by Mark Tufo
“Find out in a minute,” Jack shouted back.
The entire group, even the pain in the ass Deneaux, watched as Jack extended the ladder. Woefully short would have been an adequate description. There was a good twenty feet between the tip of the ladder and the lip of the roof. An Olympic jumper could not bridge that gap. I smirked a bit as I thought of Deneaux trying. She could have probably made it if she had her broom.
Jack came down from the ladder control box and walked around the ladder truck until he found what he considered a suitable portable ladder.
I looked at Jack as he grabbed the ladder and then looked to the furthest point of the extended ladder which was swaying in the light breeze. “No way,” I breathed.
“Jack I don’t think so,” I said, voicing my concern.
Eliza and Tomas - Interlude
“Interesting,” Eliza said as she watched the rescue attempt.
“No way,” Durgan said as he watched the sway of the ladder. “They came up short. I say we take them out now!”
“We will do as We wish,” Eliza said, nodding to Tomas. “What do you think we should do, dear Brother?” Eliza asked as she stroked his cheek.
“Michael Talbot will find a way on to that roof, Sister. And then we will have them all in one place,” Tomas answered as he looked through the window in the former store manager’s office. Grief was etched on his features, but it was belied by the eagerness in his eyes.
“All you have to do is send your zombies up to that fire engine, Mistress, and this whole exercise will be over,” Durgan said with a tone of exasperation.
Eliza grabbed a handful of Durgan’s shirt and lifted the man who weighed nearly three times her body weight and thrust him against the far wall. A small picture and a framed award shattered to the floor as a dazed Durgan tried to regain his footing.
“Do not trouble me with what you want!” she shouted. “Do not presume to think that I care at all what petty thoughts run through that pathetic human brain! You will do as I command, WHEN I command it!”
Durgan was finally able to stand. He was certain that he had just suffered a mild concussion, but Eliza’s words rang loud and clear through the accumulating fog in his brain. “Yes Mistress,” he said meekly as he placed his hand up to a small wound on the back of his head. Tomas never turned around throughout the entire episode and that enflamed Durgan more than that little shit-eating grin the kid generally displayed around him.
“What are you doing, Brother?” Eliza asked as she joined Tomas back at the window. Durgan for the moment was completely forgotten.
‘So, this is the joy of being in the company of immortals,’ Durgan thought as he pulled up a chair, his head throbbing uncontrollably, his vision slightly blurred.
“I am sending zombies to the truck,” Tomas answered matter-of-factly.
“When did you discover that you could control them?” Eliza asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Just now,” Tomas answered, deep in concentration.
“I do not think that I like this new development, Brother.”
“I would not think so,” he told her, never wavering in his concentration.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT – Talbot Journal Entry 14
“Zombies have spotted us,” Cindy said as she looked down from her perch on the fire engine’s hood.
Perla began to question the wisdom of what Jack was trying to pull off.
“Jack, I think we should just get out of here. Those people on the roof, we don’t even know them,” Perla said, embarrassed when she realized that I was within earshot.
Jack looked over towards me and shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘She doesn’t speak for me.’
“I’ve said it from the beginning,” I told them. “You don’t owe us anything,”
“We might not know you well now,” Jack began. “But we will eventually, and I for one wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if we didn’t do everything in our power to rescue them,” he finished more to Perla than for me.
“You be careful,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder.
“I made it through a tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. What’s a little high wire act above a few thousand zombies in comparison?” he asked her with bravado.
“Not funny,” she said as she mock punched his arm. The words did have the desired effect though, as she walked away from him with a slight smile.
“Jack, I think we should get out of here before the zombies make their way up to us and rethink this,” I told him.
Gary was at my side, nodding as he looked at the outstretched ladder swaying gently in the breeze. “I wouldn’t trust a monkey on that.”
A rifle shot exploded through the relative stillness of the day. “Nice shot, Meredith!” Justin yelled.
“Fifty feet, Dad!” Travis yelled.
Now came the dilemma. If we tried this insane plan we were stuck here. It was an all or nothing proposal and to what end. Within seconds, we would all have to be on the fire truck or in our own vehicles getting the hell out of Dodge. The plus side had completely diminished as far as I could tell. The absolute best we could hope to accomplish at this point was to be stuck up on the roof with Paul and Alex, the worst would be being stuck in the fire truck. I didn’t think it would be capable of pushing through a wall of zombies. Well scratch that, the absolute worst would be getting eaten. Yeah, that would take the cake.
“Twenty-five feet!” came the update.
“Let’s get out of here!” I yelled. I’d made up my mind, there was no upside anymore.
“I can do this,” Jack said as he began to climb the extended ladder with the mobile ladder.
“What’s going on Mike?” BT asked.
