by Mark Tufo
“Wimp,” he laughed. I think he thought he was being funny.
If I wasn’t concentrating so hard on not puking I would have responded. I didn’t even shake my head in disapproval. The vertigo would have been too much.
We were nearly completed at Lowe’s. I was on my last haul dragging a pallet mover loaded with wood, nails, caulking and some other odds and ends when I saw Spindler toss his cigarette out the bay. His hands were shaking as he went to pick up his rifle.
“Useless,” I muttered. Who the hell stands on guard duty against a deadly enemy and puts his rifle down. I would remember next time to bring someone else.
I heard the engine long before the useless Spindler gave the warning. I stopped pulling on the pallet jack and started racing over to the open bay, unslinging my gun on the way to assess the new threat. Spindler started to slide away. I knew it! I knew he’d be useless in a fight.
“Get your ass over here!” I said quietly but laced with menace. “Or I’ll shoot you myself.”
He sneered, but grudgingly did as I ordered. I could tell from the self-serving calculation on his face that he was trying to gauge which threat was worse, me or the incoming vehicle.
The Ford F-350 slowed to a stop about twenty-five feet from us. I couldn’t see into the windows because of the way the sun was shining. Why the hell were visions of Snoopy and the Red Baron racing through my head? The seconds ticked by, I could HEAR Spindler sweating. The drops were cascading to the floor. It wasn’t going to be long now, no matter how much he feared me, before he went running into the sunset.
“Why did you come on this raid?” I asked, not meaning to say anything out loud.
Spindler jumped at my words. “It’s my van,” was his response.
I looked at him, but when I realized he wasn’t going to continue I prodded him further. “So?”
He licked his lips nervously before he continued. “I had a Cadillac once, I loved that car, it caught fire.”
His choppy delivery was grating on my nerves. Again he didn’t elaborate; this time I didn’t care. I was saved from more ‘conversation’ when the passenger side door of the truck opened. My rifle wasn’t at the ready but my grip intensified. Spindler began to bring his to the ready position. The foot that was stepping out, stopped suddenly. I grabbed Spindler’s barrel and shoved it towards the ground. He got the message but that didn’t mean he was happy with it. The cowboy boot covered foot once again began its descent to the pavement. The largest man I had ever seen in my life stepped out of that truck, not as in fat man from the Monty Python movie, ‘The Life of Brian,’ but rather of the Arnold Schwarzenegger variety from ‘The Terminator.’
He would have looked intimidating even if he hadn’t been carrying a Gatling gun. A Gatling gun? Who gets a Gatling gun? My brain asked in overdrive. It had to have weighed a couple hundred pounds, plus all the ammo, and he hefted it as if it were no more than a paint ball marker. If he opened fire we’d be dead before we could think about it. While we were mesmerized by the gun, his friend stepped out of the crew cab door. He was a good-sized individual also, but compared with his steroid-induced partner he looked like Pee-Wee Herman. He carried a more traditional weapon, if you can consider a SAW a traditional weapon. A SAW is a ‘light’ machine gun, but at sixty-five pounds it’s still no slouch to carry around. We were outgunned and nearly cut down when Spindler dropped his rifle. Lucky for us our two rivals weren’t prone to panic, they both tensed but neither fired. The bigger man laughed. It was a mean laugh though. His watchful eyes never left mine. Obviously he was sizing up the only threat left to him.
“That’s my store,” he said matter-of-factly.
Why I let my smart ass mouth rumble sometimes I don’t even know. My mother always said it was going to get me in trouble. “Do you mean literally or figuratively?” I wanted to laugh when I saw him thinking about my words. He hadn’t a clue as to what I had just asked him.
“Umm, both,” he said, realizing he may have just said something stupid.
I was laughing inside, but I knew if I gave a hint of that internal merriment away he would step over my blown-out brains to get into the store.
“Any chance we can share, big guy?” I asked, but I fathomed the sheer bulk of this guy let him get whatever he wanted.
“The name is Durgan,” he bellowed. “Not ‘big guy.’”
What the hell is his hang up? “Okay big…Durgan.” Is that a first or a last name, I wondered. “There’s plenty of store here for the both of us.”
“You don’t get it puny man, this is MY store!” The veins in his forehead threatened to burst as he yelled.
Damnit, where’s a good zombie when you need one. It was then that I noticed the woman zombie we had seen at the church. She was standing a couple of hundred yards behind the men in the truck, seemingly watching this melodrama play out. I didn’t have time to waste worrying about her now, I had bigger fish to fry at the moment. I heard liquid pattering to the ground next to me. What I thought was more sweat from Spindler turned out to be piss plunging from his bladder.
“See! Your little friend agrees with me.” Durgan said, laughing his fake laugh again. “You have until the count of three to leave before I make you look like...” He turned to his friend and I heard him mumble, “what’s that cheese with all the holes in it?”
“Swiss,” came the stage-whisper reply. Now I know why the brain-eating zombies left these two idiots alone.
