by Mark Tufo
She stood and came over to me. “I get it, Mike. I do.” She caressed the side of my face and leaned in for a kiss, which I hungrily gave her. “But you don’t have time to feel like this. These events were going to play out one way or the other. Who’s to say what would have happened to those here had you not come? Their defenses were haphazard and weak at best. You’ve shown them hope in the face of overwhelming adversity, and they thank you for that. You are directly responsible for most of the lives in this place, not least of all, your family.” She began to count them off. “Me, your daughter and future grandbaby, Justin, Travis, that dog of yours, my mom, BT, Trip—”
I stopped her. “I get it.”
“Do you? All of them, every single one of them … us. We’d be gone.” She touched her hand to her heart. “We’d be dead now if not for you, Mike, for your heart and commitment, for your willingness to do whatever it takes to get us through. That’s why we follow you. That’s why we would do anything and everything you ask. We know it, and others can see it. The storm doesn’t follow you; you are the storm. Nothing can stand in your way.”
I let her words sink in. “Wow those were some pretty powerful words. Now when you say you’ll do anything….”
“I knew it. I knew when I said it that was where your focus would go.”
I wrapped her up in a hug.
“BT, though, isn’t he too mean to die?”
“Possibly. I threw him in there to make you feel better.” Her head was nestled against my chest, and I loved the warmth that spread out from the contact.
The transition happened around me. It went fairly smoothly. Half the group moved out, and supplies were sent their way. I took, maybe, my first healthy downtime in six months. I sat on the deck and just pretty much zoned out. Spent a lot of time looking at trees, and I have to be honest, it felt pretty damn good. Worry, which had been a constant gnawing in my gut, took a siesta, and for the first time in years, way before the zombies had come, I found an inner peace. Anger, anxiety, and a half dozen other negative emotions were laid to rest. I’d love to say permanently. Who wouldn’t? But even the temporary situation was unparalleled, and I was basking in it. Nothing happened that day, that week, hell, that month. More than once, we’d talked about reuniting the two halves to make a whole.
All it took to nix that idea was a look over to Tommy, who oftentimes joined me on the deck. Although, whereas I looked like I was on a beach in the Bahamas, he seemed to be sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon on some sketchy ground. He would stand quickly for no reason and scan the tree line, sometimes sitting back down, sometimes walking around the entire deck seeking, searching. Most times, I could not tell if he was using his two eyes or the third. That makes more sense if you are into mysticism. He’d say a few words, I think Latin, and then abruptly leave. We had a few zombie encounters; that was to be expected considering that we now were in two places with constant traveling in between. We were sure to garner attention with all the extra activity and noise.
On one such trip, I was allowed to go. Tracy wanted to see her mom, and we both wanted to see Nicole, who was about to pop. Can’t tell you how nerve-wracking that was. Having a baby was stressful enough, but due to current circumstances, this was going to be a natural birth, without the option of having a hospital as a safety net should something go wrong. And trust me, I’d read enough about it to know it was possible for plenty of things to go amiss, including the mother bleeding out and dying right on the table. I did not think I could handle something like that. I would become hollow inside. I was happy that Nancy had taken some mid-wife classes, once upon a time. She’d never used the knowledge in real life, but she was about to be baptized under fire, so to speak.
The post office had turned into an even bigger boon than we’d initially realized. Behind an old series of sorting machines, which looked like they hadn’t touched mail since World War II, was a door that looked like it could stop a charging rhino. That was strange enough. What was weirder was where it led. Should have known, but it was an old bomb shelter, replete with army bunks and metal furniture. It was easily four hundred square feet and could comfortably hold twenty or so people, at least for a little while. The door up top could lock as well as the one at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing short of a nuclear strike could take the place out. When I went topside, I went out to the street trying to figure out where it vented air from. I’d figure out later that there were exhaust pipes that went to the roof of the building. That wasn’t my primary concern at the moment.
