by Mark Tufo
That seemed to ease his heart a little, but he didn’t move away from the window. I
did though, before he could talk me into some asinine plan I had no business being
involved in. As I was walking away, I thought for the briefest of moments that the
zombies had somehow broken through. And then I realized Henry had strategically placed
himself in my path, and let loose a heavy butt grumble.
“You know they have medication for that,” I told him as I got down to scratch behind
his ears, his massive head shifting up so I could get a better angle. “Friggin’ ham,”
I told him. “You still smell bad, though.” He didn’t care. His paw came up and smacked
my arm when he thought I might be leaving. “Oh, not quite ready for your scratching
session to end?”
“Get a room,” Tracy said from a few feet away. I had not seen her move. She was now
standing by the head librarian’s desk.
I wouldn’t swear it on a stack of Bibles, but I think I heard Travis closely echo
his mother’s words. Something to the effect of “I wish you guys had gotten a room.”
Pretty sure I turned beet red. I was exceedingly happy we were running on candlelight
at the moment so no one else could see my embarrassment.
My suspicions were confirmed when I heard BT tell him, “That was a good one.”
“I hear something!” Justin said excitedly.
He came bounding down the stairs. We were all quiet for long moments. It was getting
to the point where I figured he had merely heard one of Henry’s deep-seated gaseous
fluctuations. Then it was unmistakable.
“Engine,” Tommy said.
“More than one,” BT said, readying his rifle.
“It had better not be more rednecks.” I grabbed my rifle.
In under a minute we were all locked and loaded. God help those that stood against
us. Actually, scratch that last sentence. ‘Fuck ‘em.’ In terms of a fighting unit,
I’d never been alongside so many people that had seen so much action. On one hand,
I was happy they had the fighting experience; the flip side of that was dismay. Dismay
that they had to have that much fighting experience.
My gut twisted a little with the thought of my loved ones potentially in danger again.
Just drive on by, I thought. At first, I thought that was the case as the engine noise first grew
louder and then began to dissipate with distance. I could literally feel the tension
in the room begin to break, and then that quickly it rose again as the engines were
once again approaching.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered.
“How is it, that during the ‘end of times’ it’s all zombies and rednecks?” I asked
BT as I clutched my weapon.
“Oh I’m sure there are some good people left,” BT stated.
“And?” I asked.
“And what?”
“Oh, I can tell by the way you left the end of that sentence that you have more to
say.”
He was smiling now.
“See? I knew it…out with it.” I prodded.
“I think you’re an asshole magnet.”
“An asshole magnet? Well that’s fucking new. Wasn’t sure assholes were magnetic.”
“Now you know.”
“Well I feel better,” I told him.
“I thought you would.”
“Oh one more thing, BT,” I said as I was going over to check the boys’ positions.
“Yeah?” His face serious now.
“You were attracted to me.” I didn’t stick around long enough to see his response.
A tossed book clipped my heel; that would have to suffice.
“No firing until we’re sure,” I told Justin.
“Do we let them in?” he asked.
“I can’t imagine they’ll want in. First off, they’d have to get through our perimeter
security.” Justin was looking at me strangely. “The zombies.”
“Oh.”
“And for what purpose? To check out some books? The risk is most definitely not worth
the reward. It’s just some folks foraging,” I said hopefully.
For a few seconds, my bleaker imagination ran wild and I had visions of Eliza arisen
from the dead to finish what she had started. I was fairly certain that wasn’t the
case, though. I’d convinced Tommy that the best send-off for his sister was cremation
by funeral pyre. Trust me when I say that I made sure that fire burned hot enough
to return her to her most basic of vestiges. What was left wouldn’t have filled a
pepper shaker. I checked that as well.
Engine noise began to echo off the small buildings that lined the road leading towards
us. And then they were upon us. Two pick-up trucks sat side by side, their headlights
illuminating the swirling mass of death and decay.
“It’s Uncle Ronny!” Justin cried.
“Some things never change,” Travis said to me, referring to his brother’s flair for
the obvious.
