by Mark Tufo
“I’m not gonna B.S. you, Nicole, I don’t have all the answers, but the human brain is a powerful thing. Somehow it is rerouting all function up to it. I mean, how it can keep circulating blood with a damaged heart or keep someone from bleeding out with a blown off leg, no clue. It might be that these zombies are using way more brain function than we can even understand.” This comment got me more than one upraised eyebrow. “Okay, okay, tough room. I’m obviously not saying smarter, except for maybe Paul.” That got some laughs, which I was happy for, those had been scarce. Paul flipped me the finger. “I guess this brings me back to Erin’s original question, can they starve? Yeah, I think they can.” I finished the rest of my thought quickly before anyone could have their hopes raised too high. “But I also think it would take months for them to show any ill effects.” I thought they could go for years but I had already run over everyone’s hopes. I didn’t see the need to back up and finish the job.
“Dad, we don’t have that much food,” Nicole had only said out loud what was on every one’s mind.
“The zombies should be gone long before our food is gone,” I said confidently, hoping it was true.
What I was leaving unsaid was much more potent than what I had said. Before the zombies left they would have to completely deplete their food source. Now, this wasn’t some wild grass in the savannah, these were our neighbors and friends. It was not a bright moment in the Talbot household. I feigned sleep so I could turn my head. I didn’t want anyone to see my face as I wept silently for those I would never see again. For my mom and dad, my three brothers and sister, for the friends I loved, and even the ones I had fallen out of touch with hoping one day to reconnect. Hell, if given the time, I’d weep for the Barista who made my coffee every morning. I was so tired of this shit. My stress level was through the roof. I couldn’t even conceive of how I was going to keep everyone in this room safe, but the responsibility rested on my shoulders. I had fallen asleep sometime during my moments of doubt and shame. As I stirred awake, I had not a clue what time it was. Someone had blown out the majority of candles and the room was nearly coal black. I surveyed the jumbles and bunches of bodies that lay in every conceivable position. My gaze came to rest on two eyes that shone with a light of their own. I thought that possibly I hadn’t fully awaken and I was in the midst of lucid dreaming, but Henry’s flatulence erased any of that notion, unless of course I had received the special ability to smell in my dreams now. The eyes bore into mine. Searching through my mind, they found that worm of doubt that was wriggling around dementedly, and like a boot to a cockroach squashed it out. Tommy laid his head back down. I was released from my trance. I wanted to thank him for what he’d done but I wasn’t sure if he even knew.
I had always been a spiritual person and believed in the Yin and the Yang. There must always be a balance in the world. Love balances out hate, peace balances out war and in my mind, Tommy balanced out the zombies. Had he been this gifted before this shit storm began raining down on us? Probably not. Thank God for Wal-Mart and their affirmative action hiring processes. I disengaged myself from my sleeping bag, doing my best not to disturb the four or five people that were between me and the exit. This was worse than having a window seat on a jumbo jet. After stepping on a few body parts and receiving some rather colorful protests I made it to the door and to my ultimate goal of the bathroom.
There were times, especially recently, where I missed my youth. My carefree days in my late teens and early twenties, when the world was maybe not my oyster but definitely was my playground, when I didn’t yet know the next girl I was going to kiss. Responsibilities were someone else’s concerns. Then I would come back to the life and love I shared with my wife and kids, the unconditional love I felt for all of them, even stinky Henry. And I remembered that getting older was not necessarily a bad thing. I am telling you this because I just want to give you a glimpse of how my brain works. I wasn’t really reminiscing on the past so much as reveling in the present. My actual happy thought came from the fact that I was not a couple of years older with an enlarged prostate. All I could keep thinking was how much of a pain in the ass it would be to have to get out of that room four or five times a night to piss. Yeah, welcome to my world.
