by Mark Tufo
“I’m not happy about this, Mike.” The truck dipped down as he got back in.
“When’s the last time you were happy?”
“The minute before I met you and every minute before that.”
“He’s funny,” Trip said.
“Trip, what the hell isn’t funny to you?”
Travis opened up the small window. “Uncle Ron is on the deck.” Travis waved. I didn’t turn around. My wave would have included a couple of universally offensive gestures and maybe a few newly invented ones. We were rolling along at a blistering five miles an hour. We were all locked and loaded, even Trip. Tough to take a man serious with a joint hanging out of his mouth, but he looked all business, right now. Zombies started flooding out of the woods and directly onto our path as we rolled closer.
MJ’s boxes might work just fine, but I’ve always been a bigger fan of eradication rather than deterrent. “Kiss my ass,” I said, lighting a sparkler fuse. I jumped when I felt something brush up against my hindquarters. “What the fuck, Trip. I didn’t mean literally! And definitely not you, man!”
“Oh, he knows what he’s doing. It’ll be all right.” BT was mimicking me.
I’ve been proven wrong plenty of times, but usually not so quickly. Didn’t have too much time to worry about it, though, as the bomb exploded off to our front. Luckily for us, BT was going slow, because the truck veered to the side, almost putting us in a ditch.
“What the hell!” he shouted. “Who throws bombs and doesn’t tell people!”
“Maybe if you were paying more attention to what was going on in front of you rather than watching a grown man have his ass kissed, you would have known about it.”
He grumbled a bit but didn’t say anything else.
“Yo Daisy, I’m throwing more bombs.”
“If you are referring to Driving Miss Daisy, she was his passenger. The chauffeur was Hoke Colburn.”
“Never saw it. Just figured you looked like a Daisy.”
With the truck still rolling, BT got out. I mean all the way out.
“What are you doing, man?” I got over to the far side of the bed. Trav reached over to grab the wheel.
“I’m doing something that should have been done a long time ago. I’m gonna beat your ass.”
“Wait, man, this is crazy, we’re in the middle of zombies and….”
He wasn’t listening. He was still coming closer. I jumped out and ran to the front of the truck, making sure to keep as much of the truck between us as possible.
After a few attempts at trying to catch me and a slow rolling approach to the zombies who seemed mighty interested, BT finally got back in the truck. “You’re lucky you’re fast for a white guy.”
Oh, I had all sorts of responses, but I wisely let them sit and stew in the sarcastic batter of my brain where they belonged. The beast had been sufficiently poked. I quietly climbed back into the truck. BT reached behind him and pulled the window shut.
“That guy’s crazy,” Trip said, swirling his finger around by his neck. He was also rolling his eyes, sticking his tongue in and out, and rubbing his belly.
“Yup, he’s the crazy one, Trip.” I guess at least Trip hadn’t jumped out of a moving vehicle with zombies all around us to seek revenge. I didn’t throw any more bombs, although the zombies seemed to have gotten the picture or MJ’s boxes were working better than expected. Fifteen feet was still entirely too close; seven miles would have been better. We’d just turned off of Ron’s small approach road when I smelled burning paint. At first, I thought it had something to do with the sparklers and maybe Trip had inadvertently lit one and now we were sitting on a rolling bomb, then I saw the smoke coming from the side of the truck. I leaned over.
“Shit.” I tried to kick the flaming box off, but MJ must have used superglue based magnets because the thing didn’t move, and I was afraid to keep hitting it for fear my boot would catch fire.
“What is that? What is that?” BT screamed. It didn’t sound the least bit muffled through the glass, and it sounded like it came from a bullhorn when he slid it open.
I didn’t say a word. It was Tommy who spoke. I think even Trip knew he was on BT’s short shit-list and figured he might not be fast enough to get away should BT charge again. “Mad Jack’s box is burning a hole through the quarter panel.”
“Not a phosphorous grenade, my ass.” I watched as paint and steel dripped down onto the ground.
BT slammed his hand down so hard on the steering wheel, he bent it. “I promised him I wouldn’t wreck the truck!”
“At least you got it out of his sight.” I was being sincere. The look he turned back on me showed that he didn’t share in that sentiment. The box fell to the ground. A plume of flame and cloud rose, looking very much like a miniature nuclear bomb.
