by Mark Tufo
“They’re shooting!” BT shouted. I was completely unsure as to who he was informing, we were all abundantly aware. A round punched through the tailgate and punctured two five-gallon buckets of oil. I quickly grabbed them and salvaged what I could, putting the leaking fuel into the funnel. They had halved the distance while I was distracted. By the time I stood, I could make out individuals.
“Any time you want to join the fray is fine with me, Captain!” Eastman said. “I doubt you’re waiting for my order to do so, but you have my blessing!”
Sometimes you have luck on your side, other times, it goes a step further and the planets align in just the right manner and shine down on you. This was the latter. I had just pulled the trigger as the major drove over a branch. The gun first rose as I fired then came back down. Within ten rounds, I had obliterated the front end of the leading truck. It veered hard to the side before driving off the road. I wanted it to flip a couple of times and do a movie explosion. Didn’t get either of those desires; a boy can dream, though. The rest pulled back somewhat. I would have flipped them off, but with that many machineguns pointing in my general direction, I wasn’t feeling overly cocky.
At some point, I saw the “Welcome to Nevada” sign, and we’d not been attacked again. I wanted to sit back down, get some rest, maybe eat something. The not-as-well-cited but still very real Lack-of-Battle Fatigue, was setting in deep. When you amp up for a conflict, your body expects a rapid conclusion—either you’ve destroyed the enemy or you’ve made it to a safe zone. At that point, your body is expecting, no, demanding that you get some rest. I had to lock my knees in place to keep my legs from wobbling. I knew enough from being in the Marines during extended formations that this was never a good idea, something to do with blood flow. Seen a lot of my fellow soldiers topple over doing just that. You’d think the windbag giving his or her speech would take that as a hint, that maybe it was time to wrap things up. Like, maybe the band should start playing loudly and others would usher the blowhard off the podium. Never happened, though. I eased up my stance when my vision began to tighten.
Every time I figured Knox’s goons were going to keep the status quo, I would move to sit, and each time, they would begin to close the gap. If they were harrying me to exhaustion, it was working perfectly. I was just pushing up to stop them when Jackson tapped on the glass.
“Here.” He was holding out a pill, an orange and white capsule. In all my numerous encounters with drugs, I’d not come across this one. “Adderall,” he said as I stared at his palm.
“Great,” I told him, not knowing what to do with that information.
“It’ll keep you awake.”
I grabbed and swallowed it before he could pull his hand back. Not much changed those first fifteen minutes as I clung to the gun. Then, without warning, it was like I’d had jumper cables attached to my ears and my mind had been shocked. “Whoa.” I snapped awake and, as my brain sent a weird chemical mix throughout, I was actively looking forward to the battle. Happy about it, in fact.
“Come on fuckers!” I made a sweeping motion with my arm. They didn’t rise to the challenge. I felt hyper-focused, like I could zero in my eyesight like a telescope. I decided to test out the theory. With my arms muscled into a set position, I again fired. I was yelling as I sprayed the area behind me with a couple hundred rounds. “Fuck yeah!” I cheered as I stitched the windshield of one of the cars. Blood sprayed across the remaining glass as if a giant bottle of cherry soda had exploded. It collided with another car before crashing into the guardrail and stopping. Unfortunately, the other car had righted itself, and the group had not suffered any more collateral damage. There was a surge of half the group before they all pulled farther back. They had to be receiving orders from Knox not to engage, but why? Did he want us alive, so he got to kill us in a more personal way? This wasn’t a James Bond movie. When you have the ability and opportunity to kill your enemy, don’t do so in some elaborate way fraught with openings your opponent can take advantage of to thwart you. Villain extermination 101: they don’t need your life story; just kill the fucker. The truck began to slow down. I wondered if it was some sort of mechanical issue or maybe a bullet had struck the gas tank and we were out of fuel. I’d not been expecting Eastman to casually get out of the driver’s side and do a huge stretch.
