop on the top of the tram. It was used for pulling the seat back. This time, however, it was going to double as our brakes.
“Hannah, how high is this off of the ground on the other end?” I asked.
“Pretty high,” was her answer.
“As high as this?” It was going to do no good if we all broke ankles on the other end when we jumped down.
“Not this high.”
I wanted to pop my head against the wall. I needed an answer I could gauge. “How about this: are there rocks at the other end? Barbed wire fence? Sharp pointy sticks? A dragon?”
“A dragon would be cool,” Johnny said.
“Not tonight,” I told him.
“Maybe not,” he agreed.
“Half this high?” Hannah offered.
“I don’t know, Talbot, that’s still a pretty steep drop.” BT was looking over the edge.
Tommy gave us all the incentive we needed to take the chance. He’d shot out of two separate windows in rapid succession to keep the zombies at bay.
“Either do it now or come back and help me!” he yelled.
“BT, you have to go first.”
“This a black thing?”
“Are you shitting me? What part of me do you think is racist?”
“Oh, I don’t think that at all. Just pulling out the race card because I don’t want to go.”
“Fair enough. But I’m sending the kids next, and I need you to catch them.”
“And if I break something?”
“Don’t.”
“Love it when things are that simple.” He grabbed the handlebars as I walked back into the house with the rope, walking around a post so that I would have something to brace his weight and keep him at a pace that wouldn’t get him killed or rip the leather from my gloves and ultimately the skin from my hands. I braced my feet against the pole and leaned back. Ready to belay him.
“Turn your comms on,” BT said. He waited a few seconds. “Ready?” He asked the question, but didn’t wait for the response. I grunted as I nearly became intimately acquainted with the pole as I was yanked forward.
“Shit.” I quickly spun around the pole with the rope so that I had another buffer between me and BT’s weight.
“Better move me quicker than this,” BT said.
I was afraid of going too fast and losing control, but too slowly and I risked the chance of him being spotted and us being eaten.
Hannah’s rifle roared as she helped Tommy defend. Johnny had wrapped a blanket around his hands, got behind me, and was helping hold the rope.
“This good?” I asked BT as I let the rope slide as fast as I dared.
“I’m not past them yet.”
“Shit. How far do you think you’ve gone?”
“Hundred feet more or less,” he whispered. “Whoa!”
“What’s up?” I was straining to slow him down.
“There’s a tree on the left about hundred and fifty feet down, pretty close. Have the others keep that in mind.”
Tommy’s actions were getting more frenetic as he bounced around windows doing his best to keep zombies from coming in. He alternated between shooting and beating them into submission.
“Speed is picking up, Mike—everything okay in there?”
I’d been so intent on keeping an eye on Tommy and Hannah I’d lapsed on the rope control.
“Slow me up! This train is coming to the station.”
My gloves were smoking, I had my teeth gritted, and was leaning my entire body away as I struggled to grasp the rope hard enough to get him stopped.
BT let out a loud grunt. “Fucking ouch, Mike.”
“Sorry,” I told him as I looked at my ruined gloves.
“Not so bad. Don’t see zombies. The problem is, I can’t see the ground at all. Got some low swirling fog.”
“BT, no time. Gonna have to risk it.”
He could hear what was going on here. Whether through the headset or over the air, it would have been hard to miss the commotion. He didn’t give me a hard time. Another grunt; I didn’t hear any swearing.
“BT?”
“I’m good, get the seat back.” His voice sounded strained. I could only hope he hadn’t injured himself beyond the jolt.
“Hannah, get ready. You and your brother are going at the same time.” I was pulling the rope back in great lengths as fast as I could. Johnny was doing his best to make sure it didn’t get tangled. I heard the clanging as the seat smacked into the sides of the little room.
“Go.” Tommy nodded to Hannah.
She looked over to me; I was worried I would see blame and animosity on her face for getting them in this situation. She nodded as she quickly grabbed Johnny.
“Kids are coming,” I told BT. Their combined weight wasn’t even half of the big man’s; I had them moving at a good clip. Tommy’s oar had smashed in half after a particularly violent hit. He was using the sharp half of it as a splintering spear, driving the wooden shards into the faces of zombies that kept appearing in front of him. He would spend no more than a few seconds at any one window before moving on.
“I hear them…little more, Mike. Okay, I can just see them. Stop. Hannah, let your brother drop—shit.”
“BT?”
“Kid didn’t let me get ready, barely caught him.”
