by Mark Tufo
That wasn’t to be my lot. I had flakes of epidermis piling up under my fingernails. It was actually kind of gross. Doc Baker had become so concerned he had even placed me back on my blessed pain meds. Hey, I’m not an addict, but I like a good high as much as the next guy. I had another itch too, well maybe more like a tickle, a psychic tickle. It was way back in my head but it was ominous and it kept telling me to get long gone. I would have heeded it too, no matter what my wife said, but every extra day I could give BT and myself to heal up improved all of our chances of survival. Besides my true life ‘shit’ forecaster (Tommy) didn’t seem in any rush to leave. Of course that might have more to do with the 24-hour chow hall and the truly unbelievably delicious apple turnover they made here, than with any inherent danger that may or may not be coming.
When I got up for the 47th time and jammed my shoulder into the corner of the door using it like a large scratching post, Tracy had had enough.
“Get your jacket.” Tracy said.
“But it’s freezing out.” I replied lamely.
“Hence the jacket.” She retorted.
I was moments away from a not so manly whining. Tracy could sense it coming and was having none of it.
“Now, Talbot.”
“Fine.” I answered like a petulant 8-year old. Again not a finer moment for me, but even the Percocets were doing little to eradicate the discomfort of my healing shoulder, and Tracy will attest to the fact that I am a horrible ‘sick’ person.
“Where are we going?” I asked, resigned to the fact that we were going out no matter what.
“The beach.”
“The beach? You say that like this is Hawaii. It’s gotta be 10 degrees out there with a wind chill of something like 10 below.”
“Yeah, I know that.” She answered flatly.
“You hate the cold.” I was trying desperately to get out of this field trip.
“I hate you getting up a couple of hundred times every hour, more.”
“Forty-seven.”
“Forty-seven what?”
“I got up forty-seven times.”
She looked at me incredulously. “You counted?” She shook her head. “Forget it, you need this diversion as much as I do. Maybe you’ll be too cold to want to scratch.”
“Yeah, probably because my blood will congeal.”
“Ha ha, we’re still going. Get your jacket.”
I turned to grab my jacket off the peg, stopping only once to rub up against the hook.
“Talbot!”
“Fine! But if you weren’t my wife I’d tell you a thing or two.” My voice had been trailing off since the first word, so that I had ended on a mumble.
“What was that?” Tracy asked.
“Yes dear.”
“I thought that’s what you said.”
The short walk to the shoreline was actually invigorating. The cold air was refreshing. The monster irritation in my shoulder was tamed to a minor troll. I felt slightly naked not carrying my AR but base rules prohibited the carrying of rifles. Pistols were alright and actively encouraged. I carried both my Glock 9mm and my Smith and Wesson .357. Tracy was actually carrying a Walther 9mm. She made me so proud, had I not been on a military base with so many military personnel around I might have shed a tear of pride.
We walked completely ignored by the myriad of soldiers that passed us. We were just a couple of refugees in an ever-growing community. I wondered how long the resources on hand would be able to sustain this impromptu base, and then as quickly as the thought popped up it blew away. I planned on being long gone before that ever became an issue.
We reached the shoreline. A few miserable looking guards patrolled the beach looking for any wayward zombies. I didn’t see how that was going to happen though. The bay had frozen solid since the last time zombies had come ashore. There were a bunch of kids actually playing hockey a hundred or so yards off shore. The scene was serene, almost idyllic, Norman Rockwell-ish.
“Travis should be out there.” Tracy said pointing to the 20 or so kids skating around in the semblance of a game.
My nerves pulled tight. I don’t know why but the Hershey squirts would have been denied passage, my sphincter had slammed so tightly shut. I go over these things again and again, not even sure if I should keep flagging my ‘not so proud’ moments. Did I fear he would fall through the ice? That seemed unfounded, considering that there were at least ten or more hummers driving near the ice water freeze line. The ice had to be at least 18 inches to support that weight and the vehicles were at least another hundred or so yards past the kids.