“Any chance you want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, keeping an eye on our pursuers, who had also slowed and stopped.
“It’s obvious they’re not going to overtake us yet. Looks like we’re being driven to some spot up ahead. I have a kink in my back and I wanted to try and work it out.”
BT tossed me a bottle of water. I noted with some fascination that it appeared to be moving in slow motion, though my action to snag it out of the air was double speed. I felt like a kid who had just been bitten by some radioactive insect and now possessed superpowers.
“I don’t know what’s in this shit but I like it,” I said.
“Want some jerky? Found it in the truck.” BT was waving a bag.
“Was it open?”
I asked as he gnawed through a piece.
“Yeah. Smells like teriyaki.”
“I’m not concerned about the flavoring but more about where the protein came from.”
“Jerky is usually cows.”
“Seen any cows lately, BT?”
“You motherfucker,” he said before spitting it out and tossing the bag to the ground. “You don’t think that’s people meat, do you?” He looked at the bag like it might sprout eight legs and run around.
“It does look like a bag of scabs, if I’m being honest.”
BT dry wretched. I had been messing with him, but honestly, the bag was not labeled, and who the hell knew what was what in this present-day nightmare. “Worst friend ever.” He walked away, spitting.
Jackson picked the bag up and sniffed. “Smells okay to me.” He took a big piece out and began to eat. “Wild turkey, if I had to take a guess.”
“Or human?” BT prodded.
“Now that you mention it, I do taste subtle undertones that could suggest that.” Jackson smiled at me as BT turned away.
“Feeling better, Major?” I asked as I took a piece.
“A lot. Still wouldn’t mind a professional evaluation and a few days in bed. And something that didn’t taste like smoked male.”
“Fuck you both…sirs.”
“Should I shoot?” I asked. It was weird. We were all just staying where we were, a lot of the people from the pursuit cars were also out, taking care of some basic necessities, an impromptu ceasefire.
“They might not have orders to shoot, but if push comes to shove, there’s a good chance they will defend themselves, and they have superior firepower.”
“So that’s a maybe?”
“Only in your world, Captain,” Eastman said.
I looked back at him then swiftly past him to an underpass. I can’t explain it correctly, but I saw green lines highlighting height, distance, speed, angles, firing vectors like I was a friggen’ cyborg calculating odds. “Um, I have an idea.” I think my eyes were gleaming.
“You all right?” BT asked.
He asked the same question after I laid out what was a relatively simple plan. Surviving it was going to be the hard part.
We killed off the jerky and the water, and BT even joined in our less than adequate feast, choosing not to listen to me as I talked about how a sophisticated palette like my own could discern between male and female.
“Sophisticated palette my ass. You think a cheeseburger is fine dining,” he’d said and he wasn’t wrong. “Ready for this?” He looked up.
“Sure, why not?” Maybe the reality of the situation was settling in or the serotonin dump in my head was beginning to slow down.
“Mike, when you brim with confidence like that, it really gets the rest of us motivated.” BT made a fist and shook it. I reached down and bumped it. “Stay safe.”
“You too, man. Major, let’s g
et this show on the road.”
He watched Jackson enter and was going around the front to do so himself. He’d just put the truck in gear when I yelled for him to stop.
“Second thoughts?” He asked.
“Oh, thank god,” BT sighed.
“No, just want to start a new ammo can.” I looked at BT. Got everything squared away, even fired off a round to make sure it was going to feed correctly; sent the folks down the road scurrying for cover. “Sorry! My bad!” I waved. Got a few choice swears back and multiple one-finger salutes.
“Ready?”
