by Mark Tufo
melee. He was still looking at the label as he stood. It took him one constriction
of his heart to recognize that there was a zombie standing before him. The monster
seemed almost as confused, but reacted quicker, its teeth trying to bite down on the
bottle held out before it.
Dennis heard a resounding crack. He thought the bottle had been broken, and that had
been proven when he felt sharp shards sprinkle onto his hand. He realized his mistake
when he saw the broken bits of blood-stained teeth stuck to his hand.
“Gross, man!”
Dennis did his best to keep the bottle between him and the teeth. He brought up his
axe-laden right hand, swinging it with all the force he could muster, his balance
was pushed onto his back foot and he could not put as much into it as he hoped. Yet,
the blade dug deeply into the soft tissue at the top of the zombie’s shoulder. The
skin split apart in a wide wedge as the sharp steel sliced through and struck the
collar bone, shearing it in two. The zombie’s left arm hung uselessly by its side
as the connective muscles and tissues were hewn through. It cared little for the damage
wrought.
With its right arm, it snagged hold of the bottle, trying to bring it and its wielder
in closer to its dangerous teeth. Dennis most likely could have got away if he had
merely let go of the bottle; the thought just never occurred to him. He pulled the
blade free with a wet ‘plopping’ sound and reared back for another attempt. This time
he caught the zombie on the side of the head, neatly bisecting the ear. He thought
he was going to be sick when half of the zombie’s ear fell to the floor, with an audible
squishing sound. The zombie’s head cracked like an over-boiled eggshell. Black ooze
the consistency of bad Jell-O leaked out of the devastating wound. The zombie shook
violently for the span of a few heartbeats and fell to the floor, nearly taking the
fought-over bottle with it.
“That would have sucked,” Dennis said as he fumbled with it before regaining control.
He had been so pre-occupied with his fight that he did not hear the tinkle of the
bell, the explosion of the pistol round going off would have been hard to miss, though.
The sound had not finished echoing throughout the store when he felt the vibrations
of something falling behind him.
“Mike would never have turned his back on a zombie,” Deneaux said around a cigarette.
“Damn.” Dennis turned to see a zombie that had gotten to within handshaking distance
behind him. He wasn’t sure which was scarier; that, or the crazy old bat with the
large caliber gun framed in the doorway. “Th-thank you,” Dennis stammered.
“If you could have done the same, I’m sure you would have.” She approached, deftly
stepping over the fallen zombie.
“Aren’t you afraid it could still be alive?” Dennis asked.
“Oh, sweetie, it was a head shot.” She dragged her smoke-smelling left hand across
the side of his face. “What do you have here? Twenty-year-old scotch. Fantastic,”
she said as she easily took it from him. With that, she walked back out of the store.
“Bitch is crazy,” Dennis said, following soon after.
He could not, however, shake the feeling that he had somehow been safer in the store
with the ‘live’ zombies than in the truck with Deneaux, who was chugging scotch like
it was ice water. She would occasionally hand him the bottle, and he’d take sips;
not because he enjoyed it, but because she was plowing down the highway at speeds
in excess of eighty or so miles per hour and she was clearly lit. He figured if he
were going to die, it might as well be with a buzz.
Deneaux started singing. Dennis thought it was Sinatra. He quickly started talking,
because the sound she was making was about as grating as listening to squirrels have
their nuts torn off.
“How did you meet Mike?” Dennis asked.
Deneaux’s singing stopped immediately. She looked over at him warily, her eyes narrowing
like a cat getting ready to pounce. When she figured there was no ulterior motive
in his question, she began to talk.
“We lived in the same complex. Can you believe that? A commoner like him and me sharing
the same residential area. Idiot was screwing his secretary.”
“What? Mike was cheating on Tracy? I don’t believe you,” Dennis said incredulously.
“Michael? No, he’s too high and mighty to stoop to that. High moral fiber and all.”
Dennis thought that sounded more like a slight than a compliment, especially with
the tone in which it was delivered.
