by Mark Tufo
She looked up to Trip to gauge if he had any sort of reaction. She couldn’t tell, he was singing Fire on the Mountain at the top of his lungs, his hands beating rhythmically against the steering wheel. The bikers pulled back slightly. Stephanie hoped that they were going to give up. What she didn’t realize was that they were just attempting to get better firing angles on the tires. The bus rocked slightly as a tire on the other side was blown out in a hail of bullets.
“That’s going to be a pain in the ass to change,” Trip yelled. “Hold on!” Trip was laughing now. “Probably shouldn’t have taken that second dose!” Tears from laughter were streaming down his face.
‘Second dose of what?’ She wanted to ask, but she was finding herself pinned against the floor and the bottom of the seat as Trip lay heavily on the brakes. A couple of the bikers were halfway up the sides before they realized what was going on. One of the bikers was unfortunate to not have been paying attention. Steph could see his screaming face illuminated in the bright red of the brake lights. Caustic black smoke ripped up from his tires as he tried to brake in time, the front of his bike went under the bus, his face collided with the rear, his chin catching the metal right below the blown out window. Bloody stumps of teeth were launched into the bus almost hitting Stephanie’s stunned features. His bike had fallen away, but somehow the man was momentarily stuck on the edge. His jaw had been pushed back so far that his overbite was what was keeping him attached. His eyes were glazed over in shock, blood was pouring out of his nose and the top of his mouth. He lingered a few dreadful seconds longer before he fell away as well.
Trip juked the bus back towards the right, narrowly missing one of the bikers who was scrambling to slow down and get out of the path of the behemoth. He swerved into the soft shoulder of the roadway, his arms rippling against the forces that wanted to upend him. When he got to a complete stop, he took a moment to compose himself before he rejoined the chase. He hoped that his pants would dry before this was all over. His friend ‘Lucky’ was not quite his namesake as Trip clipped him. The bus lurched into the air as Lucky’s bike went underneath. Stephanie smacked her head on the seat above her hard enough that she felt like a cartoon character replete with stars and everything.
Trip had taken out another biker, but at the sacrifice of another tire. These were not numbers he could easily sustain; the city bus was equipped originally with six tires and he was down to four. The bikers stayed a good fifty yards back, wary that their adversary might do something else erratic. If they had known he was a burned out hippy, they may not have been quite as easily spooked.
Stephanie stayed low on the floor and crawled back up to the front. Trip looked down at her.
“Crawling counts as leaving your seat, ma’am.”
Steph pulled herself up into the seat behind him. She looked over his shoulder. He was doing a slightly slower speed of eighty-five. She noticed the gas gauge was sitting at half. She knew they had not traveled far enough that it should be that low. In addition to losing two tires, the gas tank had been compromised. And right now there were more bikers than she had bullets.
“I love you,” she told Trip.
“I love you too, honey, but that’s not going to get you out of your fare,” he said, reaching behind and grasping her shoulder.
Steph turned back to the bikers who had dropped off a little further and she knew why. The bus was leaving a steady stream of gas along the roadway like a cow pissing on a flat rock. It was only a waiting game now until the bus was drained dry, and like hyenas to a dying elephant, they would leap when the time was right.
“Want to drive for a minute? I’ve really got to take a leak,” he told Stephanie.
He started to stand before she could even comment. She reached through his legs to grab the wheel, he stepped over and she quickly slid in to his spot; the seat was roasting. Trip stumbled down the aisle as he fumbled with his pants. Stephanie watched his progress in the over-sized mirror.
“What are you doing?” she asked in alarm as she watched him brace himself against the rear frame of the bus, his pants down by his ankles. She imagined his penis flapping in the wind as he sent sprays of urine towards the unsuspecting bikers. “Well shit, if that doesn’t make them think he’s nuts, then nothing will.”
Trip was laughing like a loon.
“Is that guy pissing at us?” Blaze, the leader of the biker gang, asked. None of his people could hear him over the roar of their engines, but they had to have been thinking the same thing as they looked back and forth at each other. How crazy is this guy? He shuddered. He wouldn’t stray from their raid, because now it would look like a sign of weakness, but he would make sure to hang back a bit and wait for mop up duty.
“That was fantastic,” Trip said, coming up to his wife, his private parts at about eye level with her.
“You know you should really pull your pants up now,” she said, glancing over at him.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, looking down. “I was wondering why it was so difficult to walk. When’d we get a bus?” He looked around.
“You do know you’ve been driving for a couple of hundred miles right?”
“Fantastic!” he said, not elaborating. “How’d I do?” he asked in all seriousness.
“Not bad considering you don’t have a license.”
“Any problems with the boys in blue?”
“Haven’t seen one all day. Although for once, I wish they were out.” She glanced over to her mirror. “Trip, we’re running out of gas.”
“When you get to the first major route going north and south, take it,” he told her.
“Which way?”
“Which way is Maine?” Trip asked.
“North.”
“Then we go north.”
“Do you want to drive?”
“That’s crazy, how would we ever switch while you were driving? Stephanie, sometimes I just don’t know what you’re thinking.” He sat down and was still shaking his head a few seconds later.