I nodded as Eastman got underway. He hit the off-ramp at speed, I was holding on to that machinegun like a stripper does her pole as she’s twirling vertically and upside down. The tires were squealing as they decided whether to grip the roadway or fishtail; lost a couple of five-gallon jugs as they flipped over and out. Eastman blew through the stop sign at the top of the ramp…where were the cops when you needed them? Fifty feet later we were on top of the overpass and I was looking nearly straight down at the trucks and cars. Most of them didn’t even know what hit them as I started punching fist-sized holes through vehicles, passengers, drivers and gunners alike. The carnage was instantaneously devastating. Maybe one of them got a shot off, but if they did, I wasn’t witness to it and besides, they didn’t hit anything vital. Bodies were slumped over or tossed from their perch, cars careened into the bridge or each other, the scraping of metal on metal and concrete nearly as loud as my machinegun. In less than a minute it was over. Twenty-one of Knox’s people were dead or dying. We went down to salvage some supplies. I looked over each person, hoping that one of them was Knox himself, no such luck.
If you could get past the fact that these bodies weren’t even cool yet, we managed a pretty decent haul, on top of our victory. A half dozen gallon jugs of water and two cases of MREs. Well, technically, one and a half, as I’d blasted through part of a box and most of those contents were soaked in blood. I’d destroyed most of their reserve fuel, but one of the buckets we’d dropped and a half container of theirs were still viable. Jackson was confident we had more than enough to make it back.
“What are you doing?” BT asked as I pulled the driver out of one of the trucks, he fell to the ground with a resounding crack.
“Gonna give Knox one final chance to back off.”
“You seriously think that’s going to work?” BT came closer.
“Not at all, but angry people do stupid shit and I can’t think of a better way to make him angry.”
“You realize he’ll most likely come upon this scene himself and see it, right?”
“What fun is that?”
“Mike, almost two dozen people are dead; what part of this is fun?” For one stormy second, I could see it in BT’s eyes that he maybe saw something he didn’t like, a darker path that I was being forced to explore. Like he didn’t know me at all, and the deeper I went down that passageway, the less he would. I was suddenly hurt and may have stepped away if not for the tiny man in the radio asking for an update. BT walked away when I picked up the microphone. I didn’t give it another thought then, but later I would and often, for a good long while, even after it no longer mattered, because I guess it would always matter.
“Yo, is Knox around? Tell him he may want to sit down for this…I’ve got some bad news,” I told the go-between.
“Talbot,” the word spoken like it was a taboo swear.
“Just wanted to let you know, all those you had trailing us no longer walk this plane of existence. Considering they were hanging out with you, I would imagine their afterlife isn’t much better.”
Didn’t hear anything for quite a while. I imagined him kicking and screaming wherever he was. It had to be relatively close, if what Eastman said was true regarding transmission distance. Sort of surprised I couldn’t hear him without the radio.
What he said next sounded more like a feral growl, filled with pain and rage. “My brother was in that group.”
There was a punching weight to that statement, and I had to pause. Before that, they were just nameless, faceless enemies. Sort of like Stormtroopers or clones from Star Wars; no one gives a shit when they get mowed down. You never see their faces, no one ever drops beside them and wails and, anyway, they work for the bad guys, right? Take the helmet off and show one of them with their kid and the whole dynamic changes. I shook the thought off. I couldn’t do what needed to be done if I dwelt on the humanity of our situation, or worse, the inhumanity of mine. I was genuinely sorry to hear it, but when you put yourself out there trying to take from others, to capture others, to kill others, you can’t be shocked when it blows up in your face. Sometimes bad things happen to bad people too and sometimes they die young. The good don’t have those markets cornered.
“Before, there was a chance for those with you. I’m always looking for good soldiers to fill out my ranks. Now there will be no quarter.”
“Bring it, Knox. I’m looking forward to ending your pathetic little reign. I’ll call you king for a day when I finish the job. I once heard that the average person is forgotten after two generations, but history will not be as kind to you—you’ll be erased before your body cools.”
“You’re dead!” he screamed.
“Yeah, you said that. Maybe come up with a better line or get a new writer.” I tossed the mic back into the truck before I walked away.
“Happy?” BT asked.