“And sometimes I like it like that,” I told him. “Okay, everyone, he may pull that
Gatlin gun out, so get ready to duck.” I wasn’t going to though. I loved that thing,
and I wanted to watch it spit fire! “Alright…get ready,” I said when we heard a door
open.
Zombies were beginning to move rapidly towards the two trucks. For the life of me,
I couldn’t understand the delay in sending a savage lead curtain downrange.
“Any day!” I shouted.
“Oh! Hey, Mike!” Gary yelled, looking up in approximately my direction. The night
was fairly well lit with a healthy half-moon rising, but it would have been difficult
to see me recessed in a window even if it was full. He was lit up pretty good, though.
“Gary, you know there are zombies coming your way, right?” I asked, truly concerned.
He appeared to be muscling into some sort of backpack. I could hear other voices down
there. I couldn’t make out the dialog, though.
Gary hefted the package onto his back like a rucksack and then secured a strap across
his midsection. Although, where a rucksack was made of a canvas-like material and
soft, this looked solid. Roughly the size of a spare tire if you were to stick a spare
tire in a box for shipping. Suffice it to say, it was big.
Gary took two steps towards the library then quickly went back to the truck to grab
his rifle. I smacked my forehead with my palm. Zombie apocalypse and he leaves his
rifle behind. Now my heart was hammering. Gary was holding his rifle to his chest.
“Covering fire!” I shouted. “And be fucking careful!”
We opened with a hail of lead. Zombies collapsed to the ground as we shattered skull
plates, scattering brains all over the front walkway. Yup, then I got a sick memory
of an old commercial ‘a mind is a terrible thing to waste.’ If I hadn’t been so worried
for my brother, I would have gladly enjoyed the dark humor.
“Gary, fucking shoot!” I yelled, watching in seemingly terrified slow motion as the
zombies raced towards him. We couldn’t shoot the closest ones. With our angle, any
bullet would come dangerously near to him.
When I thought all was lost, the zombies just…stopped. Gary had a nearly perfect bubble
of protection around him. It was terrifying to watch. I now knew what the box housed
on Gary’s back was, but to realize that your brother’s life rested solely on the soldering
skills of a man who had n
amed himself Mad-Jack…that was fucking scary.
“Cease fire!” I shouted, although that already seemed to be the case once everyone
saw what I was looking at.
“Is he singing?” BT asked. “He is. What is that shit…REO Speedwagon? Why are you crackers
always bat-shit crazy? You’d never see a black man tip-toeing through the zombies
singing crappy 80’s music.”
“Hey, I like REO Speedwagon,” I told him.
“I’m sure you do.” He said it as an insult. I’m positive of it.
“And I’m not a cracker,” I said weakly.
“Uh-huh,” was his response. “Cracker ass cracker.”
“What the hell is he wearing?” Tracy asked, coming up beside me.
“Looks like a jumpsuit. Where the hell did he get a jumpsuit, and why?”
Well, I got the answer to the second part of my question soon enough as Gary moved
into the stream of light radiating out from the front of the truck. It was difficult
to see at first, and to be honest, it took my mind a few seconds to piece it all together.
Over the left side of his chest was a stitched tag like the military would use; the
name ‘Talbot’ clearly marked in white thread. It stood out against the gray possibly
brown material of the jumpsuit. It was the patch on his right arm that gave me the
most difficult time trying to discern. When it did, I nearly fell on my ass laughing
so hard.
“What is it?” Tracy asked, wondering how I could find any humor in the situation we
found ourselves in.
“Gary…” I started trying to get my laughing under control. “He’s…got…a zombie buster’s
patch on!” And then I was howling all over again.
“I told you crackers were crazy!” BT shouted.
Even Tommy, who was almost always dour-faced lately, was smiling.
“Nice outfit, Uncle Gary!” Travis shouted.
“Thanks,” Gary replied, beaming.
“Any chance that’s an old Halloween costume?” Tracy asked me.
“Doubtful,” I told her.
“You know you really should have given me full disclosure about your family before
I married you,” she said.
“We would have never been hitched if that was a prerequisite.”