By the time she saw the signs for 495 Northbound ahead two miles, her gauge was reading a quarter of a tank. Unless Mike’s house was in the next fifty miles, she didn’t know how they were ever going to get there. The bikers had kept their distance and maybe even a bit more so after Trip’s display, but they were close enough to strike at will. She apparently was doing enough worrying for the both of them. Trip was asleep on the small seat, his head completely bent back over the headrest so that his Adam’s apple was the highest point on his body. More than once she thought about driving the bus into a giant sign column or perhaps a bridge abutment.
And she may have if she could have been convinced that the maneuver would kill them both instantly. Her biggest fear was that they might only be incapacitated with a broken leg or arm and then they would still have to suffer the wrath of the bikers. She had a feeling the men behind would not be swift in their dealings with them.
“Why am I so willing to give up hope?” she asked quietly.
“Because it’s a fucked up world,” Trip said. He was watching her closely. She had not realized he had awoken and certainly was not expecting that he would have heard her.
She’d once made him take a hearing test because of some of his inane responses to the most basic of questions. He’d lost somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty percent of his hearing from concerts, but certainly not enough to explain all of his answers. She was certain she had asked her question soft enough that he should have not been able to hear it in a quiet living room if they were next to each other. The fact that wind was ripping through the bus, plus the flapping of destroyed tires striking the pavement, and add to that he was two seats away, should have made it impossible.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to him.
“We’re still alive and we’re still together. Plus, I have some killer weed. Want a hit? Want me to drive?” he asked as he nearly began to sit on her lap.
“Let me get out of the way, will you. The highway is coming up in about
a mile.” She pointed to a large sign with the familiar blue and white logo.
“Want to see something cool?” Trip asked he strapped on his seatbelt.
“Not really,” she told him in all honesty.
The bus began to pick up speed just as they were approaching the off-ramp.
“Trip, what are you doing?” she asked, dread rising up fast within her.
She was convinced it would be impossible for him to take the turn at this speed. She checked back towards the bikers and saw that they had fallen back even a little more. How much time will we have to escape from an overturned bus before they’re on us?
She felt her body get thrust against the bus wall, she was nearly pinned from the centrifugal force. Trip seemed to grow in his seat. She realized it wasn’t that he was getting bigger, but rather, he was rising up in the air as the tires on the left side of the bus lost their contact with the ground.
“Are you kidding me?” she shrieked.
The bus was halfway through the clover, and the wheels had not yet struck down. Trip was laughing and would occasionally look over at his wife, at the contortions to her body, and face.
“This isn’t even the good part,” he told her.
She didn’t even have time to respond before the magnet that was sticking her to the right was now pulling her to the seat back in front of her. The bus slammed back down to the ground as Trip lay down heavily on the brake. The smell of melting brake pads dominated the interior of the bus. Stephanie felt like a rag doll as she was pushed back into her seat. The bus was picking up speed as Trip drove it backwards.
“Look, ma, no hands!” Trip yelled as he drove with his knees.
“I’m going to kill you!” Stephanie screamed, holding on to anything that looked like it might save her life.
Blaze sped up when he saw the bus take the exit. He wasn’t overly concerned about losing the much slower vehicle, but he liked it better when it was within view. The rest of his posse followed suit. He was looking forward to the catching and the subsequent beatings of the occupants of the bus for what they’d done to some of his men. That he’d started the whole affair was of no consequence to him.
He hit the ramp at a modest seventy-five and was just starting to lean into the turn when he saw the massive white of the buses rear end looming up in front of him. He had at first mistakenly assumed that the driver had stopped and decided to make a last stand here or they were already making a run for the tree line. It was the bright white of the back-ups lights that made him realize his mistake, and not a moment too soon as he veered sharply off the road and into the long grass on his right. His handlebars were bucking wildly, and it took all of his balance and experience to keep the bike from spilling him.
The closest two riders behind him were not quite fortunate enough to realize that the bus was coming full speed at them. He was swearing loudly, wrestling his bike when the collision of metal on metal hit. The impact broke, glass, metal, plastic, and the easiest of all…bones. Out of the corner of his eye, he was able to see as the bus rode up and over his brother-in-law. Blaze was infuriated; it was the first man his sister had ever hooked up with that he actually got along with. And now his brains were dripping off the guardrail.
The second biker to collide with the back had not been as fortunate. His bike, with him attached, got caught underneath the bus. The rear wheel was slowly eroding his left leg away and his screams could be clearly heard over the destruction of his bike. When the rear wheel of the bus had finally caught a significant enough portion of his bike to pull it through, it ran over what remained of his leg and up and over his pelvic bones, crushing them into dust. The front wheel missed his head by scant inches; Blaze wished it had hit him if only to shut up his wailing. The rest of the bikers had enough time to see what was happening and avoid the bus.
Trip stopped quickly and slammed the transmission into Drive. He waved at Blaze as he drove past, a huge grin plastered on his face.
“He’s fucking crazy,” Blaze said, not for the first time. When he stopped shaking, he got his bike back up onto the roadway.