“Zombies will be here in a few seconds,” I told him.
“And then we’re stuck,” Tracy added, filling in the blanks.
Perla seemed relieved that her fiancé would not be making the attempt.
“Just let me try it once Mike?” Jack asked, never really stopping his ascent.
“Brian, he’s not going to listen to me. You need to get him down so we can get out of here,” I said. Gunshots from Meredith, Travis and Justin seemed to reiterate my point.
“Jack, he’s right!” Brian yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here while the getting is good.”
“Get the girls and get the hell out of here!” Jack said as he reached the end of the ladder.
“Can we just drive away with him on the ladder?” Perla asked, nervousness putting a tremor in her voice.
“He’s having a hard enough time staying on as it is, we hit a bump…” I let my frank answer trail off.
“We stay. Travis! I’ll help you, let’s grab the ammo cans, everyone else on the fire truck,” I said with dejection. This was not how I had envisioned this moment.
I had no sooner handed up the last ammo can when the zombies came around the back of the truck. I scrambled up the truck quicker than I thought my bone-weary body could move.
Meredith started firing into the rapidly growing crowd around us. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Save the ammo for when we’re going to need it,” I told her.
“That isn’t now?” she asked me incredulously.
I just shook my head in negation.
I turned to watch Jack’s progress. It was at this exact moment that I wished I had been forced to watch a 72 hour Glee marathon, anything but what I was about to witness. Jack had propped up the smaller ladder by jamming it through a couple of the much bigger ladder’s rungs. Now he was trying to secure it with some cabling. But before he could do that, the swaying from the wind, the jostling of the truck from our movements, and the zombies bumping into the body of the truck began to jar the ladder loose. I saw the small aluminum ladder begin to slowly fall as Newton’s law began to take effect. My first instinct was to tell him to let it go. I had always taught my kids that it was not worth injuring yourself to save ANY piece of equipment, get out of its way and let it fall where it may.
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br /> Jack did not adhere to those rules. He reached out and grabbed it with one hand. There was a moment where it appeared that he might be able to muscle the wayward steps back into place, but the centrifugal force of Mother Earth was just a bit stronger than him that day. Jack began to lift off the ladder as the levering action began to outweigh him.
I swear it seemed to happen in super slow motion, but before I could form the words ‘Let it go!’ he was already past the point of no return. Perla turned just in time to watch as he pitched head first into the throng of zombies below. The sound as his head crashed into a zombie’s was sickening. Why had I told Meredith to stop shooting? At least it would have masked that cracking noise.
I ran up the ladder halfway. What I was expecting to see that would be any different from the reality of the event, who knows? It just seemed like the right thing to do. But it wasn’t, Jack was lying prostrate on the pavement, blood pouring from a fissure in his skull. A zombie was lying next to him, at least he had taken one out with him. As I write that thought down, I can’t decide if it’s a crappy thought or a realist thought. A small circle of empty space formed around Jack and the zombie. There was more going on here than met the eye, but that always seemed to be the friggen’ case.
“He’s alive!” I yelled as I watched Jack’s hand twitch. Although I was thinking that I should have maybe kept that thought to myself. It could have just been the spasms of death throes and even if he was alive, he was basically the last bottle of beer in a dry county.
“Jack!” Perla screamed from the base of the ladder.
Cindy was next to her with her arms around her shoulders.
“We’re going to get you out of there!” Brian yelled.
‘We are?’ I thought. Hey, I was all for a rescue, but short of a helicopter, this was going to be a bit tricky.
BT was looking over Brian’s head at me.
‘No clue.’ I mouthed.
Jack slowly turned over, his mouth full of blood. “Bufsted a few teef,” he said as he gingerly pulled himself to a sitting position.
“No biggie, buddy,” Brian said. “Don’t need them to drink beer.”
Jack gave him the thumbs up, but his head was hanging down.
From my elevated perch I watched as a path began to form from the front of the store right to Jack. I lifted my rifle. Something wicked this way came and I was going to blow it back to the corner of hell it had been let out of.
“Hi asshole!” Durgan yelled as he approached. “And put the damn gun down, you shoot me and Eliza sends zombies onto the roof, and you know what happens then. Friends get eaten, blood spurts everywhere, it’s a mess!” he shouted gleefully. “Oh, what’s the matter? You look like someone just dropped a big smelly log in your Cheerios! Bet you didn’t know my Mistress was here, did you?”
I still hadn’t said anything.
“Shoot him! If you don’t, I will!” Paul yelled from the roof. “We’ll take care of ourselves!”
Durgan hesitated, he hadn’t been expecting that.
I loved Paul for that, but I’d been shooting with him before. If the target wasn’t the size of an elephant and stationary, he would have a difficult time putting a bullet in it.