“You think that’s like Hiroshima to the ants?” Trip asked me. He looked pretty upset about that prospect.
“Let’s hope not. It looked like an unpopulated area.” He perked up at my words.
“We don’t have much time.” Tommy said, not sure if it was to me or not as he wasn’t looking my way.
“How do you know?” I knew what he was talking about.
“They’re actively looking.”
“Haven’t they been for a while?”
“Sure, but they’re a lot closer now, and that makes the link that much stronger. You should be able to feel it, too.”
“Hell no, I’ve been ignoring that half of me as best I can. How much time do we have?”
“Unsure. Vampires don’t live on the same time schedule as we do. They look at things in terms of decades where people look at things in terms of days. Soon though. That they already acted so quickly on my sister’s death speaks volumes of their curiosity.”
“And what of their intent?”
“Vampires aren’t very social creatures, Mr. T.”
“So we can reasonably assume it won’t be good?”
“That’s a fair assumption.”
One more box caught on fire before we got to town. BT started swearing again. I was just happy it missed the tire, or we would have had to stop to change a flat, and I was already feeling the pressure of our time constraints. A lot of the zombies had peeled off with me from my first escape and then again with the kids, but like the good little zombies that they were, there was still plenty of them to go around. The seventy or eighty that were outside immediately started running in our direction. Slowly but surely, the ones inside the building started to trickle out as well. I stood up and leaned against the cab.
“Loud noise.” I said just as I started lining up shots and pulling the trigger. I was so abundantly sick of zombies. I didn’t enjoy killing them. I just wanted them dead. I wanted them extinct like I wanted mosquitoes extinct. Just seemed that right now, at this very moment of the earth’s history, they were a part of the ecosystem and would be as difficult to get rid of as the damn pesky bug was. Tommy got next to me and started as well. After Trip lit another joint, he stood too, although I don’t think his verbalizations of bang, bang, bang, as he pulled the trigger on an unloaded rifle were quite as effective. Tommy and I were doing a decent job of slaughtering the zombies. But even so, without MJ’s boxes, we would have not been able to keep them at bay just by ourselves, and I think they knew that at first. That was why they kept coming. When they couldn’t make those last few tantalizing feet, they lost heart and began to disperse. I didn’t let them. Even though Tommy had stopped, I kept firing away. Cracking and splattering the backs of their exposed skulls like eggs. To let one go now only left an enemy for later, and that enemy could potentially spawn others.
I told BT to pull up as close to the broken down door as possible. He stopped and backed the truck up so that I was just about even with it. I poked my head in. Four zombies were huddled against the far side of the room, apparently feeling the effects of the boxes. The one snarling at me was the first to have his brains forcibly removed from his head. I jumped down out of the truck and
into the building. When I went to kill the second, I realized my rifle was empty. Tommy handed me a magazine as he came in behind me.
“I’m going to get ahead of you on the kill total.” I said as I slammed the magazine home.
“You could do this every day for the next ten years and you still would not have killed as many things as I have. I’ll let you have your turn.” He walked over to the doorway that led down the stairs. I finished off the remaining zombies and joined him.
I wondered if he had a tally, and if he did … did I want to know? He said “things” and not people. Had he perhaps killed an elephant? A narwhal? Maybe even a yeti? Tommy smacking on the door pounded me out of my present thoughts.
“It’s me, Tommy!”
There was a muffled questioning of “Tommy?” on the other side. I heard the door locks being turned and, when the door began to slightly open, there was some crying, not tears of sorrow or joy, just the kind of crying infants make. I looked in as the door was opened all the way. Justin was first at the door holding a rifle making sure we were who we said we were, and behind him was my wife holding a baby.
“Say hello to Grandpa,” she said, smiling.
My first reaction was to turn around and look for my father. I’m pretty quick like that.
“You, Talbot, this is your grandson. Wesley Mike Talbot. Remember him? It hasn’t been that long. Maybe you should stop hanging around with Trip.” She held him up so I could get a better look. I went toward them in a slow-moving daze. The women folk were beaming. The boys looked like they’d seen every cootie a girl had to offer. Nicole was on a bed, she looked relieved and happy to have had the baby. My baby had had a baby; my heart skipped a few beats.