“That was pretty fun,” I heard Johnny say in the background.
“Make sure he stays quie
t,” I told BT.
“Hannah, come on.” BT was waiting for the girl.
Nothing was happening. I could just about picture her, sitting there, shaking her head back and forth. Maybe she hadn’t shown me disdain when she left because she knew she was going to hold out on me. Stall just long enough that we wouldn’t be able to escape. Who the fuck not named Deneaux is that vindictive, though?
“Mike, she’s not dropping.”
“Come on, kid.” I was urging her on, even though she couldn’t hear me.
“Hannah, there are other lives at stake here. You have to jump,” BT said.
“Is she afraid of heights?” BT asked Johnny.
I didn’t think so, because she’d not hesitated in the least when she got on from this end. I figured she would have showed some signs. Maybe she was afraid of falling.
“Hannah, are you afraid…” Johnny had yelled; I figured he was cut off short by BT’s hand clamped around his mouth.
“Mr. T.” Tommy’s voice was strained; he was pushing back two zombies.
“BT, how far is she from the endpoint? I have to let go of the rope.”
“Twenty feet. She’ll be fine.”
The rope moved, but not with any speed. I quickly got next to Tommy and was firing. It was among some of the most intense, up-close fighting I’d yet to be involved with. The inside had finally been breached. At this very moment, I was happy for the lethality of the bullets I was shooting, despite knowing that ultimately, they were why we were in this fucking predicament to begin with. I was moving forward, trying to stem the tide of the invaders coming through the windows. If the zombie woman had been up here, she would have better dealt with us. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. The zombies coming in, instead of fanning out and surrounding us, were so blinded by hate and hunger they kept making a straight line for us. I kept my rifle aimed lower, mid-level, in the hopes it would travel through one and into the other. Every once in a while I got lucky. If I made it, I was going to reevaluate my weapon of choice, as the M-16 just didn’t have the punching power, and, oh yeah, I was going to get a sword. Definitely a fucking sword. I’d have to thank Eric for that idea, if I ever saw him again. I found myself in a precarious position when my bolt popped open. I was in a bad way: no ammo and an approaching enemy.
“Duck!” I felt the breeze of Tommy’s oar sweep over my head and crack solidly into the nearest zombie. It went down in a heap, its legs pumping wildly as it fell to the floor. My rifle is a great weapon of war for its intended use. As a club, not so much. I picked up a coffee table and bull rushed the next zombie, getting as much forward momentum as I could to push him, and those that followed, back and, hopefully, out the way they had come. One of those things that sounded great in theory. In practice, I made up half the distance before the sheer weight that was stacked against me first slowed, then stopped me. I made a loud oomph as Tommy ran into my back. Between the two of us, we were once again plowing through. Some toppled out, but not enough. Tommy pulled me back when it was time to abandon that move.
“Grab the other oar.” Tommy was lined up like a baseball player looking for a pitch to hit out of the park. I ran to the wall as I heard him striking zombies. I knew the moment I grabbed it that it was too large to swing around; I braced it up against the wall and kicked it to break it in half. Snapped off the flat part—still a little too long, but it was going to have to do.
“Got her!” BT said. “Come on!” he urged.
I was afraid to tell him we couldn’t. I figured he would risk everything in a vain attempt to come back and help. Tommy was swinging away; his hits were devastating to the enemy, breaking skulls, shattering facial bones, and in one case, breaking a neck so violently the head canted to the side. It was hard to believe we were in a fight for our lives, with how relatively quiet it was. The crashing rain had finally stopped. Yeah, there was the noise of the zombies falling in through the windows and moving across the broken glass or bumping and moving furniture, but there were no cries of pain, fear, nor anguish as we unrelentingly killed them. I would grunt out from exertion as I put all that I could behind every swing, but it was a far cry from the resounding noise of a high-speed projectile being supersonically fired from a gun.
“Mike, what’s happening?”
“In it,” was all I could manage to say.
“Mr. T, head for the line.”
“Not without you, Tommy.”
We both started angling that way, fighting as we withdrew. Not technically a retreat, just a regrouping in a different place.
“The seat is still at the other end,” I managed to say after I drove the end of my oar into the waiting mouth of a zombie. I broke out a few of its teeth, dislocated its jaw, and obliterated its nose. We were pushed back far enough that swinging was out of the question; we were now just shoving and holding them back as best we could.