“My husband, well, that’s a different story. If he could have a got a watermelon to
tell him what a fantastic lover he was, he would have fucked that as well. Oh right,
you want to hear about Michael.” Mrs. Deneaux smiled when she looked over at the shocked
expression on Dennis’ face. “Well, let’s say that, due to circumstances that I should
have controlled better, I found myself living at Little Turtle where Michael also
resided. We held out for a while, but even with my best efforts, the zombies still
were able to get in. I was able to get on a truck much like this one and barely escaped
with my life. For some inexplicable reason, the driver, Alex, after being miles away,
turned back around and rescued Mike and his family.”
“How did he know to turn around? Radio?”
“Something about this kid Tommy in Michael’s group being psychically linked to Alex’
wife Marta. Personally, I think that’s a pile of rubbish. Want to hear the good part?”
she asked. She continued, not wanting or waiting for a reply from her passenger. “Tommy
is…I mean, was, a vampire.” She looked over quickly to see if her slip had been picked up. Dennis
was busy wincing after his last nip of the caustic alcohol. His eyes flew open at
the mention of vampire. “Oh, I can see you don’t believe in vampires. Well, let me
tell you, they exist…had one pursuing us across the whole damn country.”
“Tommy, the vampire, was chasing you guys? I’m having a hard time believing you.”
“It was his sister Eliza, the first woman I’ve met that’s meaner than me. Although,
now that I think about it, maybe that isn’t the case, because that bitch is dead and
I’m still going strong.” She lit another cigarette. “Still having trouble with the
vampire part?” she asked, almost tenderly. “You’re going to have to trust me on this
one. I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I threw my lot in with Alex
and Paul and the rest of the twits when Mike and his family split from us. They were
heading up to Maine. I just wrongly figured that with him gone we’d shake Eliza. I
had no idea how inept at survival my group was going to be. That Paul couldn’t shoot.
His wife Erin, at least she knew which end to point.”
“Wait, Paul and Erin? As in Ginson?” Dennis asked.
“Oh, right. I guess if they were good friends of Mike that you’d most likely know
them as well. Makes sense.”
“Oh, my God,” Dennis said excitedly. “I can’t believe this! How are they?”
“Dead,” she said flatly.
His head dropped rapidly.
“Paul was eaten by cats and his lovely wife…well, she made her last stand with the
&
nbsp; Talbots.”
“Cats?” Dennis asked through tear-glazed eyes.
“They weren’t zombies if that’s what you’re asking, just garden variety starving cats.”
“How is that possible?”
Deneaux ignored the question. “It was Mike that came to our rescue when Eliza had
us pinned down. I might have been able to have gotten us out of there, but I’ll give
him credit when it’s due.”
“How?” Dennis asked, trying to pull himself out of his depths of mourning.
“Eliza was using Paul as a means to get to Mike, for some unfathomable reason she
wanted him dead badly. He truly had a penchant for pissing people off—especially women—probably
told her that her fangs weren’t big enough.” A sound much like a crypt opening emanated
from her mouth. It was meant to be a laugh.
“Yeah, that’s Mike. Always too much truth and too little tact. I loved him for that.”
“He got us out of that much like he did every obstacle placed before him…sheer stupid
luck. Why I hadn’t seen that earlier I’m not sure. Perhaps I had, but the thought
of being able to get out from under the gaze of Eliza had its own benefits. It started
to all fall apart when Mike tried to put a stop to the whole thing. We launched an
offensive without the proper weapons or personnel for that matter. Lost Brian, you
don’t know him, and Paul, on that ill-fated attack. Mike almost died as well, but
like I said he has an uncanny ability to preserve life and limb. Gary—”
“Gary? As in Gary Talbot.”
“One in the same. A little on the nuttier side of the Talbot tree, but he could shoot.
He led us all back to Maine. It was good for a few days and then Mike came and death
was close behind him. In the end, Eliza did Michael in. Tracy killed Eliza and then
the zombies destroyed everything. Michael had gotten me up into this very truck to
keep me safe before his showdown with Eliza. I stayed in here for three days until
it was clear of enough zombies that I could leave. The devastation was immense, genetic
debris was everywhere.”
“Are you sure none of the Talbots survived?”
“Yes,” she answered a little too quickly. “Ron’s house was on fire and I could hear
them screaming from the cab. It was quite shattering.” She swiped away a non-existent
tear. “How long have you known Mike?” she asked, diverting his attention away from
the fact that she was not all that distraught.
