by Mark Tufo
“How far away do you live from here?” I asked.
“Not very, from the back of this rest area you go through the fence, a small woods and then we’re about two streets away. “Half mile maybe?” he asked his friends, looking for validation.
One of the dirtier kids (who was aptly named Sty) just shrugged his shoulders. “Guess so,” he answered in that typical dripping with contempt teenager way.
“What were you guys doing out here?” I asked, just to change the subject. He had lost at least two friends and his parents and probably didn’t want to rehash that again.
“We were sledding, there’s an awesome hill right at the fence,” Ryan said with a ghost of a smile on his face.
“And this store used to have the best chocolate milk,” Dizz added a little melancholy.
“I drank the last one,” Angel said. “Dizz gave it to me. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Dizz said, a little embarrassed.
“Our mom was going to get her hair done,” Ryan said. “She told me I had to take Ang with us if I wanted to go out.”
“Daddy wasn’t feeling good, he was cranky and had gone to sleep,” Angel added for good measure.
My immediate thought was that he had been infected. Ryan must have been able to see the wheels spinning in my head, he nodded in assertion to my unspoken words.
“I had just come back up the slope and was waiting for my turn when I heard a bunch of horns and some skidding,” Ryan said.
“And then a lot of crashy noises,” Angel said, placing her hands over her ears as if it was happening now.
“Zombies just started walking out into the roadway. I mean, we didn’t know they were zombies then. It was horrible, trucks and cars were just plowing into them or crashing into the guardrail or each other trying to avoid them. But that wasn’t the worst part.”
“Don’t Eyean,” Angel begged, trying to bury her head and her thoughts deep down.
“Well anyway,” Ryan started back up, leaving out the gorier details for the sake of his sister, and I guess for all of us actually. “We watched, we just couldn’t believe what was happening.” Angel groaned. “Customers and people that worked here they all left, I mean in a hurry, and the zombies pretty much followed them. I know it was wrong but we,” and he made sure to point at all of the guilty parties. “We just had to come in and take a look.”
An untended store as a teenager, that’s a no-brainer. I would have ransacked the hell out of the place. It’s in my nature.
Ryan looked at me to see if I was holding judgment over his actions. “I would have done the same thing,” I told him, and he seemed relieved. Now to clarify, just because I would have done it definitely didn’t make it right, but I decided to not tell him that.
“We were still in here messing around,” he continued.
“And eating stuff,” Dizz added.
Ryan looked over at him crossly. “And yeah, I guess, eating some stuff.”
“A lot of stuff,” Angel said with a big grin.
“I get it, you ate a bunch of stuff,” I said.
“A bunch,” Angel agreed. “And then the army men came.”
“Yeah, they were using huge trucks with plows to push all the cars out of the way,” Dizz said.
“We thought they were coming for us,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, it’s a Capital Offense to steal a Slim Jim,” I said sardonically.
Angel started crying. “Nice one Talbot,” Tracy said, trying to comfort the girl.
“I was just kidding Angel,” I said, trying to placate her. “And how do you know what capital offense means?”
“So we were scared,” Ryan continued. “We hid until they had gone by, it was completely dark by then and the power was out. Couldn’t see anything here because there was only a little bit of moonlight. We heard some wicked fighting down the road.”
“Guns, grenades, missiles, everything,” Dizz said in fond remembrance. “The sky was pretty bright because of it.”
“And smoky,” Angel interjected.
“Yeah, definitely smoky,” her big brother said.
I was going to ask them why they hadn’t gone home at that point. But this wasn’t a difficult puzzle to piece together. The power was out everywhere, no fun being out and about when you can’t even see your hand in front of your face, much less whether zombies are after you. I wouldn’t have taken that chance either.
Ryan continued his narrative. “The next day, early on, we saw some army guys heading back the way they had come and then nothing. No cars, no fighting, nothing. Benny and Chirp said it was time to go.” Ryan looked down at his feet. “Mister, I was scared, for… for my sister.”
‘Nice recovery,’ I thought. Can’t ever show weakness in front of your friends, especially not your friends.
“We had been safe in the store the night before, there was no way of telling what was happening outside. They called me chicken but promised they would send help back.”
“That was a long time ago,” Angel added softly.
“And have you tried to go home since then?” Tracy asked, her arm still wrapped protectively around Angel.
“Me and Dizz went down the hill and to the edge of the woods a few weeks ago, but all we saw were zombies. I’m pretty sure we could have made it to either of our houses, but I didn’t want to know by that point. My mom knew where we had gone, if she was…” He paused as Angel looked at him. “Um, well, she would have got us if she could, that’s all I meant.”
“And you haven’t had any zombies come here?” I asked incredulously.