“I should have put it in a pre-nup,” she said with all seriousness, never taking her
eyes off of Gary.
“How’s it working?” Mad-Jack asked. He had his window rolled down a quarter of the
way.
Gary gave him the thumbs-up. To my way of thinking, if he wasn’t getting eaten, then
it was working.
“Mike, what did you do to my truck?” Ron asked with chagrin from the driver’s seat
of the first truck.
“That not obvious to him?” BT asked me.
“I know, right?” The destroyed remains of ‘said’ truck were pinned on the handrail,
leading up the main steps into the library. And anybody including a casual observer
would note that the thing was destroyed.
I led off with “Ummm,” and then right into a smart-ass comment, “first prize at the
demolition derby was a bucket of fried chicken…seemed like a fair trade.”
“You suck, Mike,” Ron intoned.
“I would have done it for that,” BT replied.
“Yup...definitely a pre-nup. Next time, I suppose.” Tracy shook her head.
“Next time?” But she was already heading away.
“Were there biscuits?” BT asked.
“What?” I didn’t even know what he was referring to.
“The prize, Mike, the damn prize! Did it come with biscuits and gravy?” BT asked,
clearly agitated.
I was shaking my head. “There was no…” BT’s face began to contort to one of anger.
“Err…I was saying there was no mashed potatoes, but tons of biscuits and gravy.” He
relaxed at that point, a smile creeping across his face, his eyes half-closed as he
remembered some past meal. “And I’m the crazy one,” I said, making sure that he couldn’t hear me.
“Uncle Gary, you’re going to have to go to your left. There’s a fire escape and the
doorway is on the second floor,” Justin yelled to him.
Gary looked up. I could see the pained expression on his face.
“How heavy is that thing?” I asked him.
“I had to use two car batteries,” Mad Jack replied. “And the case is three-quarter-inch
plywood which Gary made me paint black. Although the weight added from the paint would
be negligible. The components are heavy-duty because I wanted to make sure they would
hold up in a battle scenario, then there’s the—”
“Mad-Jack! Just pounds, man, that’s all I need,” I said to him.
“Well, I usually use the metric system like all scientists, but I’m sure you wouldn’t
understand kilograms.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said under my breath.
“Okay, let me do the conversion…carry the five…add in the remainder…divide by pi.”
There was a pause. “Roughly a hundred thirty pounds and six ounces. Give or take an
ounce or two.”
“Shit, we didn’t carry that much in the Marines,” I said to anyone close. “You going
to be alright, brother?”
His thumbs-up was much less enthusiastic, and his smile looked more like he had to
take a shit and there wasn’t a toilet for a mile. Oh don’t go turning your nose up,
we’ve all been there.
“Everyone grab your gear. BT, can you take over for Gary when he gets here?” I was
referring to carrying the zombie repellant. I was going to be busy hefting my own
cumbersome bundle. Henry did not like the indignity of being carried. He was fine
with riding or being pulled along in a wagon, but carrying was somehow beyond his
station.
BT nodded, slowly returning from the world of saliva-worthy meals.
“What’s the plan, Mike?” Tracy asked nervously.
“You must be nervous if you even asked,” I told her. “Here it is in a nutshell. Make
sure you’re always within reach of BT.”
“Sounds easy enough,” she said.
“One would think that.” Although I knew from multiple personal experiences that any
battle plan unraveled at first contact with the enemy.
We could hear Gary’s labored breathing and heavy footfalls coming up the stairs. When
he was about halfway up, I realized we were going to have a problem. The zombies already
on the staircase, although being repelled by the machine, had nowhere to go. They
were pressing up closer to the library wall. They didn’t have the wherewithal to jump
over the side; most likely it was a failsafe in them…or just stupidity.
“Gary, hold up!” I shouted, hoping he could hear me through his groans of protestations.
His rendition of Queen’s We are the Champions was suffering greatly from his distressed intakes of air. “And keep your head down!”
BT pressed his face up against the small window that overlooked the fire exit. “It’s
never easy.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I asked him.