by Mark Tufo
“Bullet severed an artery, even with your ramped up powers, you still nearly bled out,” he said softly.
“Why does my mouth taste funny?” I asked him.
“We had to, Mike, there was no choice.” Tracy came up to stroke the side of my head.
“Had to what? That had better not fucking be what I think it is,” I said, attempting to stand, but the movement of the truck and my brain made that a difficult prospect.
“Relax, it’s not black blood,” BT laughed. “Is there such a thing as a racist vampire?” he asked Tommy.
“That’s not fucking funny,” I told BT. “You’d probably taste bad anyway, too much mean.”
“I wanted to, Mike, I did,” BT said seriously. “Tommy thought it would be a bad idea.”
That made sense. I had already been dying; introducing zombie-tainted blood would have sent me over the edge.
“Who then?” I was looking around. “No…please,” I said when I looked over to Tracy.
“We had to,” she pleaded.
“Oh, Hon, this is not how I wanted things to go down. I’m so sorry,” I told her.
“I’m fine, you’re fine. I’ve given more blood to the Red Cross, and I even got a juice box from Tommy.” She smiled.
“We have juice boxes?” Travis asked, peering over the back of his seat.
Tommy stood up and went over to his pack to get one for him.
“Did…did I bite you?” I asked. I had to know. Did I now repulse her?
“We’ll be together forever now,” she said sweetly.
“No!” I cried.
“Hey! I’m not that high-maintenance of a woman,” she said, visibly hurt.
“It’s not that, it’s not that at all. This is a hell I would not wish on BT, much less you.”
“Nice, man, real nice.” BT got up.
“I’m sorry, I was playing,” Tracy said quickly when she realized it was physically hurting me to think she was like me now. “Tommy made a small cut.” She held up her arm, a white gauze bandage wrapped around it.
“If it ever comes down to that again, just let me go,” I told her, burying my head in her chest.
“Not a chance,” she said, wrapping her arms around my head.
“I really kind of like it in here,” I told her as my face was mashed against her breasts.
“You’re ridiculous.” She pushed my head away.
“I’d never leave the house if I had breasts. I’d probably just stare in the mirror all day and play with them,” I told her.
“You almost died less than an hour ago and now you’re talking about having breasts?” she asked.
“I’m alive, I plan on reveling in it and if that involves make-believe breasts, who am I to deny that thought?” I asked her.
“I know I did not just hear what I thought I heard,” BT said as he walked past, taking a big sip off his juice box straw.
“You know those are for kids, right?” I asked him.
He slurped louder. “And it’s delicious.”
I sat there a while longer, left to my own thoughts--usually not a great idea during the best of times. It was then that I began to notice a grinding sound and a slight hitching in the truck that was getting progressively worse.
“Dad awake?” Justin asked his brother from the front of the truck.
“I am,” I said, standing. I felt world’s better than I had just a couple of minutes previous.
“Uncle Gary wants to see you,” Justin said.
Got a feeling I know why, I thought, my mind racing to figure out what we were going to do once the truck broke down.
“Hey, Mike,” Gary said. “How you feeling?”
“Better than the truck,” I responded. “What’s going on?”
“I think the transmission took a bullet or two, or it was on the skids anyway. But either way, we’re going to be in some real trouble soon.”
Too late, man, we’re already in trouble, I thought. “How much longer do we have?” I asked.
“Few miles, I guess, before the wheels lock up or the transmission falls onto the highway or the gears inside just break and we start free-wheeling or possibly—”
“I get it, brother, I get it. Pull off the highway.”
“Again?”
“I’m not going to sit in this steel box while those idiots figure out a way to get in. All they’d need to do would be find one RPG,” I said. Gary looked horrified.
I thought the odds of them really being able to come across a rocket-propelled grenade were slim. I mean, it’s not like you can go to an Arms Я Us and snag one, but that still didn’t change the fact that I didn’t want to be stuck in a box. The next exit was two miles up the road, and the truck was starting to vibrate something fierce.
“Dad? Smells like something is burning back here, and it’s nothing of Trip’s,” Travis said.
“Well that’s not good,” Gary said.
By the time we were pulling off the highway, our speed had reduced by half and we were leaving a black cloud in our wake. The ride had gotten so rough that the truck felt like we were running on flats.
“Grab whatever stuff, you need,” I told everyone. “We’re going to be evacuating soon.” I wasn’t seeing any buildings that gave me the ‘castle’ type feeling. We were in a mostly industrial area. Warehouses and bars were in the majority.
I didn’t like the idea of the large metal buildings. The wide open design would leave few areas to hide and plenty of ways in for a hostile force. The bars were looking better, but I couldn’t get Shaun of the Damned Dead out of my head. Sure, he’d survived, but at some serious cost of life.
“Can you make it there?” I asked, pointing to where I wanted to go.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to make it to the next painted line in the roadway, Mike,” Gary had to say loudly over the battering of the transmission’s internal components as they ripped each other apart.
“Do your best,” I told him before turning my attention back to the rear of the truck. “Okay, there is a stucco white apartment building. It will be on the passenger side of the truck when we stop. That’s where we’re heading.” I announced to everyone.
