by Mark Tufo
cool steel bars of his prison cell.
For the first day he was there, he truly kept expecting the old hag to come down and
tell him that the whole thing was merely a ploy for her to gain his captors’ trust.
Then she would help him escape and they would do what they had talked about.
“She seemed so sincere,” he berated himself for being such a patsy in her plan. “What
good am I to her, though? Why bother even dragging my ass into this? Is it just to
see me suffer?”
Chapter 24 – Mike Journal Entry 11
“Hey, Mr. T, how you doing?” Tommy asked, leaning over entirely too close. All I could
make out with any detail was his nose.
“You smell like Pop-Tarts.” I pushed him away slightly. “Help me up.” I was in the
back of the truck and we were still moving. That was a good thing. “What happened?”
My head was still reeling. I felt like my brain was sliding along a grease-slicked
track.
“Bullet severed an artery, even with your ramped up powers, you still nearly bled
out,” he said softly.
“Why does my mouth taste funny?” I asked him.
“We had to, Mike, there was no choice.” Tracy came up to stroke the side of my head.
“Had to what? That had better not fucking be what I think it is,” I said, attempting
to stand, but the movement of the truck and my brain made that a difficult prospect.
“Relax, it’s not black blood,” BT laughed. “Is there such a thing as a racist vampire?”
he asked Tommy.
“That’s not fucking funny,” I told BT. “You’d probably taste bad anyway, too much
mean.”
“I wanted to, Mike, I did,” BT said seriously. “Tommy thought it would be a bad idea.”
That made sense. I had already been dying; introducing zombie-tainted blood would
have sent me over the edge.
“Who then?” I was looking around. “No…please,” I said when I looked over to Tracy.
“We had to,” she pleaded.
“Oh, Hon, this is not how I wanted things to go down. I’m so sorry,” I told her.
“I’m fine, you’re fine. I’ve given more blood to the Red Cross, and I even got a juice
box from Tommy.” She smiled.
“We have juice boxes?” Travis asked, peering over the back of his seat.
Tommy stood up and went over to his pack to get one for him.
“Did…did I bite you?” I asked. I had to know. Did I now repulse her?
“We’ll be together forever now,” she said sweetly.
“No!” I cried.
“Hey! I’m not that high-maintenance of a woman,” she said, visibly hurt.
“It’s not that, it’s not that at all. This is a hell I would not wish on BT, much
less you.”
“Nice, man, real nice.” BT got up.
“I’m sorry, I was playing,” Tracy said quickly when she realized it was physically
hurting me to think she was like me now. “Tommy made a small cut.” She held up her
arm, a white gauze bandage wrapped around it.
“If it ever comes down to that again, just let me go,” I told her, burying my head
in her chest.
“Not a chance,” she said, wrapping her arms around my head.
“I really kind of like it in here,” I told her as my face was mashed against her breasts.
“You’re ridiculous.” She pushed my head away.
“I’d never leave the house if I had breasts. I’d probably just stare in the mirror
all day and play with them,” I told her.
“You almost died less than an hour ago and now you’re talking about having breasts?”
she asked.
“I’m alive, I plan on reveling in it and if that involves make-believe breasts, who
am I to deny that thought?” I asked her.
“I know I did not just hear what I thought I heard,” BT said as he walked past, taking
a big sip off his juice box straw.
“You know those are for kids, right?” I asked him.
He slurped louder. “And it’s delicious.”
I sat there a while longer, left to my own thoughts--usually not a great idea during
the best of times. It was then that I began to notice a grinding sound and a slight
hitching in the truck that was getting progressively worse.
“Dad awake?” Justin asked his brother from the front of the truck.
“I am,” I said, standing. I felt world’s better than I had just a couple of minutes
previous.
“Uncle Gary wants to see you,” Justin said.
Got a feeling I know why, I thought, my mind racing to figure out what we were going to do once the truck
broke down.
“Hey, Mike,” Gary said. “How you feeling?”
“Better than the truck,” I responded. “What’s going on?”
