by Mark Tufo
“What for? You had it all taken care of.”
“Get your ass out of bed!” I roared. “You don’t know what the fuck is going on down there, all fucking wallowing in self-pity up here!”
“Mike.” Tracy attempted to calm me down. My own panic and issues bubbling to the surface. Physician heal thyself thumped around in my head. Maybe I couldn’t fix myself, but I sure as shit could him, even if it took a good solid walloping of his ass with my foot.
“We’ve all lost in this war, and we’re going to lose more. That’s a foregone conclusion. But while we can, we have to make the most of it. We cannot give up. We can never give up!” My throat was raw as I fought to find a yelling decibel I had not reached since the Marines.
“Fuck you, Dad.” He said it softly, calmly even, then he rolled away, exposing his back to me.
To “lose it” would have been the mild definition. I’m pretty convinced BT had saved either Justin’s or my own life, as someone would have to have put me down before I got a chance to hurt my son. Rage took over. My psyche was covered in a deep blood red as all rational thought was ejected from my mind. It was the steel cable vise grip of BT’s arms around my body that prevented an irrevocable outcome. He physically removed me from the room.
“Fuck, Talbot, calm the fuck down!” He struggled to get me into a neutral corner. We’d attracted a fair amount of an audience. I could feel veins as thick as my fingers pulsing on my neck and forehead. “It was nothing, false alarm. He missed a false alarm, man. Stop struggling!” I had a modicum of dark joy knowing he was having a difficult time wresting me under control and that if some deep recessed part of me didn’t want this, I could have actually torn free. “How the fuck are you so strong?” he asked.
“Insanity,” Trip chimed in. “Can’t know you have a finite strength. Or maybe it’s because he’s not all human. As-par-a-gus, as-par-a-goose.” I guess he was shooting for the po-tay-to, po-tah-to analogy.
“Shut up, Trip.” BT grunted as he finally got me downstairs.
The red cloud was passing, but it wasn’t taking my anger away with it. My chest heaved and my arms and legs were corded in a tight flex. I looked to the staircase that BT was effectively blocking.
“You don’t get it, man!” I shouted at him.
“I don’t, Mike. I don’t,” he said, putting his hands up in a gesture that pleaded for me to stop.
I looked past BT and up to the top of the stairs. Justin was standing there dressed all in black. The light wasn’t good enough, but I think he was smiling. I was convinced it had been him outside; he’d probably beat me back to his room by a couple of footsteps.
“He’s trying to get himself killed. He’s checked out,” I said pointing. Everyone turned to look, but he had faded back into the shadows.
“He’s just depressed; he’ll snap out of it.” Tracy had slowly approached.
I knew she was wrong. He’d fallen over the edge. I could see him spiraling away as I myself pin-wheeled my arms on the lip of that same precipice.
I relieved Jesse of his watch. I sat stewing on that deck the entire night. I got to watch a beautiful sunrise that could do little to shine on me, try as it might, as if I had my own personal rain cloud above my head. Unbeknownst to me, BT had spent the entire night on the stairs.
He came out with the sun, an extra-large mug of coffee in each hand.
“Here,” he said before sitting down.
I think I mumbled, “Thanks.”
“Some night, huh?”
I said nothing. We sat for a decent part of the morning.
“Listen, man. Are you going to tell me what is really going on in that head of yours?”
“Tracy put you up to this?”
He looked at me with a fair mixture of shock and hurt then smiled. “Busted. She’s worried, man.”
“And you?” I looked over and arched an eyebrow.
“You’re Mike Talbot. We’re always worried about you.”
“Fair enough.” And it was. We sat longer. Sometimes someone would pop out and say hi, but mostly, we were left alone. “I’ve got a question.”
“Yeah.” He seemed to be gazing at a bird that had landed in a tree not too far away.
“What’s with them Speedos?”
“I was wondering when we were going to get to those.”
“I mean seriously, man. Do you know how disconcerting it is to see a man the size of a minor mountain wearing basically a golden thong?”
“They were a gift.”
“I didn’t know the Goodwill gave stuff away.”
“They’re Versace, man.” He looked indignant.
“Maybe you should give them back to him.”
“You want to know the truth?”
“I think I deserve that, especially after the things I saw last night.”
“Fine, but you’re going to feel bad about this.” And he was right, bastard. “They’re from my fiancée, and I feel closer to her when I wear them.”
I cannot tell you how fucking brutal it is to constantly shove your foot into your own mouth. Although you’d think after how many times I’d done it, I would have stretched it out by now.
“It’s hard being this big of an ass,” I said as I let my head hang low.
“You make it look so easy though.”
“How you doing?” Tracy had come out. She handed us both some fresh-from-the-oven blueberry muffins.
“I’m fine; your husband is an asshole, though.” BT stood and placed his hand on my shoulder, gave it a light squeeze, and then went inside.
Tracy sat and looked at me.
“Thanks for the muffin.” I took a bite.
She was still looking at me.
“I’m not going to be able to eat this if you keep watching me.”