CHAPTER 25
Journal Entry - 22
The air temperature in the hallway dropped a good twenty degrees. I had almost forgotten why I was even out here when my bladder gave me a refresher. I finished my business and was reluctant to head back into the sauna. Between Tommy and the chilled air I was feeling invigorated, maybe not enough to go on an early morning jog but enough to do a circuit around the house. I had made it downstairs and into relative safety, or so I had thought. I let one rip that Henry would be proud of, then laughed to myself.
“God, I’ve been holding that beauty for two hours.”
“Hey Dad.”
Busted, dammit! “Hey Trav,” I said. My first inclination was to go on the offensive, ask him why he was down here. It would have all been a ruse to hide my embarrassment at getting nailed. Eh, what was the point. The smell alone should be punishment enough. I was quick to leave the room, so was Travis.
I went to the fridge and poured a glass of milk. I wanted to go through the perishables before they went bad. “Want some?” I asked Travis before I put it away.
He shook his head no, that was of course until he saw my secret stash of white fudge covered Oreos. We sat in silence for a few moments, relishing in the moment. Cold milk and Oreos, father and son, it could have been a commercial except for maybe the darkness and the threat of being eaten alive. Yeah, Nabisco probably wouldn’t be knocking on our door anytime soon. I sat back, my stomach content, hands on my belly. Travis looked over at me in alarm.
“You’re not gonna rip again are you?” he asked genuine concern across his face.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The last time I had been that busted, my mother had walked in on me just after the newest National Geographic had arrived. There was no such thing as the Internet back then! I was 13. Stop being judgmental.
“No, I’m good now,” I said patting my belly. “I’d been working on that one for a while. Should be good to go now, although I think I blew a hole in the back of my pants.” Travis laughed. It was good to see him do that.
“Dad.”
I stopped smiling. I knew there was something on his mind but I was going to let him get to it when he was good and ready.
He continued. “I miss school. Stop giving me that look, I don’t miss geometry, I miss my friends. I might even miss a teacher or two.”
I knew how he felt. He missed the routine of a normal life, something that I didn’t think we would ever find again. I couldn’t assure him that his friends would be all right or that things would eventually return to normal. Those would be empty promises, and he’d know it for what it was. I could promise him that we’d be okay. I would pass on the hope that Tommy had given to me. I reached over and hugged my youngest son for all I was worth. As I released him I spoke in his ear.
“If you tell your mother what I did down here, I will disown you.”
“Yeah if I’d known you were going to do that I wouldn’t have helped you make the house airtight,” he said as he pointed to the plastic covering the kitchen window.
Some early morning light was diffused through the opaque bag, but most of the ambient lighting came through the upper right hand corner where the bag had become detached. It was something about that little patch of light that warmed my heart, the dawning of a new day, it just felt good, new hope and all that. Believe me when I say Tommy was the only one blessed in this house with the gift of foresight. If I had known how the rest of this day was going to turn out I wouldn’t have gotten up to take that damn leak.
“Hey Bear!” I heard Travis say behind me.
Sometime while I was zoning out the giant dog had made its way downstairs. Travis was busy giving the big guy an ear scratch as Bear happily finished off an Oreo that he had given
him. No sooner had Bear finished the Oreo than he pivoted his head towards me. The train-like rumbling that emanated from his throat would have evacuated my bladder had I not taken care of that earlier.
“Whoa, Bear,” I said as I put my hands up. If he had turned, I was screwed. I hadn’t even thought to take a gun with me and my son was right next to him. “Take it easy, boy.” The hair on Bear’s back was standing straight up. His posture changed as he went from happy-go-lucky, to on the verge of attack, and he was looking at me. Trying to erase any signs of fear from my voice, not wanting to give the dog any ammunition, so to speak, I spoke to Travis. “Get up and out of here as slowly as you can. When you get to the stairs, haul ass and get help and guns.” I wasn’t thrilled about alerting the zombies to our presence with gunfire but that couldn’t be helped at the moment. That prospect was a whole lot more appealing than having to fight off a miniature grizzly bear. Who was going to win the fight was a foregone conclusion. How long I was going to last was open to debate.