“Don’t you dare!” Durgan shouted at me. I pulled the muzzle up just to see the asshole sweat a little.
“O mi dios!” I heard Marta scream.
“Zombies are banging on the door,” Alex explained.
Durgan smiled. I lowered my gun, not willing to let the bluff get out of hand.
“Oh, and shithead, Eliza says if you try to leave on that fancy truck of yours, she will let me bust down that door and kill your friends.”
That was of course if I even thought the truck could roll over this many deaders.
Paul picked up his rifle and started to pepper Durgan’s general location. Zombies fell as bellies erupted and heads splintered. Zombies closed around Durgan like a shield, I could see the small bubble of protection as it weaved its way back to the safety of the store.
“Not a great idea!” I yelled to Paul.
“Screw him. Do you think they’re really just going to let us go? I could have at least had the satisfaction of watching him die!” Paul yelled angrily back.
“I guess you’ve got a point there.”
“How’s he doing?” Paul asked of Jack.
“My heaf if killing me,” Jack said as he shakily got to his feet.
I started firing into the zombies that began to tighten their circle back around Jack. His time on earth had come to an unmerciful end. Perla started running up the ladder which began to swing from the effort.
“I love you Perla!” Jack yelled just as the first of the zombies tore into his flesh. It came out more as ‘I wove woo’ but the man was about to die and I let him have his dignity back at least in this journal.
I kept firing into them long after his screams had died down. What was once Jack O’Donnell would now fit snugly in a lunch box with room for a thermos. Perla nearly pitched in after him, wrapped up in her grief as she was. Brian wasn’t much better.
I slowly descended, bringing Perla with me so that Cindy could try and console her. The guilt that dropped onto my frame would weigh heavily for a long time.
BT met me at the controls to the ladder as I handed Perla off.
“You still going to try this?” he asked me.
“Got nothing better going on,” I told him.
“Mike, come on man, its suicide,” BT said seriously.
“It’s only suicide if I take my own life, not if they do it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean, I just think I’d rather die up there than down here.”
“Why don’t we just run the squishy turds over and get out of here?”
“Eliza is not one for idle threats, we leave, they’re dead.” I said pointing up towards the roof.
“Mike, we stay, they’re dead AND we’re dead.”
“Man, I know it, you know it, they know it,” I said pointing to the front of the store.
“But you’re still going to try, aren’t you,” BT stated in amazement.
“It’s what I do man, I’m a helper.”
“Durgan was right, you are an asswipe,”
“That hurts man, now help me get another ladder.”
Tracy watched BT cover me as I reached down to unfasten another ladder. “What are you doing, Mike?” she asked, although she already knew. “You are not going to try that again,” she said, pointing her finger to Jack’s last perch.
I stood back up with the prize in my hands. The zombies watched me with a predatory gaze but they never made a move for me. I had been within reach as I bent down to retrieve the ladder but they had remained fairly civil.
“Mighty decent of them,” BT said echoing my thoughts.
“I thought so. Maybe we could take a few of them out for drinks when this is all over,” I told him.
“Don’t you dare say it!” Tracy snapped.
“What?” BT asked in bewilderment.
“Fine, tell him,” she said, turning towards me.
“We could get Zombies!” I said with a small smile.
BT still looked confused.
“Oh, you’re ruining it, man. A Zombie is a drink we used to get at Chinese food restaurants,” I explained.
“That’s not a good joke, Mike,” BT said seriously.
“It sounded way better in my head.”
“What color are they?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“The drinks, what color are they?”
“Green,” I told him.
“Man, they don’t even sound good,”
“Well, they’re not really. They’re just really strong, supposed to make you feel like a zombie.”
“Maybe we should just move on to the whole ladder thing,” BT said, grabbing it from my hands.
“Mike, no,” Tracy entreated me.
“Need some help?” Gary asked.
“Are all you Talbots insane?” Tracy asked.
“I’m not a Talbot,” BT said indignantly.
“Oh, that makes it all better then!” Tracy yelled at him.
BT shrugged his shoulders and went back to his climb. I followed close behind.
Gary stayed down as the ladder began to dip under the added weight of BT and myself. In fairness, the downward slant of the ladder had more to do with BT’s bulk than my own, although I’d never tell him that.
“What’s the plan?” BT asked once we reached the top.
“You know how I feel about plans.”
“Okay, what’s your idea then?”
“Well, let’s extend this bad boy as far as it will go, straight up, and then we’ll try to do a controlled fall so that it hits the roof.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then make sure you let it go before it falls into the crowd.”
“Seems sane enough.”
“Yeah, most of my ideas start off with great expectations, only to decay rapidly into…”
“Devastation,” BT concluded.