“Zombies!” I shouted, heading around the corner at a run. I wanted to beat them, and since they were already sprinting, it was going to be close.
Travis and Mark, Ron’s son, were perched on the roof, and within a few seconds I received some much-needed aerial support. Stephanie had been pulling supplies out of the car and was standing with an armful of stuff when I grabbed her and pulled her inside. I quickly threw the lock and stepped back. Stephanie was still trying to figure out what was going on when the fastest zombie smacked into the door.
“Oh my.”
“Yeah definitely ‘oh my.’” I wasn’t winded, but I felt like I should be. My heart rate was somewhere up in the two hundred beats a minute range. “You okay?”
“Yes, thank you.” She seemed like she was still trying to collect her thoughts from her fright. People were coming out to investigate while I went back into the sorting room where the maintenance ladder was adhered to the wall. It led directly to the roof, and that was where I was going.
I hadn’t made it half way up when Travis poked his head down through the access door. “Going to need more ammunition and more guns.”
“How many?”
“Over a hundred.”
“Shit.” We hadn’t encountered a group that big in a while. All of our recent activity must have disturbed a stasis hive nearby, and the problem now was the continuous loop we were about to start running. All the shooting would bring even more. In the next few days, we could easily be surrounded by a thousand or more of the beasts. “Hey sis, can you get on the horn and let Ron know we’re in a bit of a mess here?”
To compound matters, I heard a blood-curdling scream I thought was going to freeze my heart. “Nicole?”
Tracy, Carol, and Nancy were escorting my daughter to a back office. “Going to need clean towels, Mike!” Tracy called back.
Zombie invasion punctuated by a birth; a strange day was indeed shaping up.
“Mike, come here.” It was my sister.
“Little busy, sis.”
She called out to her son. “Jesse, get Travis some ammo and get up there. Melissa, get your mom some towels! Mike, get over here!”
Well, since she got all my chores taken care of, it was the least I could do. She handed me the radio. I could hear gunfire in the background over the microphone. “This is Mike.”
“Mike, it’s Ron. We’re under attack.”
This was too coincidental. I almost dropped the receiver.
“Need you guys to get back here as soon as you can.”
“Lyn didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what, Mike? I don’t have time for twenty questions.”
“We were about to call you for help. We’re in a bit of a jam.”
There was silence from his end. “Shit” finally came through, like it always does, both literally and figuratively, during a war. “How bad?”
“Travis says about a hundred. I haven’t got a chance to check yet, but we’re firing, so I would imagine we’re sending out invitations to everybody in the neighborhood. What’s going on over there?”
“Couple hundred, maybe more. They are mostly staying in the trees so we can’t get an accurate count.”
“Where’s Gary?” I thought about that damn tree fort of his. It was within the first few layers of the defensive zone, but it was much more exposed than the house.
“He’s fine—in the house now. He’s the one who warned us. We’ll send help when we can.”
“You said they’re in the woods, not attacking?”
“Yeah, not yet anyway. Why?”
“How often have you seen zombies not attack? I think they’re stalling help from getting here. I’ve got to go.” I quickly handed the handheld part to Lyn.
BT was still at Ron’s. Had a touch of the flu, or so he said, but he’d discovered my sister’s romance novels and was knee deep into the story of Shane McClough, his plaid skirts, sorry kilts and his ladylove, Countess Laurabelle, and their forbidden love. He’d holed himself up with the books all around him like a squirrel would with nuts right before a harsh winter. Tommy wouldn’t leave the house, period, which meant right now we were severely undermanned, and right now that seemed entirely on purpose. How the fuck had zombies pulled off a coordinated attack? If they’d peeled off two hundred or so just to keep Ron and the others holed up, that meant Travis’ original estimate was….
“Dad, we need you up here!” he shouted down the hole again.
I climbed the ladder as fast as I dared. I was just poking my head through the hole when my nose was assaulted. More like beat mercilessly with the smell of zombies.