“Early on there were a few outside, but none ever tried to get in. And then they just started leaving like they were being called or something.”
Chills ran up my spine.
“What now?” I asked Ryan.
“Don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“What do you mean Talbot? We can’t just leave them here!” Tracy said hotly.
“You think taking them with us is the wisest choice?” I said, matching her tone. “You know where we are going, right? Into the damn teeth of the enemy!” Tracy flinched at my outburst. “I think that they’re light years safer here than with us!”
Angel started crying. “You’re an asshole Talbot!” Tracy said as she turned and walked away.
“Whatever, I’ve been called worse by better!”
“Dick,” she added, flipping me the bird over her shoulder.
“Geez mister, you sure do have a way with the ladies,” Sty said in wry admiration.
Ryan looked dejected that we weren’t the cavalry. “I’m sorry kid,” I told him. “You do not want to go where we are going.”
“The Summoner?” he asked apprehensively.
I involuntarily staggered back a step as if he had given me a physical blow. “How… how could you know?”
“She keeps showing up in my dreams,”
“Yeah. Ryan’s kind of psychic,” Dizz said half-jokingly and half with awe.
“Psychic?” I asked Ryan. “Anything else you could tell me?”
“Yeah,” he said solemnly. “You shouldn’t follow her.”
CHAPTER FIVE – BT and Meredith
“I’m going with you,” Meredith, Ron’s second oldest told BT as he placed some ammo cans in the back of the SUV.
BT stood up, towering over the girl. “I’m more the solo type,” he told her sternly.
“Oh, you’re all lone wolf and shit?” she said sarcastically.
“I am a giant man. I know this, so why are all you Talbots not afraid of me?”
“What time are we leaving?” she asked, not in the least nonplussed.
“Your father isn’t going to let you go.”
“I’m 23, I’m pretty sure I can make my own decisions,” she said, poking a finger at his sternum.
“Wonderful, looking forward to the company,” BT said without much conviction.
* * *
BT would have left hours earlier if not
for the fight that raged in the Talbot household. Meredith had made her decision known and Ron had snapped.
“I am 23 years old, Dad. I am by all conventional methods of societal acknowledgement an adult.”
“Don’t go pulling that psycho-babble mumbo jumbo you learned in college, that I paid for by the way, on me. This isn’t telling me that you’re going to Paris for the summer. It’s war out there, Meredith, people are dying!” Ron yelled.
“Yeah and Uncle Mike is going to try and do something about it!” she yelled back. “And I want to be part of it!”
“I understand wanting to be a part of something bigger than yourself, I really do,” he said, taking it down a few notches, going with the reasoning approach. “But getting yourself killed is not a solution to the problem.”
“Is that what you think is going to happen with Uncle Mike?” Meredith asked. Ron’s ensuing silence answered her. “Then he definitely needs my help.”
Ron could only shake his head. BT stood at the doorway to the living room as Meredith passed by.
Ron turned to BT, eyes red rimmed with worry.
“I will not let anything happen to her,” BT said. “I promise you.”
Ron nodded once, emotions choking his thoughts. Words would have pooled with tears if he had tried to speak.
Ten minutes later the SUV was packed and ready to go. Meredith climbed into the driver’s seat before BT could protest.
“You remember to call me every night. Do you understand?” Ron asked leaning into the driver’s side window.
“We will, Dad,” Meredith answered impatiently.
“BT?”
“Yes Dad,” BT answered.
“Two smart asses, fantastic,” Ron said as he stood back up.
“You’re letting her go?” Nancy, Ron’s wife asked incredulously.
“I tried to stop her, I did. You know how strong-willed she is.”
Nancy could only nod. Even from an early age Meredith had been an independent soul. Nancy had never won an argument with her daughter, but they had from time to time come to a mutual agreement that they would stop fighting. Nancy placed her head on Ron’s shoulder as she watched her daughter prepare to leave.
Meredith waved to her assembled family and placed the truck in gear. She looked over to BT and kept staring.
“What?” BT asked.
“Seatbelt.”
“What about it?”
“I’m not going anywhere until you put yours on,” she said stubbornly.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
BT stared at her long and hard. When he realized intimidation wasn’t going to work, he reached behind him and grabbed the buckle. He pulled it across his chest and down towards the locking mechanism; it came up 4” short of its goal. “Can’t,” he said triumphantly.
“Suck your gut in,” Meredith told him.
“I’m not forcing this thing, it’ll cut off my circulation!”
“Then you might as well get out now.”
“Something wrong honey?” Nancy asked.
“Yeah, apparently someone liked home cooking a little bit more than they should have, Mom!” Meredith yelled back.
“Fine!” BT said, driving the buckle into the lock.
“You look like you’re wearing dental floss,” Meredith chuckled. “Don’t you feel safer now?”