“Why are they so far from shore?” I fairly begged of Tracy.
“Relax, Talbot. Travis told me that the ice was a lot smoother out there.”
“You knew?” I nearly yelled.
“What’s the matter with you?” She asked.
“I don’t fucking know!” I said as I started to speed walk nearly busting out into a sprint.
“Talbot don’t you go out there all willy-nilly, you’ll embarrass him.”
“Fine.” I said, doing everything in my power to keep my muscles from firing at full tilt.
We were half way to the kids when I felt a tremor.
“Did you feel that?” I said as I stopped and turned to Tracy who was hastening to catch up.
“Feel what?” Tracy said catching her breath as she pulled up alongside. “I thought I told you no running.”
“That.” I said as another minor quake erupted under our feet.
“That’s probably just the humvees.” Tracy said. I don’t think she even believed the words as she spoke them.
The roar as ice began to crack was unnerving. Brontosaurus leg bones snapping under sound amplification could not have competed with the blistering reverberation. Everything and everybody became as frozen as the landscape around us. That false harmony ended quickly and badly as first one and then another hummer sank into the fracturing ice. Kids, hyper aware of danger, were not slow to react. The majority of them had already closed half the distance to Tracy and I as the second hummer finished its icy descent into hell. Tracy started running out towards Travis. I got up to her and grabbed her arm.
“Forget him!” I yelled.
“Are you out of your mind?!” She screamed trying to tug her arm away.
“Shit I didn’t mean it like that, he’s on skates, he’s going to pass us by in a few seconds. Us on the other hand, need to start running back NOW!” I yelled as I pulled her towards shore. She didn’t need any more prodding as the ice behind us literally began to explode under an as yet undetermined assault.
“Mom? Dad?” Travis asked as he skated next to us. “What’s going on?”
“Go!” I yelled to him. “Get to shore and get your boots on as fast as possible, we’ll be there in a minute.”
“Mom?” He asked.
Tracy nodded, holding on to the terror that was building up within in her. Not wanting her son to see it.
Travis had made it to shore and was nearly done putting his boots on when we finally huffed and puffed our way to shore. Walking on ice is already a slippery proposition, pun intended. But when you’re running because your life depends on it, it becomes infuriatingly difficult to gain any sort of momentum.
We turned to watch as one more hummer became forever locked in a watery graveyard. One of the two occupants barely escaped only to succumb moments later when another fissure opened up in front of him. I wanted to help but there wasn’t anything to be done. The remaining hummers pulled onto shore. They must have felt what I did because each passenger manned the mounted .50 cal sub-machinegun. Tense glances were passed around as we all wondered what in the hell was going on.
“Dad.” Travis said grabbing my arm and pointing off into the distance.
I could barely make out a glint of reflective light. I walked up to the closest hummer.
“Could I see your glasses?” I asked a tense looking Lance Corporal seated behind the wheel. I hoped my use of combat ve
rnacular would aid in my question.
“Sure, whatever.” He said never taking his eyes off of the water line. He pointed into the back storage compartment.
“Thanks.” I said as I grabbed the binoculars. “Sweet Jesus!” I said as I pulled the binoculars down from my eyes and handed them to Trav. “Sorry God.” I mumbled. It was something I did every time I took the Lord’s name in vain, Old Catholic habits die hard. “Time to go.” As I grabbed the binoculars back and threw them back into the hummer. “Lance Corporal.” He didn’t move.
“Yeah, yeah.” He said thinking I was going to thank him for the binoculars.
“Lance Corporal!” I yelled.
He finally spared me a glance.
“Close to the shoreline on your left, use the binoculars.”
He held the binoculars up. “Sweet Jesus.”
“Yeah I thought the same thing, you Catholic?”
“What? You need to get out of here. Lutheran by the way” he said, getting out of the hummer to warn his fellow Marines.