“Before I make you look like Swiss cheese!” Durgan shouted triumphantly.
I knew I had to act fast, we needed these supplies and we needed this truck. But my time was running short; I was not convinced that Durgan could count as high as three.
“One!” he screamed.
Who the hell was he yelling at, we were twenty feet away. Spindler took off like a shot, out the bay and away from Durgan.
“Pussy,” I sputtered.
“TWO!” Durgan yelled even louder.
Fight or flight, fight or flight, flight or... I stared in amazement as I watched Steroid Freak Number Two try to brush away a speck on his shirt. The laser dot didn’t move and then a second one joined the first. Durgan also had two on him but was slower to realize it.
“Durgan,” Number Two groused. No response. “Durgan!” he bawled.
Durgan turned a little. “What, can’t you see I’m a little busy right now,” he growled.
“Look at my chest, man,” Number Two nearly cried. “Look at yours!”
Both men were painted with two laser sniping dots on their chests. I wasn’t sure where the help was coming from because none of our small party had laser scopes, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I seized on the opportunity.
“I’m not going to give you until three, ‘Big Guy,’” I said condescendingly.
He sneered in reaction to my words.
“Put the guns down now or you’re dead,” I warned softly.
Number Two reacted quicker than Spindler had. He was already halfway back in the truck.
“NOW!” I yelled. Durgan hitched his hand toward the trigger slightly, a murderous intent in his eyes. Finally he seemed to realize he wasn’t going to win this Mexican standoff.
“This isn’t over!” he bellowed in ferocity. So this is what a pissed off bear looked like. He never did put the gun down, but I wasn’t going to push my luck as they both got back into the truck. “Debbie, drive!” I heard him yell even with the windows closed. It must have been deafening in that enclosed space. I was thankful they had left. I had no desire to detain them.
I let out a sigh of relief as I walked back into the bay to see who my allies were. Alex and Justin were as tense as I was and were just now shouldering their weapons. It was the mischievous grin of Travis, however, that had me laughing like a crazy man. In each of his hands he carried two laser leveling devices.
“Thanks for that,” I said as I went over and clapped Travis on his back.
“No problem,” he answered, bu
t I could see the pride in his eyes.
“Where’s Spindler?” Alex asked.
“He took off at the first sign of trouble,” was my response.
“Spineless, worthless piece of s….” Alex kept saying but he was out of earshot as he was moving away to gather the last bit of his haul.
“All right guys,” I said to Travis and Justin. “Let’s finish up here, I can’t imagine Durgan has many friends he could bring back with him but I don’t want to find out.”
“Right!” Justin was in complete agreement.
Travis nodded, still grinning. He placed the leveling devices in his pockets and went to help Alex and Brendon pull the load into the truck.
Finally we were ready to head for home. I pulled myself up into the cab of the big rig. Alex drove the van up alongside me. Travis was sitting with him, and Justin was with me.
“Are we going to look for Spindler?” Alex asked, looking up at me.
My first response wanted to be ‘Fuck no!’ But that didn’t seem very humanitarian of me. Instead I came out with, “he knows where we’re going, if he has balls enough to come back he’ll meet us there.”
“I guess we’ll never see him again then,” Alex laughed. “Little bandejo!”
I was starting to stress out a little, driving an 18-wheeler had seemed a whole lot easier when I was drunk. Staring at all the knobs and switches and 12-gear stick shift seemed terrifying at the moment. I couldn’t tell everyone they had just wasted two hours of their time for nothing. Sweat broke out on my forehead.
Justin calmly looked over at me. “You don’t know how to drive this thing do you?”
Captain Obvious strikes again. I ground the living shit out of first gear. It smelled like it did when I would blow up my toy models with firecrackers when I was 12; ahhhh, there’s nothing like the smell of burned plastic in the morning! I was paraphrasing from Apocalypse Now. Okay, so I wasn’t doing the movie any justice, but it was helping to calm my nerves. My brain works in mysterious ways. Just ask my wife, she’ll tell you. The truck lurched forward five feet and stalled. I did the same routine three more times. I didn’t have a true reference point but I figured this was what it felt like when those crazy cowboys hopped on one of those mechanical bucking broncos. I was hopping around that seat like I had eaten five cans of Mexican jumping beans. Justin was having a blast, I wasn’t having nearly as much fun. I had only just gotten my stomach completely under control about fifteen minutes previously. Alex waited about fifty feet ahead of us. I wanted to wave him forward, my fear being that I might not be able to stop this behemoth once I got it going. On my fourth attempt I was finally able to get the truck into second. That probably had more to do with the fact that I had burned the first gear completely out rather than any newly attained skill. Thank God, Safeway was only five hundred yards away, as it was it took me all of ten minutes to get there. As there was no way I was going to back this thing into the rear dock, I pulled up to the front doors and did what I did best, I stalled it.
“Well, that was something special to behold,” Alex said as he got out of the van smiling.