“Holy mother of….” I didn’t even bother finishing the expletive. We were surrounded. I did a complete perimeter check, and there was not a place where the zombies weren’t at least twenty bodies deep. That was bad, no doubt, but what had a strangeness to it was the fact they weren’t doing anything. I mean besides reeking to high heaven and blocking sunlight from hitting the pavement, they weren’t moving. There was a no-man’s land of about thirty feet from building to zombie, depending on the terrain, that was as empty as a box of tissues in a teenage boy’s room. Do with that what you will; some kids have allergies.
“Dad, what are they doing?” Travis had stopped shooting. He knew enough to realize he needed to save the bullets for when it mattered.
“They’re not getting ready to sing Christmas Carols. That I know.” I don’t know why I said it; just happened, but as I was saying the words, it gave me pause to think of the possibilities going on. I rushed back to the hatch that led downstairs. Thought my chest was going to cave-in when I heard screams from below, then I realized my baby was having a baby. So yeah, my chest still wanted to cave-in, but she was all right. I mean mostly; childbirth under the best of circumstances is a tough endeavor. I know; I’ve attended three of them, and usually, they give me drugs to deal with it. This time I had to fly straight.
“Justin!” I yelled, not once or even twice, but three times. I was on the ladder and coming down when he finally responded.
“Yeah?”
He looked as nonplussed, as if it were a lazy Saturday morning and I was about to ask him to rake the yard.
“Get everyone down into the bomb shelter.” I headed back up. I stopped at his response.
“Why?”
I let my head rest against the rung for a moment as I reined in my temper, which was threatening to boil over. “Stay calm and Talbot on.” I knew the boy was still hurting; how could he not be? “Because I asked you to.” My calming technique had only worked so well, as the words came through gritted teeth. Felt like Clint Eastwood delivering a line in one of his spaghetti westerns.
“We’re all going to die anyway.”
I lightly smacked my head against a rung before I went back down.
“Yes, we are most assuredly all going to die, that’s just a basic fact of life. But dying, son, that’s fucking easy. Anybody can do it. In fact, you really don’t have to do anything at all to die. Don’t move away from the speeding train. Don’t run away from the charging elephant. Don’t shoot back at the enemy. Don’t call a cab when you’re shitfaced. See how easy it is to die? You don’t have to do shit! Now living, ah, living—that’s the hard part. The choices you have to make, the actions you have to take. Living is hard. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently. Now I’m sorry about Jess, more sorry than I can ever begin to explain, but she’s gone. These people around you, they’re here and they need our—your help. You want to check out, the door is right there.” It was a calculated risk. I needed to know where his head was. That he actually looked over to the door and contemplated that route did not sit well with me. Felt like someone was leeching air out of my lungs with a straw.
I was pretty sure I could beat him to the door before he could unlock it and head out. Even so, I slowly moved closer. I finally saw his shoulders sag as whatever had been weighing him down had finally broke him or had broken over him.
“Ryan, grab your sister. Dizz, Sty, get some food. I’ll get the animals.” He started shouting commands.
I smiled and thanked him.
“You want me up there when I get everyone in the shelter?”
“Not yet. Get everyone and everything you can down there, get them locked in, then I want you to stay with your sister, mother, and aunts until they can get moving. And if there’s any way to speed them along, do it.”
“She’s having a baby, Dad, not taking a test.”
“I get it, but the zombies have something in mind, and I don’t quite know what it is. Things are going to get bad here in a hurry.”
Meredith, Ron’s daughter, struggled with a large bag that clipped my side as she passed. “Sorry, Uncle.” She headed to the ladder.