“I wondered how long it would take that Mike to surface.” She turned so she was looking out to the sky. “Beautiful day.”
“Beautiful muffin. You do this?”
She shook her head. “Your sister.”
I tossed it off the deck and started rubbing my tongue. “I’m going to be sick all damn day now!”
“She’s getting better; she’s been practicing.”
“A spider can practice looking cuddly its entire life; still not going to change anything. I can’t believe you’re trying to kill me.”
“Who’s trying to kill you?” My sister came out onto the porch. She carried a muffin tin. Flour streaked the side of her face and doused her hair. A burn mark was on the back of her hand and what looked like blueberry pulp hung out of her right ear. “Want a muffin?” she asked.
“Already ate one! Thank you so much.” I stood, hoping to shield her from the one I’d tossed.
She smiled and went back in. I stayed an hour longer only because I wanted to see if the birds, any bird, a single bird, would take that fucking thing off the yard. A squirrel had come up to it and sniffed before quickly making his way away. “He’s probably freaked out realizing he was so close to death.”
Tracy swatted my arm.
“I think I’m going to get some sleep,” I told her as I stood, popped my back, leaned over, and gave her a kiss.
Her hand touched mine; our eyes locked. “It’s going to get better.”
I believed that she believed it, and that was good enough for now.
I walked into the living room, stretched again, heard something shift around in my back, and started walking to the stairs. The radio that Ron had used to keep in communication with us was still on the living room table as it crackled to life.
Loud static fizzed throughout the space before a woman’s voice came through. “…please help … is any … please.”
I stared at it as if it were an apparition. I tried to convince myself that I had already gone upstairs and fallen asleep, because there was no fucking way Jen could be talking through that radio.
4
Mike Journal Entry 4
“Whoa.” Trip said as he came into the room. He reached out, looking like he was
grasping at floating dust bunnies. “Is this one in my head too, or can you hear it?” he asked.
Now normally, it’s great to have what you think might be a hallucination validated, but this time I had to consider the source. “You hear that? Or you heard that?” At that very moment, the radio had gone silent.
“Yeah, man. Sounded like someone was having a rough time with their peas. I don’t blame them, I mean in a world filled with Frito’s, who wants peas.”
“Not peas, Trip. They were saying please.”
“Oh!” he said excitedly. Then more softly. “That makes more sense.”
Mad Jack came bolting in from somewhere. Whatever he’d been doing, he’d been working hard at it because he was covered in sweat. “Did anything come over this radio?” he asked breathlessly.
“Yeah a woman just talked. What did you do?”
“Put a box with some new circuitry up on the roof so we could extend and clarify the send and receive signal.”
“Like how much range are we talking?” I asked, wondering if he’d somehow penetrated the Pearly Gates.
“Well theoretically, this radio can communicate around the globe, but whoever is sending a message is using something a lot less powerful.”
“Did you know someone was out there?” I moved closer to the radio, reluctant to touch something that I thought was now directly linked to the heavens. Who knows? Something like that being touched by someone like me could result in some serious third-degree burns or something worse.
Mad Jack seemed to be getting perturbed with me peppering him with questions while he messed with the dials, pulled off the back of the radio, and then did some techno-wizardry back there. The smell of cooking solder was strong.
“Shouldn’t you have maybe shut that off first?” I asked, backing away. The experiments of his that tended to go awry did so quickly and with explosive results.
“I’m an engineer. I think I can handle this.”
I swear to God his next words were “Uh oh.” I backed up further.
“That’s what happens when you start listening in on God.” I told him.
He looked up at me like countless others before him had, basically like I’d lost my fucking gourd.
There was a puff of bluish smoke from the back, and then he got back to his work, furiously creating a miniature atom bomb or perhaps wormhole. Who can tell?
“I thought you were going to get some sleep.” Tracy had come in.
I pointed to the radio. “Heard someone over the radio.” That in and of itself was big news, considering the last voice heard over it was mine.
“You don’t look so good,” she said, coming closer. I waved her off and pointed to MJ. She got the point and waited for me to come closer to her.
“I know it can’t be, but I swear I heard Jen.”
Tracy paused. “Maybe you should have gone to sleep earlier.”
“Probably.”
The radio came back to life in fits of static and bursts of light. “…I’m trapped, zombies everywhere, need help! Can … hear … please.”
MJ seemed too busy with whatever the hell he was working on to respond, so I ran to the microphone.
“Hello! Hello! Can you hear me!?”
“…hear you … help!”
I was getting every second or third word.
“Where are you?”
“…reservoir…” The radio cut out like the plug had been pulled.
I stared at the mic. “Get her back, MJ.”
“I’m trying, I’m trying.” Heavy beads of sweat had broken out across his brow.
“It certainly sounded a lot like her, but you know it wasn’t though, right?” She looked deeply into my eyes to make sure I’d not slipped and fallen; we all know to where.
“I know. It just kind of floored me is all. Doesn’t change the fact that there’s someone out there who needs our help.”
“I’m sure there are thousands of people out there who could use our help. We don’t have the resources to help them all, Mike.”