“Hold them off,” Tommy said. If I’d had the time or the inclination, I would have asked him what the hell did he think I was doing. I spared the slightest of glances as he was pulling off his equipment harness and belt. I knew what he was doing, but I wasn’t sold on how the outcome would play out. He wanted to slide along the cable using the belt and harness, like James Bond would. It looks great in the movies, but very rarely does that stuff transfer over to real life. If the pitch wasn’t steep enough to overcome the friction of the belt, we’d just be dangling like raw chickens over the eager and hungry mouths of hundreds of zombies. Hardly an enviable location.
“Go!” I told him as he draped his belt over my shoulder. If we switched positions, it would be too close. In a couple of seconds, I was alone. I forced back the closest zombies and stepped into the mini closet-slash-launch point, pulling the door closed behind me. Tommy was either gone or was doing one hell of a job hiding. I grabbed the webbed khaki belt, looped it around my left hand first then started to loop it around my right, before my battle-fogged brain figured it might be a bit smarter to throw it up and over the zipline before I did that.
“So fucking stupid,” I said, not even referring to my near blunder but rather the entire predicament and the subsequent escape attempt. There is no way a well-armed, well-trained unit should need to be doing this kind of crap. “Fuck James Bond,” I said as I pushed off, hoping to give myself a measure of speed. I needn’t have worried. The pitch was a little steeper than I remembered, and what I could see was flying past. I was doing my best to remember what side the tree was on that BT had warned about. My hands were losing circulation as the belt dug in; somehow I didn’t think that was going to be my biggest problem.
I was moving through the fog, couldn’t see much more than three or four feet in any direction. My speed kept increasing. I was waging an internal war of when to let go: Had I passed the zombies by? Was I close to BT? Or worse, the finish line, which was punctuated by an oak tree? Sometimes life doesn’t give you an opportunity to contemplate your actions. It just goes on ahead with its grand design. Maybe I should have smelled the burning fibers. I didn’t. The cable cut through the belt with alarming speed. I had just adjusted my grip when I felt myself falling away. Funny, but I gripped the now useless belt even tighter. Pretty sure that was a useless effort.
I was flying—nope, scratch that. I was falling with extreme prejudice. It happened too fast for me to imagine the potential damage that awaited me upon landing. Were there rocks? Tree roots? Zombies? Would it be my face, head, arms, legs, that took the brunt of the imminent collision? Even if, by all the graces of the gods, I hit soft dirt, I was still going to suffer damage. Just had to hope it was something I could walk off, or in this case, run off. I wanted to scream out; I didn’t, though. Falling through the fog…I’d had nightmares like this. I usually woke up in a sweat, heart and mind racing at the near calamity before I realized I was on a bed, clutching a soft pillow. As much as I wanted this to be a figment of my imagination, it was all too real. I braced my arms just as the toes of my boots hit dirt. This was where I was going to bounce on my face, br
eak my jaw, bust my teeth to match the nose—should be fun. Then it got weird. I know, right? Mike, how does it get weird now? Tommy was waiting for me with open arms. He wrapped his arms around my midsection and we twirled and twirled like lovers under the starry skies, listening to music only we could hear. Yeah, that’s a strange analogy, but I was being spun around, my legs completely lifted off the ground as he was doing his best to dissipate my momentum, and you know what? Right then I could have kissed him for it and I wouldn’t have felt weird at all. When he finally put me down, I was dizzy and needed a few steps to right the ship, but other than that, I was doing fairly decent.
“How?” was all I could think to ask.
“I was tracking the noise of the belt. I was about to tell you to let go.”
“How close?” I asked breathlessly.
Tommy reached out and slapped the trunk of the tree that had waited for my Wile E. Coyote-style meeting.
“BT, the kids?” I was having a difficult time speaking in complete sentences.
“Had them move out of the way, in case I missed.”
“Let’s get out of here, and thank you.”
“You would have done the same.”
“I would have tried; not sure of the outcome,” I told him in all honesty.
“Got any more shitty ideas?” BT rested his hand on my shoulder.
“Give me a minute. I’m sure I can come up with something. For now, let’s put as much distance as we can between them and us.”
Johnny was riding atop BT’s shoulders, Hannah must have been a cardio freak because she had no problem keeping up. We were moving as fast as we dared, which equated to a trot because of the darkness and fog. We’d been lucky so far and hadn’t encountered anything more than a rock outcropping, which I tripped over. By the time the sun was coming up, there wasn’t one of us that wasn’t exhausted. It was only Johnny that was getting a decent snooze upon his perch.