“You and me, Henry,” I said, reaching down to tuck him under an arm. His little stub tail was wagging wildly. He apparently was not picking up on how anxious I was, because he was all smiles and slobber. “You getting lighter, big dog?” I asked as I kissed his face.
“Get a room,” BT said.
“I plan on it,” I told him.
His confused look passed over quickly. “Shit, man, that was pretty good.”
“I’ve been working on my timing and delivery.”
This was followed by a loud clanging noise that sounded suspiciously like a vault door slamming shut or possibly a transmission hitting the roadway. The good money was on option two.
“Mike, we’re coasting!” I heard Gary shout after he revved the engine and there was no response from the vehicle’s transfer box.
“How far to the apartments?”
“Couple of hundred yards.”
“We going to make it?” I asked.
“Yeah, but we’ll probably be going slower than if we got out and walked.”
As it was, I didn’t know if we were much over ten miles per hour at the moment. Still, two hundred yards was a long way to run with motorcycles on your ass.
“BT, can you take Henry?” I asked.
“Why, Talbot?” Tracy asked.
“We need covering fire, Hon, and I can’t do that with his beautiful mug in my face,” I said, squishing his shortened muzzle with my right hand. Henry proceeded to sneeze on me. “Me and Tommy are going to give you guys the rest of the time to make it to that building.”
Tracy saw the reasoning; now that’s not to say she agreed with it, I’m just saying she saw the validity of the reason. There’s not a woman alive that will let the facts get in the way of them winning an argument.
“Fine, just don’t get shot again,” she
told me as she grabbed her backpack.
Really? I thought. Wouldn’t that kind of be the first thing I would avoid? That’s like saying, ‘Don’t let that train hit you’. Or, ‘don’t let the chainsaw-wielding madman disembowel you’. Or better yet ‘Contents of Coffee Cup are extremely hot, do not pour in lap’.
A turtle hopped up on a double espresso would beat the plow’s pace in a race at this point. “Everyone ready?” I asked as I gripped the release to open the tailgate. I got a bunch of nods. “Okay, everyone remember the drill.”
“Yeah, dad, you said it like five times. When we drop down, we take two shots and then haul ass,” Travis said.
And then the automatic response of ‘no swearing’ came out of mine and Tracy’s mouth. I’m not even sure we knew we were saying it anymore. Maybe I’d dwell on that at a later point…if given the opportunity.
The truck was grinding to a halt as I pulled the lever. The tailgate opened slightly and I held it open with the bar Gary had put there expressly for this purpose. It kept the heavy door a good two or so feet open, plenty of room for a normal human to get through. BT damn near got stuck.
I was the first down. The bikers weren’t quite so prepared to see a gunman, then a second as Tommy joined me, then a third. BT had not fired. He and Henry were heading straightaway for the building like I’d asked. Trip was the only near flaw in the plan, he started running towards the bikers. I reached out and spun him around, pointing for him to follow his frantic wife.
“Oh, I thought they were here to help,” he said as he ran off.
Gary and Justin were staying on their flanks as the main body of the small group headed in. The bikers were getting bolder as more and more of us headed off. They’d stopped as well and were getting ready to lay down some effective counter-fire.
“Time to go,” I told Tommy. “Shit,” I said immediately upon turning.
Gary and Justin were trying to help BT up, who was on all fours. Henry was by his side barking, I think in encouragement for his ‘ride’ to get up.
“Help him!” I shouted to Tommy, while I turned back around.
The bikers were already beginning to converge. I didn’t even bother aiming as I laid down a spray of bullets; it was enough to get their attention. Bullets were flying by me, but what was worse was that the group in front of the building was being targeted as well. I saw Tommy spin slightly as he took a round. He was doing his best to shield the quartet from harm. Justin grabbed Henry as Tommy picked up BT. Gary sent a few rounds down range to get me some help. It was greatly appreciated.
Then I heard an explosion of glass and rifles being fired from within the apartment building. At first my heart sank thinking that perhaps those inside were now involved in a different battle; then I realized it was Tracy and Travis helping out as well. That was all the prodding I needed as I nearly caught up to Tommy. We were all breathing heavily in that small foyer. BT seemed to be getting slightly better.
I put my hand on his shoulder as he was hunched over.
“I’m good,” he said with long runnels of drool hanging from his mouth.
“Good, ‘cause you look a little like Henry right now,” I told him.
“I hate you.” It was difficult for him to talk, but he got it out.
The apartment was five full floors of squalor (alright a little poetic license there). How about ‘meh’? It looked very utilitarian. There wasn’t graffiti plastering the walls or crack-heads shooting up in the hallways, it was just a shitload of cinderblocks. This looked more like something the Soviets would have built, that’s all I’m saying. The place was a giant rectangle bisected by a main corridor on each floor and an enclosed stairwell on each end. The place could have been a fortress if there had been enough time to remove the cement stairs. It would be many hours with a sledgehammer and a jackhammer to get that done.
“What now, Talbot?” Tracy asked, joining us in the hallway we had just entered.