“I think the transmission took a bullet or two, or it was on the skids anyway. But
either way, we’re going to be in some real trouble soon.”
Too late, man, we’re already in trouble, I thought. “How much longer do we have?” I asked.
“Few miles, I guess, before the wheels lock up or the transmission falls onto the
highway or the gears inside just break and we start free-wheeling or possibly—”
“I get it, brother, I get it. Pull off the highway.”
“Again?”
“I’m not going to sit in this steel box while those idiots figure out a way to get
in. All they’d need to do would be find one RPG,” I said. Gary looked horrified.
I thought the odds of them really being able to come across a rocket-propelled grenade
were slim. I mean, it’s not like you can go to an Arms Я Us and snag one, but that still didn’t change the fact that I didn’t want to be stuck
in a box. The next exit was two miles up the road, and the truck was starting to vibrate
something fierce.
“Dad? Smells like something is burning back here, and it’s nothing of Trip’s,” Travis
said.
“Well that’s not good,” Gary said.
By the time we were pulling off the highway, our speed had reduced by half and we
were leaving a black cloud in our wake. The ride had gotten so rough that the truck
felt like we were running on flats.
“Grab whatever stuff, you need,” I told everyone. “We’re going to be evacuating soon.”
I wasn’t seeing any buildings that gave me the ‘castle’ type feeling. We were in a
mostly industrial area. Warehouses and bars were in the majority.
I didn’t like the idea of the large metal buildings. The wide open design would leave
few areas to hide and plenty of ways in for a hostile force. The bars were looking
better, but I couldn’t get Shaun of the Damned Dead out of my head. Sure, he’d survived, but at some serious cost of life.
“Can you make it there?” I asked, pointing to where I wanted to go.
“I’m not sure if I’m going to make it to the next painted line in the roadway, Mike,”
Gary had to say loudly over the battering of the transmission’s internal components
as they ripped each other apart.
“Do your best,” I told him before turning my attention back to the rear of the truck.
“Okay, there is a stucco white apartment building. It will be on the passenger side
of the truck when we stop. That’s where we’re heading.” I announced to everyone.
“You and me, Henry,” I said, reaching down to tuck him under an arm. His little stub
tail was wagging wildly. He apparently was not picking up on how anxious I was, because<
br />
he was all smiles and slobber. “You getting lighter, big dog?” I asked as I kissed
his face.
“Get a room,” BT said.
“I plan on it,” I told him.
His confused look passed over quickly. “Shit, man, that was pretty good.”
“I’ve been working on my timing and delivery.”
This was followed by a loud clanging noise that sounded suspiciously like a vault
door slamming shut or possibly a transmission hitting the roadway. The good money
was on option two.
“Mike, we’re coasting!” I heard Gary shout after he revved the engine and there was
no response from the vehicle’s transfer box.
“How far to the apartments?”
“Couple of hundred yards.”
“We going to make it?” I asked.
“Yeah, but we’ll probably be going slower than if we got out and walked.”
As it was, I didn’t know if we were much over ten miles per hour at the moment. Still,
two hundred yards was a long way to run with motorcycles on your ass.
“BT, can you take Henry?” I asked.
“Why, Talbot?” Tracy asked.
“We need covering fire, Hon, and I can’t do that with his beautiful mug in my face,”
I said, squishing his shortened muzzle with my right hand. Henry proceeded to sneeze
on me. “Me and Tommy are going to give you guys the rest of the time to make it to
that building.”
Tracy saw the reasoning; now that’s not to say she agreed with it, I’m just saying
she saw the validity of the reason. There’s not a woman alive that will let the facts
get in the way of them winning an argument.
“Fine, just don’t get shot again,” she told me as she grabbed her backpack.
Really? I thought. Wouldn’t that kind of be the first thing I would avoid? That’s like saying, ‘Don’t
let that train hit you’. Or, ‘don’t let the chainsaw-wielding madman disembowel you’.
Or better yet ‘Contents of Coffee Cup are extremely hot, do not pour in lap’.
A turtle hopped up on a double espresso would beat the plow’s pace in a race at this
point. “Everyone ready?” I asked as I gripped the release to open the tailgate. I
got a bunch of nods. “Okay, everyone remember the drill.”