“You want to hold him?” Tracy asked tenderly.
“Umm... fuck no.”
“You’re not going to break him.”
“Have you seen me not break anything?”
“Hmmm, you’re probably right. Maybe I’ll just hold him a little longer.”
I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of man goo when he wrapped his tiny hand around my pinkie finger.
“He’s so little.” I moved in closer.
“Tracy, say your last words to your husband. I’m going to kill him!” BT boomed, coming into the small space. Wesley cried out in alarm and fear. I turned to watch BT’s eyes grow wide. His mouth opened even larger. He shook his head and immediately left the shelter.
“Well, maybe I’ll hold him. If an infant can scare that man, then he should be all right if I hold him.” I was smiling like the village idiot with the baby in my arms. The baby’s wispy eyebrows furrowed while he searched a brand new database for some information regarding me. He was coming up woefully short and probably would for many years to come.
“Whoa.” Trip said as he came to a sliding stop. “This seems a little early; does this baby have blue eyes or brown?” he asked as he came closer.
Tracy intercepted him. He seemed to get confused for a moment. Stephanie came over and lifted him up easily. She would have spun him around like a top if she had the space. She kissed him a few times before placing him back on the ground. “I missed you.” She brushed his hair back from his face.
I waited for him to ask who she was. That wasn’t an unreasonable response from him. What he said gave me chills instead. “Wherever I go, whenever I go, I guess is a better way of saying it, you’re there and you’re always as important to me then as you are now.” He kissed her. Then in an instant, he changed the tone. “Did you pick up my dry cleaning? I have an important meeting on Thursday. And, oh yeah, the funkies are getting closer.” He said when the cobwebs lifted from his mind.
“Hour, my ass. MJ and his machines, everyone up.” I handed Wesley back to his grandmother. Gotta admit that was truly weird. Was it going to be weird having sex with a grandmother? I’m a little ashamed that thought went through my head at that moment, but not really. Then she turned to help Nicole, and I realized I was not going to have any problem with calling her granny. She was more fit and toned than when we got married. Everything was going to be A-okay.
“You have a funny expression on your face. Are you high?” Trip asked.
“What? No,” I told him.
“You wanna be?”
“Is it easier holding a head up with no brain in it?”
“You should know,” he shot back.
“Wow, can’t say I was expecting that from you. Good one. Come on, let’s help everyone get out of here.”
He smiled for a sec, and then I could watch as he forgot completely why he was smiling. He looked around, maybe hoping to rediscover why. I couldn’t decide if Trip was blessed or cursed. How awesome would it be to forget all the bad that happened in the world? I’m thinking pretty damn good, because the man was everlastingly happy, but that could be because he was unendingly high.
“Good job,” I told Justin as we shoved everyone into the truck. Nicole, the baby, and Tracy were in the cab with BT. The rest of us were stuffed in the back of the bed. Tommy, Travis, and I stood to make room for the others. Travis and I leaned over, holding on to the roof of the truck. Tommy stood straight up as if he’d been rooted to his spot. The zombies were within five feet of us when BT pulled away. I think, at first, he was afraid someone was going to fall out, but he wasn’t even going fast enough to outpace them. He sped up when I yelled at him. I think he was hoping that if anyone fell out, it would be me.
We were about halfway back to Ron’s when BT began to rapidly slow down. I stood up straight to try and get a better idea and view of what I was looking at. Even then, that didn’t help much. There were heads, dozens of them, young, old, women, men, children, arranged in perfectly formed rows across the entire two-lane roadway. They’d been whole zombies first. At least, I’m pretty sure, there were no tortured screams for mercy as they’d been twisted from the shoulders of their original holders. These had not been severed by an extremely sharp melee weapon. They’d been ripped clean free. Some heads sat askew with some spinal cordage still attached.