“Yup, thought the same thing about getting out of here. Wouldn’t have taken you for a Lutheran.”
“Mike, what the hell is that thing?” Tracy asked, squinting her eyes and shielding them from the majority of snow blindness to see.
“Not a hundred percent sure, mind you, but Terex 5500 comes to mind.” I said grabbing her arm and rushing her back towards our barracks.
“A what?” She said turning back to get a better view of a rapidly approaching monstrosity.
“Oh just one of the largest dump trucks ever created on the good old planet Earth.”
“A dump truck? Big deal.” Tracy said digging her heels in and stopping our forward momentum.
“”I really don’t think you’re getting it. That thing is probably 30 feet tall and 50 feet long and can haul 100’s of tons of dirt. But I’ve got a pretty bad feeling that thing’s payload doesn’t involve dirt, only things that should be buried in it.”
Tracy was a little slow on the uptake, but quick to realize the horror. “There’s zombies in that thing?” She asked.
“That would be my guess.”
“Who the hell is driving it? Not the zombies right?”
Now at this point did it really matter who was driving? I guess there would be a higher threshold of fear if zombies had learned how to drive. The only thing that could be potentially worse would be a drunk Asian woman on her cell phone. The most likely answer though to this equation involved an old friend, and I had a significant throbbing in my shoulder to prove it.
“Durgan.” I said. The name came out flat, but it was charged with emotion. He had a lot to atone for and I was feeling in a judicial mood.
Tracy nearly pulled me over as she grabbed my arm and started to run back to grab everything we could and get out while the getting was possible. I had my doubts we’d be in time. Those trucks could travel somewhere in the 40 mph range, granted not on ice. But that thing was still moving at a good clip. We were just getting to the front door of our quarters when I realized a significant problem.
“Hon, you go on up and get everything ready. I will be right back.”
“Mike what are you doing?” Tracy asked with concern.
“I have to get something.”
“Could you be a little more vague?”
“I could but I don’t have time. Trust me I’ll be back in about twenty minutes, just have everything we can carry ready to go.”
“Mike I hate when you do this shit.” Tracy said. I thought she might put up more of a fight but was super-thankful she didn’t.
I kissed her before she wheeled away and up to our temporary home.
I was headed to the base commissary, which is basically just a stripped down super market. I was halfway through my ten minute run there when the battle for Camp Custer began. I hadn’t heard this much munitions being expended since my days in Iraq. No scratch that, this was worse, in Iraq there was a controlled rate of fire. Acquire target, fire, reacquire, fire. This was frenetic, panicked, blind dispensing of lead hoping to seek a target. I know I was placing human emotions where they didn’t belong but I would swear there was almost an anguish to this blitzkrieg. Mankind was desperately trying to keep a toehold here in an increasingly difficult world. Someone or something was doing its best to terminate that germ of humanity before it could put down roots.
Helicopters whipped past me heading towards the front of the base, not the back. Shit, apparently there was more than just the attack at the beach.
The ground under my feet was rumbling like the world had just eaten the largest burrito ever produced and now a killer case of indigestion was setting in. M1A1 Abrams tanks rambled past me going close to 50 miles an hour. God save anyone that got in their way. Nope I take that back, FUCK whoever gets in their way.
“GO!” I screamed. “Get those bastards!” Patriotic pride swelled up in me. If I thought I could have jumped on one of those tanks without getting my arm ripped off I might have done it. A young gunner, couldn’t have been more than 19, spared me a glance, the fear in his eyes brought me back to center. ‘Relax Talbot get what you need and get to where you need to be.’ The distinctive sound of missiles being fired and exploding gave me hope. Not much on this planet can survive the hell fire that is an Apache attack helicopter, but then again this wasn’t a conventional enemy.