I was about to ask her what the hell she was doing, that she should get in the shelter with everyone else, but she was an adult, a decent shot, and we could use the help up top. I helped her with the bag as we went back up. I spared one quick look back. Justin was indeed on the move. At least for now, I had pulled him out of his rut. Although, for how long? Once he started to dwell on it again, he would find himself heading back to that abyss of emotion. And it was hard being a hypocrite. If anything happened to Tracy, I don’t know what I’d do. Gun to the temple? Death by zombie? It would be easy enough to pick an exit strategy. Amazing how a pungent odor can just scramble every thought in your head. I was back up top and the situation had not improved. On the bright side, it hadn’t got worse either. But that’s not saying much. I mean, if you total your beloved car in an accident, what’s it matter if the mirror falls off?
“We going to start shooting?” Meredith asked as she began to tie a bandanna around her face.
It was shit like this that drove me nuts. How long had I been dealing with zombies? You’d think by now I’d have learned some of the basics. I grabbed the piece of cloth Meredith handed to me. I could tell by the crinkle in the corners of her eyes she was smiling. She passed out a square to Travis and Jesse as well. I was famous for missing the obvious. Sometimes, perhaps, that was why Justin had taken it upon himself to point it out at every turn. When the world revolved on a slightly different axis, I can’t tell you how many times after a tough day of working, respite with myriad aches and pains, I would groan and moan as I found my way into bed. This would immediately be followed up with my wife asking me if I’d taken any aspirin.
Of course, the answer was no, it was always no. Years, fucking years, I’d done that. It never, ever, dawned on me as I winced, taking half steps to go and take something that might help alleviate the pain. And this coming from a person that had never had a problem introducing any of a wide variety of recreational drugs into his system. Some things I just tend to have a large disconnect with, and no matter how I try to bridge the gap, it falls short. Meredith tightened the knot behind my head.
“We gonna start shooting?”
“What’s on these?” I was sniffing vigorously.
“I ground some scented candle wax into them. I think these are coconut.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“I know, Uncle. But what do you want to do about the zombies?”
“Right. Sorry. Just nice to not feel like someone shoved shit stones up my nose.”
“You know that’s gross, right?”
“Diarrhea dollops then? Fine, we do nothing for now. They’re not moving; it’s a waste of bullets. We use them if we decide to find a way
out or they start trying to come in. They’re waiting for something. I don’t know what it is, but I imagine we’ll find out soon enough.”
I was wrong. It wasn’t soon enough. They did have the good graces to let me see the birth of my grandson. And by seeing the birth, I mean, I came into the room after everyone was all covered up and cleaned off. The Talbot family was celebrating the edition of Wesley Michael. I admit I cried when I saw him for the first time, and may have even shed a few tears when Tracy held him up to me. “This, this is what we live for,” I said quietly. He wrapped his thumb and forefinger around my index finger.
“Dad! Something’s going on!” Travis shouted.
I quickly kissed Tracy. “Everyone all right in here?” I looked at Nicole. She looked tired, but hale and hearty.
“Sore but okay.” she said.
“Can you guys get her down to the bomb shelter?”
“We can, but we don’t want to; it’s not very comfortable.” There were actual mattresses we’d brought over here for sleeping. They might be on the floor, but they still beat an army cot any day of the week.
“Take the mattress.” That, of course, was only part of the problem. She’d just had a baby, something akin to me pissing out a baseball, and I guarantee I wouldn’t want to move for about a week if that were the case, but it was still something that needed to be done.
“Mike, for God’s sake,” Tracy stated.
Oh? I was about to rail on about what God was and was not concerned about right now. I held it in. Very uncharacteristically of me, if I might add.
“Tracy, please, just do it.” And with that, I left. I could feel the dagger-like stares of four women as I hurriedly left. The first stars were beginning to appear as I came back up on the roof. Meredith sighed when she came over and pulled my bandanna back up over my mouth and nose. No one said I wasn’t consistent.
I came to where Travis was. He was pointing. “They just started moving.” It wasn’t much, but an opening was beginning to appear. “It looks like they’re making a path. Do they want us to try to go through that? Are they letting us go?” There was hope in his voice.