Sweat was pouring off me in sheets. Justin had broken a land speed record for carsickness. He puked as soon as he could scramble out of the cab.
“Not so funny now, is it?” I asked.
“Travis is riding home with you,” Justin answered between heaves.
“Okay guys, you know the drill.” I started. “Justin, you stay out here and keep watch. Blast the truck horn if you need us. Alex, Trav, you stay with me while we check this store out.”
CHAPTER 9
Journal Entry - 9
Justin was wiping his face and getting ready to climb up on the truck hood to get a better vantage point as we entered the store. The smell was….antiseptic. I was in heaven for a second.
“Don’t move!” came the voice from above, someone was using the store’s P.A. system.
We stopped moving.
“We...we don’t want any trouble,” came the anxious voice. I don’t know why he was so panicky, we were the ones being drawn down on, or so I thought. Who could possibly live in this day and age and not arm themselves. I should have known some pacifists would survive Armageddon.
“We don’t want any trouble either,” I responded, not knowing where to direct my voice so I found myself talking to the nearest speaker in the ceiling. “We just want to get some food and get back home.”
“Home,” the disembodied voice said with a whimsical lilt.
“Yeah, we live at the Little Turtle complex and we…” I began and didn’t get a chance to finish.
“Little Turtle!” came the excited reply. “My aunt lives… lived there.”
“That’s great!” I was beginning to feel like we could connect.
“Yeah, yeah, Jane, Jane Deneaux,” he added eagerly.
My hopes sank. If the nephew was a tenth like the aunt we were dead where we stood.
I’m not sure from what vantage point I was being watched but he must have seen my face fall at the mention of his aunt.
“Oh you must know her!” he said. “I know she’s an uber-bitch but she’s all the family I have now. If you put the guns down, we can talk.”
“Umm…” I replied. “We’re not having the best day today, I would feel much more comfortable if we held on to them. I will send these other two back outside and I will re-sling my gun, that’s the best I can offer.”
“That’ll have to do,” was his curt reply.
When Travis and Alex had gone back out and my weapon was back on my shoulder, a little man no more than 5’5” tall came out from behind the customer service desk. He wore coke bottle glasses, had a receding hairline that had probably earned him the nickname Five-Head. (I’ll explain – it’s like ‘forehead’ only his is so big it’s a FIVE head. So it’s not the funniest joke in the world, and it is at the expense of another, but you gotta admit it’s still humorous). He had on penny-loafers, khaki pants, a shirt and a tie, and a Safeway smock that had his name, Store Manager Thad adhered to it.
“How you doing Thad?” as I extended my hand out.
“How...how did you know?” He quickly realized his mistake and blushed as he looked down at his nametag.
I couldn’t believe this guy was still alive. A field mouse would most likely send him shrieking into the night. Bad example, that would probably send me shrieking into the night too.
“How many of you are there, Thad?” I asked as he finally closed the distance between us and took my proffered hand.
“Four.” He winced; I may have gripped his hand a little too tightly. I was still a bundle of nerves.
“May I say something, sir?” he began.
“Mike,” I answered.
“Mike?” he asked.
“Yeah, Mike Talbot’s my name.”
“Mike, please don’t take this wrong.” He looked a little embarrassed at what he was about to say, and he didn’t want to offend me but he held true to his convictions. “You really do smell bad,” he finished. I noted he had a distinctive not-oft used English accent buried in there somewhere.
“Yeah I get that a lot,” I said as I put my non-offending arm around him.
He visibly relaxed. I told him about why we were here, and about the Little Turtle complex and that all of them were welcome. There was still plenty of room to be had.
Thad called out to the rest of his cohorts, who turned out to be two of his co-workers and one customer. From behind the aisle with the canned fruit came a woman in her late 50’s. Sores covered most of her arms and she had some on her face. I gripped my rifle a little tighter thinking she might be one of the undead. When that didn’t appear to be the case I wondered how she could possibly be developing a case of scurvy in a grocery store. She nodded in my general direction and headed back down the aisle picking at a sore at the bridge of her nose.
Thad whispered to me. “She’s been doing that since this whole mess started, a sore no sooner closes up and she picks it
open.”
I shuddered in revulsion. The germaphobe in me was going to make sure that she wasn’t in the same vehicle as me when we headed back.
From right behind me, where he had been waiting behind the shopping carts came a giant of a man carrying a tire iron. I would have thought it was Durgan but this man was a soft chocolate color. He unnerved me to the core; give me a zombie any day.
“Sure glad I didn’t have to use this,” he said as he smacked the iron into his open palm. Alex and Travis rushed in thinking it was a gunshot, it was that loud.
“Ah yeah, me too,” I said honestly.
“That big fellow’s name is O’Henry but we all call him Big Tiny, because…” Thad stated.
“I get it,” I said looking straight into Big Tiny’s sternum.
“B.T. for short,” the big man said as he walked a little way past us to get a water out of one of the end cap coolers. I noticed he had a small smirk on his face, as if happy that his size had visibly flustered me like it did.