“Just drive,” BT said through gritted teeth.
“You’re no fun,” Meredith said as she took her foot off the brake. She could not help but feel that they were the cavalry and they would get there in the nick of time. She hoped history would prove she was right.
Eliza and Tomas - Interlude
Tommy sat alone in the dark. The room was preternaturally cold; the radiator he was chained to gave forth no heat. Blood and snot intermingled on his top lip, pooling before running into his mouth. The thick liquid did little to quench his insatiable thirst. Fear pressed in from every angle, insidiously worming its way into every exposed crevice in his unnaturally strong mental armor.
“Hello Tomas,” a dark voice issued forth from a darker recess in the room.
He knew he was slipping, he had not even noticed when his sister had entered the room. Tomas had stopped pleading with her days ago when he realized the entity that looked like his sister carried none of her legacy traits.
“It is time,” Eliza told him.
“God is mad, Lizzie,” Tommy sputtered.
When Eliza laughed, a cruel thin metallic sound issued forth. Tommy did not fight when she gripped the top of his head and forced it to the side. As she leaned down, Tommy’s screams filled the night.
CHAPTER SIX – Alex, Paul and Company
“Marta, are you alright?” Alex asked his wife with concern. She had been tossing and turning for hours and now moans of despair where coming from deep within her chest.
“NO I WILL NOT!” She said forcibly, sitting straight up.
“Honey it’s me. Mi amor.”
Eyes wide open, lips pulled back, teeth clenched; terror strained her features. Marta took a half-hearted swipe at Alex before realizing who he was. She stiffened when he hugged her.
“Are you alright?” Alex asked, breaking the embrace to look into her eyes.
Marta’s head sagged down. “My head hurts Alex,” she said, rubbing her temples.
“Do you want me to get some aspirin Marta?”
“It’s a deeper pain than that Alex, I don’t know how to explain it. I used to have migraines when I was a teenager, those don’t even compare. I feel like something deep in my mind has decided it wants out and it is going to crack my head wide open to do it.”
Alex was alarmed. Marta sometimes had a flair for the dramatic but he was not picking that vibe up right now. That she was in immense pain was clearly evident, the whites of her eyes were filled with red lines and he felt powerless to do anything about it. Paul had come up to the doorway of the room the Carbonaras were staying in. The abandoned school that they had sought refuge in had been a perfect fit. Plenty of room and plenty of canned goods in the cafeteria, although there was a reason school food was so horrible, it was of extremely low quality. The words ‘Grade E but edible’ adorned more than one label.
Paul wore a look of concern. Marta’s headaches had become more frequent and more intense. His initial thought was ‘tumor’ but he didn’t think their chances of finding a neurologist were so good.
Much like a migraine, all that seemed to help Marta was extreme dark and extreme quiet. Alex met Paul at the doorway and closed it behind him. Before they had walked more than a pace, Marta’s voice floated out to them and froze them both in place. “The darkness matches the void where her soul should be.”
Paul could not contain the shiver that started at the base of his spine and like an insidious spider crawled all the way up to his brain stem, all eight legs caressing his creep factor.
“She does not know what she is talking about,” Alex told Paul, an insincere smile splashed across his face.
Paul thought otherwise.
CHAPTER SEVEN – Talbot Journal Entry 5
“Honey I’m sorry,” I told Tracy for the fifth time. Dammit, I hate groveling, well maybe I actually love it, I put myself in enough of these situations where it’s my only avenue of escape. “Hon, look at me. I feel for these kids, I really do, that’s why I don’t want to take them with us.”
Tracy did finally look at me. “You’re right.”
She could have punched me square in the gut and not gotten the same effect. We had been married twenty something years and I could count on one finger how many times she had told me I was right. “Wait, what? Could you maybe say that again?”
“Don’t push it Mike,” she snapped.
Gary was nodding behind her.
“They need to go to Ron’s,” she said triumphantly.
It was a brilliant idea. Ron would take them in without even blinking. “Hey, which of you guys has a driver’s l
icense?” I asked the three boys hopefully.
“I have a permit,” Dizz answered, obviously feeling self-important.
“Mike, that’s not what I meant. How much have you driven, Dizz?” Tracy asked.
“I pulled out of the driveway once. Clipped the mailbox and then my dad made me get out, he was not happy,” Dizz answered, his inflated importance quickly deflating.
“Dad!” Justin yelled from the front doors.
“Company?” I asked.
He nodded in return.
Gary grabbed his gear and ran to the front. “Fifteen, nope sixteen.” I could see him doing quick calculations in his head. “Scratch that, eighteen, oh where’d that one come from, nineteen. Does a crawler count, because that would make it twenty,”
“I get it, there’s a bunch,”