“Yeah, dad, you said it like five times. When we drop down, we take two shots and
then haul ass,” Travis said.
And then the automatic response of ‘no swearing’ came out of mine and Tracy’s mouth.
I’m not even sure we knew we were saying it anymore. Maybe I’d dwell on that at a
later point…if given the opportunity.
The truck was grinding to a halt as I pulled the lever. The tailgate opened slightly
and I held it open with the bar Gary had put there expressly for this purpose. It
kept the heavy door a good two or so feet open, plenty of room for a normal human
to get through. BT damn near got stuck.
I was the first down. The bikers weren’t quite so prepared to see a gunman, then a
second as Tommy joined me, then a third. BT had not fired. He and Henry were heading
straightaway for the building like I’d asked. Trip was the only near flaw in the plan,
he started running towards the bikers. I reached out and spun him around, pointing
for him to follow his frantic wife.
“Oh, I thought they were here to help,” he said as he ran off.
Gary and Justin were staying on their flanks as the main body of the small group headed
in. The bikers were getting bolder as more and more of us headed off. They’d stopped
as well and were getting ready to lay down some effective counter-fire.
“Time to go,” I told Tommy. “Shit,” I said immediately upon turning.
Gary and Justin were trying to help BT up, who was on all fours. Henry was by his
side barking, I think in encouragement for his ‘ride’ to get up.
“Help him!” I shouted to Tommy, while I turned back around.
The bikers were already beginning to converge. I didn’t even bother aiming as I laid
down a spray of bullets; it was enough to get their attention. Bullets were flying
by me, but what was worse was that the group in front of the building was being targeted
as well. I saw Tommy spin slightly as he took a round. He was doing his best to shield
the quartet from harm. Justin grabbed Henry as Tommy picked up BT. Gary sent a few
rounds down range to get me some help. It was greatly appreciated.
Then I heard an explosion of glass and rifles being fired from within the apartment
building. At first my heart sank thinking that perhaps those inside were now involved
in a different battle; then I realized it was Tracy and Travis helping out as well.
That was all the prodding I needed as I nearly caught up to Tommy. We were all breathing
heavily in that small foyer. BT seemed to be getting slightly better.
I put my hand on his shoulder as he was hunched over.
“I’m good,” he said with long runnels of drool hanging from his mouth.
“Good, ‘cause you look a little like Henry right now,” I told him.
“I hate you.” It was difficult for him to talk, but he got it out.
The apartment was five full floors of squalor (alright a little poetic license there).
How about ‘meh’? It looked very utilitarian. There wasn’t graffiti plastering the
walls or crack-heads shooting up in the hallways, it was just a shitload of cinderblocks.
This looked more like something the Soviets would have built, that’s all I’m saying.
The place was a giant rectangle bisected by a main corridor on each floor and an enclosed
stairwell on each end. The place could have been a fortress if there had been enough
time to remove the cement stairs. It would be many hours with a sledgehammer and a
jackhammer to get that done.
“What now, Talbot?” Tracy asked, joining us in the hallway we had just entered.
The bikers were coming; it would have been impossible to not hear the flood of their
engines. I didn’t like the idea of staying on this floor because the windows would
become vulnerable to attack. I also didn’t want to go too high up, because then we
lost a potential avenue of escape through those windows.
“Second floor, let’s go.”
“Dad, I think there’re zombies,” Travis said.
And then I caught the caustic whiff of malodor.
“It’s Henry.” Tommy pointed.
Henry was busy trying to send carpet fibers over his latest creation as his back paws
scraped at the industrial rug.
“That’s as good a reason to get out of here as any,” I said. We went down the full
length of the hallway to the opposite stairwell and up. “I really hate closed doors.”
I grumbled as I went a couple of doors down and knocked.
I made sure to step to the side and avoid what I figured would be a hail of bullets
punching through. My apprehension grew the longer we waited for a response. The first
floor had been remarkably free of any sort of hint of the apocalypse, the second not