The bikers were coming; it would have been impossible to not hear the flood of their engines. I didn’t like the idea of staying on this floor because the windows would become vulnerable to attack. I also didn’t want to go too high up, because then we lost a potential avenue of escape through those windows.
“Second floor, let’s go.”
“Dad, I think there’re zombies,” Travis said.
And then I caught the caustic whiff of malodor.
“It’s Henry.” Tommy pointed.
Henry was busy trying to send carpet fibers over his latest creation as his back paws scraped at the industrial rug.
“That’s as good a reason to get out of here as any,” I said. We went down the full length of the hallway to the opposite stairwell and up. “I really hate closed doors.” I grumbled as I went a couple of doors down and knocked.
I made sure to step to the side and avoid what I figured would be a hail of bullets punching through. My apprehension grew the longer we waited for a response. The first floor had been remarkably free of any sort of hint of the apocalypse, the second not so much. Blood and tissue had long since dried on a fair amount of the walls and doors. Casings and the resultant holes were all over the place. What wasn’t there, were bodies, human or zombie. And that normally meant human inhabitants, and I can’t imagine they’d be all that thrilled that I’d brought another fight to their door step.
After no response to my entreaty, I gingerly checked the doorknob, fully expecting a gunshot for my efforts. “Locked, dammit.”
“Were you perhaps expecting an invite?” BT asked.
“That would have been nice and at least you’re feeling good enough to give me shit.”
“Want me to kick it in?” Gary asked.
“Whoa, whoa, hold on, Gambo,” I said. “You kick it in, and they know exactly where we are.”
“We stay in this hallway and we’re going to have the same problem,” BT said. We all nodded at that.
“Alright, fan out. Let’s quickly work down the hallway. Knock first then check the door knob. First unlocked one…we’re heading in.”
We were about halfway down the corridor when the silence became deafening. It’s like that moment when you’ve been at a rock concert and the band has concluded their show and are exiting stage right. The whole night you’ve been communicating with those around you on a different level with hand gestures (usually a drinking motion to signify ‘more beer?’) or yelling into each other’s ear or enjoying the cocoon of noise that envelopes you so completely you can immerse yourself in the music. When it’s over, you have to go through a readjustment period. The resultant silence is deafening, and that’s what I meant. The bikers had shut off their engines which I had to figure meant they were coming in.
“Dude, open up, I’ve got some killer smoke,” Trip said to apartment 221’s door.
“As good a reason to let someone in as any,” BT said as we all watched Trip twist the knob and head straight in.
My heart raced with visions of Trip being blown back by a shotgun. I ran down the hallway to hopefully prevent that, or at least catch him as he fell. Nothing happened except the sweet smell of some burning leaf.
“Looks like he decided to start without them.” BT leaned up against the doorframe.
I could only shake my head. “Everyone in.” Not gonna lie, it seemed weird that we would be making a last stand in a crappy apartment. I guess it’s truly weird when you have to make a last stand anywhere, truth be told.
The apartment was cleaned out. Whatever provisions it held were gone, could have been from the previous occupants or someone scavenging. It was nice at least that the place wasn’t the site of any bloodshed, those were few and far between. Gary turned the lock once we made sure there were no surprises within. There was a small corridor that led to the main room, the kitchen was on the right as you came in. I just couldn’t see it being worth the bikers’ trouble getting in here. We’d already bled them so much. I guess when you have nothing more to lose, what’s the difference? That’s what
made them scary. I almost got the feeling they wanted to die.
“Trav, Justin, you guys keep an eye on the windows. Stay back enough so that no one can see you just in case someone gets the grand idea to put a ladder up or something. Tracy, you and BT take the kitchen. Me, Tommy, and Gary will hold them from the front.”
I figured they were in for a world of hurt. If they’d listen, I’d love to tell them it wasn’t worth it. Especially not to me, maybe their leader didn’t give a shit about his people, but everyone in this apartment was precious to me.
“What about us?” Stephanie asked.
Trip could be as big of a liability as an asset. I really didn’t want to make that coin flip. “See if there is anything in this place that you think we can use, a roll-away fire escape ladder would be perfect. Barring that, maybe see if you can tie some sheets together for a makeshift get-away.”
“Does that really work?” Stephanie asked.
“I really hope we don’t have to find out. Anything less than a two thousand thread count isn’t going to hold BT anyway.”
“Talbot, I’m right fucking here, I can hear you,” BT said.
Then, from below us, we heard, “I’m going to find you!”
“You’re going to wish you hadn’t,” BT said.
There were gunshots below us, and then the slamming open of doors. No subtlety there. We were all tense in anticipation. I can’t even begin to tell how many times I’ve been shot at, and it never gets easier—you’re always waiting for that stray bullet that catches you in the neck or face or straight through the heart. The body just starts pegging all of the senses to hyper-awareness. I could easily see why some men love this stuff so much that they become professional soldiers. It becomes its own drug, something that doing daily errands will never achieve, unless, of course, it’s in Afghanistan or somewhere equally deadly.
The sound of gunfire followed a door slamming open changed into screams of alarm and then a near constant rate of fire. They’d stumbled on a heavily armed homestead or…
“Zombies!” someone screamed.
“Blaze, there’s dozens of them coming up the stairwell!”