“Yeah, just fucking thrilled.” I think my happy pill was beginning to wear off.
“Want me to take over on the gun?”
“I’m good. I’m covered in oil—I’ll fuck up the seats. No one else needs to be a mess like me.” The double meaning wasn’t lost on him, and, though that was part of it, the other was that I wanted to be alone. That was starting to become standard operating procedure for me. BT turned the truck around and we were once again heading down the highway. Made it all the way across the desert, and Knox had yet to make good on his threat. I knew they were close; what I didn’t know was what he was waiting for. We’d just passed Reno, then crossed the California border—god, it was beautiful out there in a desolate way I could not explain. Eastman told me we were less than three hours away.
“A hundred-eighty minutes. That’s it.” I wanted to hope that it would all be over at that point, that we’d slip through any grasp Knox attempted and get on that boat. As we neared Sacramento, BT slowed; when I stood to look over the cab, I saw why. There was a wall of cars stacked some twenty feet in the air. I knew traffic jams could be chaotic in this state, but this was above and beyond. This wasn’t some Blues Brothers multiple car crash scene, either. The wall had been meticulously made, most likely with a crane. The entire highway and surrounding green belt was wholly impassable. This was not Knox’s doing; this may have been here since the beginning. Plenty of survivalists up this way. Building this barrier was probably a highlight of the apocalypse for them. But whether it had become a way to keep the zombies in or out, we couldn’t tell. Though…what good would it have done? Here on the roadway it would have only stopped refugees. As far as we knew, none of the zombies had waited at the DMV to get a license. Although they should…they had all the time in the world to do so.
“Shit.” BT turned around to look through the rear window. “Shit,” he repeated.
I turned to see what he saw. It looked like a scene from Mad Max. Dozens of cars and trucks were streaking toward us. BT didn’t take a vote on what to do next—he turned back around and was racing straight for the wall.
“Grab a seat, Mike, going to get bumpy!” he yelled before he headed off-road and toward a concrete retaining wall. It was ten feet tall, and behind it nothing but urban sprawl. The killer convoy was less than a half-mile away. We had to leave the truck; it had been an admirable ride, but vertical rock climbing was not one of its strengths. From the bed of the truck we made short work of getting up and over the wall.
“Go. I’ll slow them,” I said. Jackson was better, but he wa
s not a hundred percent. We had a twenty-second lead, tops. Nothing was going to get us safely away, but I hoped a few shots would slow them up. “Go, BT, I’ll catch up.”
“Don’t lose sight of us,” he said as he picked the other man up and ran toward an apartment complex. I got down into a shallow depression and sighted in. Like I thought, three shots in and I brought the entire procession to a screeching halt. People flew out of the vehicles like angry hornets. They didn’t know exactly where I was when I ducked down, but the sheer amount of return fire kept me from being able to shoot back or retreat. I flipped over so I could watch the trio enter the apartment. BT took a sec to look back; wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it but wave at him to keep going. “Fuck.” Chunks of broken off concrete were pelting the entire area. When it finally slowed and subsided, I knew they were coming. I either took a couple of them out before I met my fate or I ran and met my fate. No choice, really, but to send more souls to their final resting place. I rolled over quickly, not expecting them to be quite as close as they were. Hardly had to aim; killed or wounded three before the barrage started anew. Began to low-crawl away with as much speed as that particular mode of locomotion afforded. Hadn’t gone too far when I began to receive covering fire from somewhere near the top of the apartment building. Seemed like much more than should be capable from one rifle and two pistols, but trust me when I say I wasn’t complaining.
“Run!” BT urged. He had a better view, considering I wasn’t even looking. I took his word for it, popped up and ran. I was wondering when a bullet was going to rip through my spine and make my legs collapse; I thought that the entire way until I burst through the entrance where a trio of guns waited, pointing at me. It was possible it was Knox’s men, but that they were wearing blue rags led me to believe otherwise.