“Seemingly forever.” Deneaux noticed that her bad acting job had passed him by. Dennis
was lost is a sea of nostalgic fog. I was new to the high school, heart of Red Sox
country, and I was wearing a Yankees hat. He still befriended me.”
“Is that important?”
“More than you know.” He laughed slightly. “We became fast friends, Mike, Paul and
me.”
“That is devastating to realize you just lost two of your closest friends.”
Dennis couldn’t tell from her tone if she was really empathetic, or if she was just
enjoying twisting the knife of realization. He continued on, not for her, but for
himself. “I owe Mike my life. Paul got into a pretty bad car accident and Mike pulled
us both from the wreckage.”
“He was in the automobile with you as well?”
“He got ejected.”
“There was enough force that he was ejected from a car and yet he was still able to
get up and pull his friends free from a destroyed car?”
“Burning…the car was burning.”
“Hmmm…seems that Michael has been doing his death-defying acts for a lot longer than
I’d realized.”
“I always wanted to repay that debt. Now it appears I won’t get that chance.”
“You’re not going to get all morose on me, are you? Are you one of those weeping winos?
Give me the bottle back.”
“You don’t understand. He was all I had left.”
“Now we have each other,” she said after taking a large swig.
This time he hoped she was joking, but she was as tough to read as a snake. If they
were all each other had, he figured he would have been better staying at his dad’s.
Still, if she was a means to an end and got him to other people, he’d deal with her
crazy ass until then. It hurt to put Maine in the rearview mirror though.
Chapter 6 – Mike Journal Entry 4
We didn’t do much as we sat there. I was beginning to think Ron wasn’t coming, or
he had taken some circuitous route that took him past Montreal first. Can’t say I’d
blame him; Montreal is a pretty sweet city. As long as he brought some Canadian beer
back with him, everything would be fine. I picked up book after book, thinking that
eventually I’d find one I could start to read, but anything that didn’t have pop-up
pictures and start with ‘See’ I couldn’t concentrate on long enough. Even if I found
something worth reading I was unsure as to when I’d have enough time to finish it.
Hold on, Mr. Zombie! I’m at this crucial part in the book! He or she would understand.
Travis had found some emergency candles in his attempt to get as far away from the
unthinkable, unimaginable things that his parents had been doing earlier. I smiled
at that. I wasn’t overly thrilled with an open flame this close to so many combustibles,
but I liked the thought of being plunged into darkness far less. The zombies, for
once, were being respectful of the library rules and being quiet. Even the smell was
tolerable.
No that’s a lie. It was putrid. We had just become accustomed to it, I suppose.
The boys had fallen asleep. Tracy was relaxing in a lounge chair, a book resting on
her stomach, just where I wished my head was at this moment. It was Tommy that kept
me away from that most desired of spots.
“You alright?” I asked him as I came up beside him and draped my arm over his shoulder.
He was intently staring out the window, not at the zombies, but rather at the sky.
“I miss her,” he said without turning to look at me.
I could have lied and told him that she was in a better place; but that would be a
lie. Even in my semi-unconscious state, I heard that deep rumbling voice, and the
malice that was interlaced within it, when something came to get her. Eliza deserved everything that was coming her way—and then some.
Her soul was what I bled for. It was the innocent in all of this. I contemplated asking
him if there was a way to retrieve her and then stomped the shit out of that thought.
If the boy could get to the Gates of Heaven, odds were pretty decent he could do the
same with Hell, and I’d be damned if I was going to do that. (Pretty good pun if I
do say so myself…and since it’s my journal and all).
“I’m sorry, Tommy. I’m sorry for you.”
“But not for her?” he asked.
“No,” I told him truthfully. I’d like to think he appreciated my honesty, but that’s
bullshit when most folks tell you that they want your honest opinion. That’s all great
and fine as long as your honest opinion of them is deeply flattering, otherwise, they
want you to go fuck yourself. We are strange creatures.
“I hear her cry out from time to time,” he told me.
I shuddered. Growing up a good Catholic boy I could only ponder the things she was
going through…and then some. What could I possibl
y say that would make any difference?
“We’re your family now, Tommy.”
“After everything I’ve helped my sister put you through?”
I nodded.
“There will come a time, Mr. T, when you’ll curse me for what I’ve done,” he said,
turning to look into my eyes.
“Maybe,” I told him honestly, “but not tonight.”