“Bear’s not going to hurt you, Dad,” Travis said without much conviction in his voice.
‘Yeah, he’s gonna kill me.’ I thought sourly.
“Get out of here Trav,” I said through gritted teeth. I wanted my son out of harm’s way and I didn’t want him to see me get ripped apart either. Bear didn’t so much as blink when Travis loudly squealed his chair as he pushed away from the table. “That’s a good boy, Bear.”
His uncropped tail didn’t move, it was pointed straight back, the slight curve gave it the appearance of a furry sword. Everything about this dog pointed to menace. Its lips pulled back to reveal inch long canines, drool flowed from its maw. Hair bristled, its haunches coiled low, ready to pounce. I needed my son to get out of here before my legs gave way. They were shaking that much. Travis had made it to the entryway in the kitchen and glanced back once to look at me. I hoped it wasn’t the last time he saw me alive. As Travis rounded the corner, I heard him run up the stairs, I was guesstimating that help was ten or fifteen seconds away, Bear was positioned to strike, now. I moved slightly to my left hoping to get within range of the knife stand. Either the damn dog had extrasensory powers and knew what I was about to do or my number had finally come up. He lunged. I pushed over all the way to the left, my hand grasping wildly for anything that could be used for defense, my hand gripped tightly on a dishtowel. My brain had no true higher function. I was on the lowest plain of thought, SURVIVAL. I whipped that towel out in front of me, ready to deliver one hell of a bullwhip crack. I braced for an impact that never came. Bear had jumped up and put his large fore paws on the counter by the kitchen sink. His gaze riveted to the kitchen window. I was praising any deity that would listen for sparing my life. Help was bounding down the stairs. I looked to my hands and my ineffectual weapon and dropped it lest I got caught with it. Justin was first around the corner, .357 waving wildly, his fever-racked body barely able to hold the weapon.
“Hold on!” I said putting my hands up as I stood up and stepped in front of Bear.
I was as much in danger from that wildly swinging muzzle as Bear was. Justin looked confused. He had been sleeping soundly when the call for help had come. He wasn’t even clear about where the help was to be directed. He was moving quickly from the sleeping world into the waking one but not at a speed quick enough to avert a potential disaster.
“Justin!” I yelled, “It’s all right, put the gun down!”
He wasn’t convinced. “You sure?”
“No,” I answered. “I mean, in the immediate yes, but something is going on.”
I moved slowly away from my blocking position of Bear’s back. He still had not moved, his gaze fixated on the window, his muzzle pulled back in a wicked snarl. I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t want to look through that window. It was an omen of bad things to come, a window into the unfathomable, a gaping wound in the fabric of humanity. Use whatever adjectives you want, it was all of those things. I climbed onto the kitchen counter. Bear managed a sidelong glance at me as I brushed past his enormously large teeth. The big bad wolf had nothing on this dog. I took a deep breath as I began to move closer to the gap caused by the bad tape job. I became enraged for a moment at who had put this bag up and their shoddy workmanship. I wanted to get down off this counter and ‘give it’ to whoever had not been able to tape a bag up correctly, as if this was the cause of all our ills, as if this small hole had manifested whatever demons were lying in wait outside. But I knew that was ridiculous, it was just a stalling tactic. I didn’t want to see what had to be out there. It was Fritzy and he was going to exact his own revenge. I moved closer to the triangular shaped opening, convinced that a cold flat black eye would be staring back at me.
Or it could be even worse than Fritzy. The zombie girl was standing alone in my backyard signaling me to open the back door, and she wanted me to one by one send out my family and friends. She wanted me to watch as each person I loved and cherished in this world was torn asunder. She would laugh as she tore each of their throats open, drinking greedily of their lives. I shook, and Bear whined.
“What is it Mike?” Tracy asked as she came up to the counter and began absently stroking Bear’s raised mane.
I shook my head trying to clear away the malignant thoughts. “Uh, I don’t know.” I didn’t want to tell her what I imagined was out there or that I hadn’t built up enough courage to look.