“We’ve been gone less than forty minutes. Who could have had the time to do this?” I asked no one. Of course, someone could have already had a bag of heads for some reason and now put them out there to screw with us, but these were fresh if the blood trails running down the slope of the road were any indication. I caught movement to the right side of the road an instant after Tommy’s head swiveled in that direction. A cartoon character pajama-clad boy of about five had his back to us as he dragged something through the brush. I knew what it was before it ever became visible. When her hair became visible, it only confirmed the nightmare. She was nude, save the oversized t-shirt she’d been wearing. Mother and son had been sleeping when whatever had come for them had indeed found them. He had his small fists wrapped in her long blond hair as he struggled to pull her onto the roadway.
The boy didn’t look our way until Stephanie gasped. He snarled, exposing impossibly long teeth and blackened blood shot eyes. There was a ring of red around his mouth, most likely that was from his mother. I didn’t need to be as smart as Mad Jack to figure out who had visited these horrors upon this family. The trio was close. This had been a small message to inform us of their arrival. It was Tommy that put a bullet into the boy’s chest, exploding his heart, and then before the boy could even fall over, he put one in his head. Even if I wasn’t shaking nearly uncontrollably, I’m not sure I could have pulled that trigger.
“Get us home!” I slammed a fist on the cab.
“The heads, Mike!” BT yelled back.
“Fuck the heads; get us home! They’re in danger!”
The truck lurched forward. BT did his best to skirt around, but they were unavoidable. The loud crunching was as disturbing as it was deafening. Not deafening in the traditional sense but rather it was the only sound that could be heard. Neither the thunderous roar of the engine nor Wesley’s cries could drown out that sickening resonance. For some reason I’ll never be able to discern, I turned around
. It looked a lot like you would expect truck-crushed heads to look like, eyeballs, brain, blood, and skull fragments respite with tufts of hair littered the road behind us.
“I think I swallowed my jay.” Trip looked a little rough around the edges.
Travis had his head down, as did most everyone else; it could have been in silent prayer or in effort to hold down gorge. Either had its merits. BT had thrown caution to the wind. He was driving like Tracy now. If he hit anything bigger than a castaway nickel, then a fair number of his passengers would be airborne. Maybe it would be better to be left by the side of the road here rather than go back to what I perceived was going to be a slaughter at Ron’s. They had no idea what was heading their way. We were a mile out when we could start to hear the pop of faraway shots. Somehow, BT coaxed the truck a little faster.
“Mike, what do I do when I get there?” he yelled.
I knew what he was asking. I just had no way of knowing what to tell him. Should we crash through everything and let the chips fall where they may or did he stop for us to make a tightly knit killing formation move to the house?
“Wing it, man.”
“I’m not you!”
“Thank God.” Trip muttered.
“What?” I asked him.
“Oh, I’m just happy. I didn’t swallow my bone. It’s right here.” He pulled a still lit marijuana cigarette from his pocket. He had a crinkle of a smile pulling up the corners of his eyes. I knew he’d been talking about me, but right now, I’d have to give him a free pass. BT was going so fast the press of zombies didn’t have enough time to let MJ’s boxes take effect, if they even still worked, that is. Zombies and parts of zombies started coming up and over the hood. We all had to duck down to keep from getting rained upon. I thought Ron’s son, Mark, was going to pass out when a hand with three fingers landed in his lap. His mother quickly picked it up and tossed it over the side. She was not going to be able to get rid of the perfect blood outline left behind though. If we made it through today, those pants were going to end up on the burn pile.
The sheer press of the zombies was beginning to slow the heavy truck down. Ron might not trust me with his toys, but BT had set a record for time lapsed until complete destruction. Radiator fluid was blowing straight up like Old Faithful. Tires were hissing as the two on the left side were blown out from some foreign object. We were listing heavily. Those of us not smart enough to hold on for dear life were firing. It was a race to the finish line, our lives the prize. Thick smoke poured from Ron’s house, some from gunfire some from the burgeoning fire. The shit had started; it was all or nothing. The Talbot last stand was in full effect. Fire erupted from under the hood. Bullets blew from the cab and the bed as we tried to keep the zombies as far from us as possible. Hands slapped at us while we whipped by. Teeth bit down on air. Yelling and screaming was coming from so many directions I couldn’t even begin to track it. I did what I could do in my personal circle of hell. My barrel was beginning to glow a dull red as I tossed rounds through it at a rate it was barely rated for. Didn’t matter if the rifle made it through the day if we didn’t.