“What a fucking mess,” Armand said. He was Blaze’s second-in-command. A big burly man with a long flowing goatee and bald head, he was nearly twice the size of Blaze, and most folks that came across the ‘Double D’ or ‘Dying Days’ bike gang, wrongly assumed him to be in command.
“What do you want to do with TW?” Armand asked referring to the man whose shrieks were giving him a headache.
“Bandage him up, get him on a bike, and we’ll find him some help,” Blaze said.
Armand looked at his leader.
“I’m just fucking with you, let’s get out of here,” Blaze told him.
Armand waited until everyone mounted up and was ready to start the pursuit anew before he walked over to TW.
“Help me, man,” TW said, his bloodied arms outstretched towards Armand.
“I don’t know what the fuck you think I could do for you, man. How you missed a bus that big is beyond me, though.” Armand pulled his Colt 1911 from his holster.
“Wa-wait, m-man! I can ride. I can ride!” TW stuttered through a face full of broken teeth.
“I’d love to see that, I would. Gonna be a bitch changing the clutch with that leg though,” Armand said, referring to TW’s left leg that was only being held together by the stitching of his leather pants.
“Y-you can’t leave me here, man.”
“Why the fuck can’t I?”
“You…you’re my brother.”
“Not anymore.” Armand drilled a bullet in TW’s skull.
***
“What was that?” Stephanie asked as Trip got the bus back up to speed on the highway.
“Huh?” he asked her. “Oh look at that, there’s a rest stop ten miles ahead with a Burger King. You think, like, maybe a skeleton crew stayed on? I could really go for a smoothie.”
Stephanie looked to the rear and saw the bikers were back. They were short a couple, but still had enough to do what they had set out to do. “Trip, they’re still coming.”
“I just needed to buy us a little more time.”
“What do you know that I don’t?”
“There’s no secret, sweetie, every extra second I spend with you I treasure.”
“I…I think that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Plus there’s always the chance you’ll make the soufflé I’m so fond of.”
“And there’s the Trip I know and love.” She smiled and hoped that there truly was a heaven, because she couldn’t imagine spending an eternity without him.
Chapter 17 – Mike Journal Entry 8
After talking with Ron I didn’t want to talk to anyone else—maybe ever. I walked the perimeter of the fence probably a dozen times before I reneged on my communication blackout. Gary had almost everybody doing something on the truck retrofitting.
“How much longer?” I asked him through a shower of sparks as he cut through the side of the truck with a torch.
“Couple of hours at the most,” he replied, not stopping what he was doing.
I walked out.
“Where you going, Talbot?” BT asked, catching up to me.
“I’m going to bury my niece,” I told him.
“You said there were zombies all over the place.”
“I know.”
“It’ll be dangerous and foolhardy.”
“I know that, too.”
“You’re still going to do it, aren’t you.” He said as a statement and not a question.
“I have to, man. I don’t have a choice,” I told him, my voice quavering a bit.
“Don’t give me any shit; I’m coming with you this time.”
I didn’t say anything; his company was welcome. He came back a couple of minutes later with some spades he had dug out of a maintenance shed.
“Yeah, that’d probably help,” I told him, grabbing one.
“Mike?” Tracy asked, coming out from the ga
rage.
“I have to, Tracy.”
“Hurry back,” she said, giving me a small kiss that gave me the strength I needed to do what had to be done.
I saw Tommy watching us as we left. I was wondering if he had any thoughts or visions of what lay before us. I’d been thinking a lot about the kid and the first time we’d met. I didn’t know if he actually had a spirit guide that showed him signs or omens, or if it was his own self and he had developed that guise. I guess in the end, it didn’t matter. He’d saved us many times with his prophecies, the only thing was, he hadn’t had any in a long while. I wasn’t sure if it was because whatever well he had been dipping in had run dry or the future was so bleak he didn’t want to share it.
Travis locked up the gate after we walked out. “Tell her I said goodbye,” Travis said before turning away.
He’d only just gotten his man-card and didn’t want to damage it too much so soon. It’s perfectly acceptable to cry when no one can see you. He hadn’t been overly close with his cousin, but they were family and they’d shared enough laughs that he would miss her shining face.
So there we were, two men walking down a street in a zombie infested town, carrying shovels, heads bowed.
“You gonna be alright?” BT asked me.
“Oh, I would imagine eventually,” I said, finally gazing at something besides the pavement in front of my feet. “She was Ron’s firstborn, apple of his damn eye. Daddy’s little princess and all that. I’m trying to wrap my head around all of this. What if it was Ron telling me he had to kill Nicole because she was a zombie? I don’t think I could take it, man.” And BT watching or not, tears were flowing.
“You know I’m not good at this, right?” BT asked as he wrapped me in a hug.
“Still appreciated,” I mumbled into his chest.
“We really should get going,” he told me.
“I know.” I slowly pulled myself away. “Thank you.” We didn’t say anything else until we began to approach the apartment building. Maybe he was embarrassed or maybe he was pissed at the snot I’d left on his shirt.