And in her typical pragmatic way she said. “Well don’t you think you should find out?”
I wanted to yell, ‘Why don’t you fucken climb up here and find out for yourself! Because I think it’s either the fucken crazy guy I murdered yesterday coming back to take me with him into the seventh circle of hell or it’s my zombie girlfriend come to give everyone I love the kiss of death!’ But instead of the histrionics I merely answered with “Yes dear.” It seemed more appropriate.
For the fourth, fifth…tenth time I took a calming deep breath. Whoever tells you that works wonders is full of crap. It did nothing but more fully oxygenate my overactive imagination, like putting gasoline on a tire fire. By now the entire population of the house was in the kitchen, armed to the gills, and all eyes were on me. I put my right eye to the hole. What I saw perplexed the hell out of me. I saw…nothing. Well I mean not exactly nothing, there was the grill, the bench swing, Henry’s sunbathing couch, a snow shovel leaning up against the garage. I guess what I meant to say was there was nothing out of the ordinary. I pulled more of the bag down so I could survey the ground. The snow was as fresh as when it had fallen. There were no foreboding footsteps leading up to the backdoor, no drops of blood from a vengeful specter.
The gate had not been opened or it would have left the telltale signs in the snow. There was no valid reason as to why Bear had behaved the way he had. I was about to re-adhere the bag when I noticed a bit of snow falling. That doesn’t mean too much in the middle of winter in Colorado, but the day was sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. The snow had fallen off the fence that separated my yard from Techno Neighbor’s. Something had bumped up against it and in turn had knocked off some of the snow that had accumulated on the pickets and supports. I still had no reason to be overly alarmed, but Bear had already set the precedent. No sooner had the unsettled snow landed softly in my yard than the fence came crashing down into my grill, knocking it over. The noise was phenomenally loud. I hopped off the counter, not taking my eyes off the developing scene in the backyard.
“Mike, what the hell is going on?” Tracy asked. She couldn’t see what was happening from her vantage point.
“Uh, zombies,” I said flatly.
Zombies were pouring into my yard through the busted fence. I was half tempted to go out there and yell at them for messing up my grill. I loved that thing, the Char-Broil Master Smoker. I had paid good money for that when I was still earning a decent paycheck and to see it just get trampled like that pissed me off.
“Uh, Mike are the back doors locked?” Paul asked.
My eyes went
to the back door. That was the weak link in all of this. I swore at myself for having not gotten around to fixing that. I just always assumed the gate would hold, and technically it did. It was the freaken fence that had let me down.
“Mike?” Paul asked again.
“Yeah they’re locked, but they wouldn’t hold back a determined woodchuck if he wanted to get in,” I answered. It was time for action, not reflection. “All right everybody, grab whatever you can out of the fridge and under the cupboards and head upstairs.”
Luckily not everyone gets as lost in their thoughts like I do. The kitchen was bustling with activity. Nobody stopped for more than a second or two to realize just how close the zombies were. Bear and I went into the living area to keep an eye on the back door and to also get out of the way while the kitchen was quickly emptied of food. Everyone stopped when the first body impacted with the door, their heads jerking up, their backs ramrod stiff. It looked like a pack of meercats when a threat is detected. I flipped off my safety; Bear got into his pouncing pose that I had just recently learned. “No, Bear,” I admonished him. “You go with the boys.” I was happy when he didn’t abandon his post, but I still didn’t want him here.
“Tommy!” I yelled without pulling my eyes away from the creaking door.
“Yeaf?” he asked, standing up from under the cupboards. I had to look, his arms were full of boxes of Pop-Tarts and to lighten his load he was halfway through one.
“Take Bear and yourself and go upstairs,” I told him.
His face fell a little as he began to put down the Pop-Tart boxes.
“And the Pop-Tarts too,” I told him.
His strawberry-laced teeth smiled brightly. “Come onf Bearf,” he said.
Bear looked once at me, back at the door and headed upstairs with Tommy.