As I approached the store I could feel what hearing I had left begin to slide further down the scale. I’d never be able to hear those stupid tones again at my next hearing test. The gunfire had increased, how that was possible was beyond my scope. I immediately found what I was looking for and just as quickly regretted my decision. Whatever was happening outside was coming to a crescendo and I was still a good 15 minutes from where I needed to be. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’
Too late to question myself now. I grabbed what I needed and hoped that it was fully charged. Outside the store the Gods deigned to shine down on me. A lone hummer stood sentinel in the parking lot. I figured whoever owned it was busy elsewhere. I opened up the rear hatch and with a concerted effort and some help from an elderly man who was stocking up on Similac, no clue why, we placed my ill-gotten booty into my ill-gotten booty. I remembered the last time I had ‘borrowed’ a military vehicle. Damn near got me a prison sentence. I was pretty certain that wasn’t going to be the case this time.
I shut the hatch and turned back to the store; the earth was still rumbling like Godzilla was laying waste to the Japanese countryside. I had to know, I had to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s who I am. I walked to the far corner of the parking lot so that I could look past the store and get a decent view of the front of the base. It was singularly one of the worst decisions I had made thus far in my life that was rapidly losing precious moments of existence as I stood there. Godzilla and King Kong side by side would have been less frightening (not really, just using that for dramatic effect) but I was pretty petrified.
Not one, not two, but three Terex 5500’s had already crashed through what little fortification the base had offered. Sure one was completely ablaze but that wasn’t stopping its progress. Multiple rocket launchers fired from different locations on the trucks. This I could tell by the telltale smoke trail. ‘Humans? Why?’ Then the second wave of despair crashed into me. The putrefied, pustulant smell of the dead. I tracked my visage lower, thousands of zombies were rambling into the base. ‘Humans and zombies? Why?’ I asked again. Only one thing in the world could have pulled this off, Eliza, the bitch that had planted the tree that had the evil roots.
I stood a few moments longer watching as the two trucks that were seemingly still fully functional raised their dumps up to discharge their payloads. Hundreds, maybe thousands of zombies spilled onto the ground, many became damaged or even crushed from the not so fragile dismounting, but true to their kind, they didn’t seem to mind all that much. The trucks looked like they were taking huge shits, the sight and smell confirmed my thoughts. Time to get moving.
; Escape from this base was impossible. Eliza had pulled it off. I could have and I should have ended this all months ago, if I had just let Justin take that original shot back when we first came across Eliza. I felt weak. I had let my humanity rule back then and now Eliza was going to make me pay for it, in spades, some diamonds and maybe even with a heart or two. I ran back to the hummer, the glow plugs seeming to take hours to ignite, giving me ample time to lament my decision for this detour. It wasn’t that the time lost would have spared me the coming fate. It’s just that I would have been able to have a few more moments of life with my family. The hummer started. I put it into drive and slammed my foot down on the accelerator. I rolled out of the parking lot at a whopping 10 mph.
My next stop was the base hospital. Thankfully it was back towards the barracks. If I had to go forward I wouldn’t have made it. I wasn’t being pessimistic, just realistic. I would have tried because I had to, but I wouldn’t have made it. I grabbed my precious cargo that I had liberated from the commissary and headed into the hospital.
Doctors, nurses and patients were running around trying for an orderly mass evacuation. Where the hell they were going to go was beyond me. I heard one voice above all others.
“Someone had better tell me what the fuck is going on!!” The voice boomed from Room 312.
“Oh what is it Lawrence?” I said as I ran into his room.
“Oh fucking Talbot, man, I am so glad to see you. And if you ever call me Lawrence again I’m going to rip your head off and shove it up a zombie’s ass. What’s going on? Forget that, get me out of this contraption.”
I got over to the side of his bed and began to undo the traction sling that had his leg suspended.
“Seriously though Talbot, what is going on?”
“Pretty much the end game BT. Eliza somehow got people to work with the zombies. They got these huge trucks and just stormed the gates. At least a couple of thousand of the rotten meat bags have breached the gates.” I helped BT into a sitting position.
“How much time do we have?” He asked.
“None.”