“I know that. I’m going to start packing some gear.”
“And do what? To go where?” she asked.
“She said reservoir clear as day.”
“I’m sure there’s what? Only one, maybe two, reservoirs in the entire world?”
“She needs our help. Maybe it isn’t Jen. Okay, I know it isn’t Jen,” I amended when she threatened to smack me. “Maybe this is my chance for redemption.”
“It’s not your fault she died, Mike.”
“Part of me knows that; another part harbors deep guilt. If I had just reached out a fraction of an inch more.”
“You cannot beat yourself up about everything that has gone wrong. You have done all you could each and every time. I already see your argument. I don’t want to hear that crap about your best not being good enough.”
Sometimes she made me feel like an open book, and she didn’t even have to read it. Like I was being narrated by some incredibly talented narrator with the ability to hit all of my inflections and quirkiness.
Another puff of blue smoke arose from MJ’s workstation. He looked up at me with an expression that resembled something one might display when they have a moderate case of diarrhea and just had an accident. The lights on the radio face dimmed and went out. Seemed like a good time to take my leave before Tracy rooted around anymore in my closet and found some old, haunting demons lurking in there.
“I’m going to get some sleep.”
She seemed slightly confused that I had yielded so quickly, like I had an alternate plan up my sleeve or something.
“Well, okay, you get some sleep then.”
I kissed her on her furrowed forehead before heading up.
5
Mike Journal Entry 5
As plagued as my waking thoughts were with failure and ruin and the potential for disaster, my subconscious seemed to give me the day off. I dreamed I was a kid and I was flying much like superman. The sky was a purple hue, and the grass below had a distinctive blue tint, yet the flying me did not see this as unusual at all. I enjoyed the splendor of it and the wonder of flight. I suppose Freud or someone like that would tell me I was expressing my desire to be free from the yoke of this new life, or maybe a cigar is just a cigar. All of my dreams revolved around the nonsensical, and more importantly, non-threatening. When I awoke some hours later, it was dark, and I felt surprisingly good for the first time in days.
Tracy was not beside me. The moon was bright enough that I could tell she was not in the room. Either she couldn’t sleep or it wasn’t necessarily that late. I went downstairs. Nearly everyone sat at the dining room table. Their conversation was hushed, at least until they discovered that I was present, then it just stopped abruptly.
“Yeah that’s not suspicious.” I said to the myriad guilty looking glances. “What’s going on?”
“Mad Jack got the radio working again.” It was difficult to gauge Tracy’s reaction to this. I sensed more that she was pissed about it. Then she just stared at me along with everyone else.
“Can we maybe pretend I just got up from an extended nap and have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on here?”
Tracy sighed. “It wasn’t Jen you heard, but there’s a reason it sounded familiar.”
Before I even had a reason, shots of adrenaline started pouring forth from my adrenal glands.
“It was Erin.” Before I could ask all the particulars, she filled the rest in. “She’s at the Quabbin reservoir along with a small group of survivors. They’re out of food, they have limited ammunition, and they are surrounded by zombies.”
I was too surprised to do anything, even to say anything. My best friend’s wife, who had walked out into a cold and wintry night, was alive and some three hundred and something miles away. What was my response supposed to be? She’d left us; she’d willingly put herself in harm’s way. Was I supposed to risk everything again to save her? Justin had suffered the worst of it, and perhaps he still
was. She’d chosen her path; I owed her nothing.
“Sucks for her.” With that, I went out to the deck. Tracy joined me soon enough, after some soft murmuring from the living room.
“That’s it? No call to arms? No rallying of the troops?”
“Should there be?”
“I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe for you to care.”
“Don’t spin this on me. What would you be saying to me if I told you I was going to get her? We both know you’d be digging your heels in and telling me in absolute terms ‘no.’ Now that I have no intention of going, you’re going to give me a hard time about it?”
“You’re right. I would be telling you to stay. Most likely you wouldn’t. But this, this is scarier, Mike. You not caring.”
“Oh, I care.” I spun on her. “I care enough that I’m not going to risk anybody who wants to stay with us on someone who chose not to.”
“She’s pregnant.”
The bottom fell out on me like my ass was on a large hinge and it popped open and everything in me just fell to the floor.
“And before you can ask, yes it’s Paul’s.”
My dead best friend’s wife was pregnant with his legacy. I leaned far enough down I could place my forehead against the deck railing. “I have to go.” I sighed.
“I know.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to stop me?”
“Do you want me to?”
I stood up. “The Quabbin isn’t that far. I could be there and back in a day.” That was a lie. Even back in the day, it was a seven-hour drive to the reservoir that contained the water for the city of Boston. And after seven hours of driving, I’d be spent, not able to immediately make the return trip. But there was still the small matter of rescuing her from whatever she’d gotten herself into.
“Go get her, Mike, and be safe.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Your daughter needs me; her pregnancy has been difficult. Besides, you’ll be back tomorrow, right?”
I lied, “Of course.”
I went back into the house to start getting some things together.