by Mark Tufo
“Is this thing going to work?” she asked the thick ribbons of swirling dust. “This is insane.” She looked inside, and the keys were sitting on the driver’s seat. She got in, took notice that she did not need to adjust the seat, placed the key in the ignition, and turned. The loud thrum of the high performance engine was nearly deafening in the small garage. “This isn’t an escape vehicle; this is for pursuit.” She knew what she had to do. Now, she made up her mind to do it. “Lead the way,” she said once she got out onto the road. “I’m not going to lie and say I understand what’s happening here, but if you’ve chosen me for this, then who am I to argue?”
12
Tiffany found her way back to the highway. The speedometer stopped reading at 120. She had it so far drilled to the right she thought it might break out of the small circle it was housed in. It took her an hour and a half at her breakneck speed before she finally caught a glimpse of the recreational van far up ahead. Fear crept up her neck and wrapped around her skull when she saw the brake lights come on. She thought she’d been discovered. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the van was getting off the highway. She slowed down to something less likely to end her death by fiery twisted metal. By the time she hit the off-ramp, she had slowed to forty.
“Augusta Route 3. What are you guys doing?” she wondered aloud. She slowed even further, making sure she did not come up on them again should they be parked. After a half hour more of driving, she didn’t know if she was relieved or not that she had not come across the van. Whatever was in that vehicle was not human, and she would be better off never encountering them again. But if she did not, she would never be able to give Pappy the payback he deserved. She could honestly not tell which side of the fence she wished she would fall over onto. She was thinking on this when she had to press the brakes hard, thankful it was not enough to lock the wheels and start a tire-squealing skid. As it was, she pulled over to the far right and shut off the engine.
She was close, too close. Not much more than a quarter of a mile away. She could see light coming from the inside of the vehicle. There was no activity outside, which was a good thing. She opened her door, grabbed her rifle, and then quietly exited. She’d not gone more than a hundred feet when she began to hear the screams. Someone’s suffering was the reason she’d not been heard. She froze. The screaming was coming from a woman, or at least she thought so. She couldn’t imagine a man being able to reach that falsetto, although all things were possible under the knife and where that knife made contact. The sun was quickly setting. Even in the burgeoning darkness, she felt completely exposed and afraid. She headed for the large culvert that ran the length of the roadway. At first, she moved quickly, with the hopes that she would be able to aid the victim. She slowed as she got closer, knowing in her heart whoever was in there was long past the point of being able to receive help. Inconsolable sobbing was met with unbridled laughter.
Tiffany’s heart raced as she got up next to the vehicle. She didn’t know what to do. Those things that looked like women were in there, but so were the innocents. She couldn’t just start blasting away, hoping to avoid the former while hitting the latter. Little did she know she would have been doing them a great service if she had cut their lives even shorter. She backed away when she heard whimpering and what she could only think of as loud slurping sounds.
Deep down, she knew they were vampires. It was just that her consciousness would not allow her to believe something so insane. As if her mind were trying to protect it from itself. She hardly remembered her walk back to the car or falling asleep exhausted in the back seat. When she awoke the next morning, she thought perhaps it was all a dream. The RV was gone and all her problems could be as well if she but merely turned around. She started the engine and drove forward. Within an hour, she once more came across the RV, nearly slamming into the rear end. It had been left in the middle of the roadway. She waited for someone to come out and investigate. When no one did, she got out, this time leaving the car running in the hopes she would be able to get back in and make good on an escape attempt if it came to that.
She walked around the entire vehicle, hyper sensitive to any noise. It was quiet, save the flies buzzing around the roof, looking for a way in through the vent system. When she felt fairly confident no one was inside, she did another loop around. This was her life she was playing with. She felt the extra carefulness was warranted. The next part of her plan involved knocking on the door and stepping back. If any of the gothic looking women answered, she was going to start shooting and at no point start asking questions. She knocked and jumped back, catching her right foot on her left and going down in a tangle, hard on her ass.
“Stupid, stupid,” she berated herself as she dusted off and stood. Had anyone answered, she would have been dead. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never be able to give a satisfactory answer as to why she decided to go inside. It was the smell that assailed her first—the thick aroma of iron, sweat, fear, and something else. She thought if evil had its own scent, this would be what it was like. She expected blood to be running down the center aisle, to be splattered across the ceiling and be pooling in the beds. She was surprised at first to barely find a few droplets. She was more horrified when the reason of why this hadn’t occurred struck her. Apparently, even vampires adhered to the policy of waste not, want not. Children sucked dry were placed almost tenderly in the small RV beds. She thought she was going to be sick as she quickly exited.
After ten minutes, she was able to get herself back under control. “Now what?” she asked as she shielded her eyes from the sun and did a complete 360. In the end, she decided to walk in the direction the van was pointed. She hid in the brush when she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. She looked up to see perhaps the biggest man she’d ever seen in her life driving, and in the back was an older man with a long goatee, laughing. By the scowl on the driver’s face, it appeared he was the butt of whatever was making the man in the back laugh. They looked friendly enough, but she’d learned the hard way that looks could be deceiving. This world brought out the worst in some of the best, and it was better to avoid than encounter. She thought a man in the back of the truck had spotted her, but the way his head was canted to the side and smoke was emanating from his mouth, he looked like he was smoking something that held way more interest for him than anything surrounding.
“Safe to say they haven’t come across the trio yet,” she said as she extracted herself from the bushes. She stayed on foot, going in the same direction as the truck had been. She couldn’t be sure, but it was safe to assume that vampires would look for humans, and a truckload of them had just whisked by. The sun was high overhead by the time she came across what had to be a trick of the light or the first signs of dehydration or just a major stroke. She stopped fifty yards away, unsure as to what to do next, when she looked upon a roadway littered with zombie heads and the body of a dead boy and a woman that looked a lot like the person that had been running toward Pappy’s truck. She looked around wildly, fully expecting monsters to jump out from all around. The heads were almost as effective a roadblock as a twenty-foot wall. She lost more than a fifteen minutes, transfixed by what she saw.
That it was zombies made it marginally better, but still. “Who takes the time out of their day to do something like this?” she said aloud. “It’s a message. The women are sending someone a message. Is it to the people in that truck? But why?” She could see that this train of thought was going to produce more questions than answers. She might find what she was looking for if she kept going, or she could stay alive and just turn around. She knew the events were bigger than her and could easily roll her over. She continued on when she remembered something her father had told her many years previous: “Honey, it’s the smallest splinter that causes the most pain.” He’d been laughing as he looked upon the living room she had absolutely destroyed with her toys, five rolls of toilet paper, and what had previously been a full container of baby powder.
“I a
m that splinter.” She kept repeating those words as she skirted the beheaded roadway. She did her best to push the imagery from her mind as she walked, but the darker it became outside, the darker her inner thoughts became. It helped little that a gusty chill wind had begun to kick up.
13
Mike Journal Entry 10
The only good thing about being covered by a half-dozen slimy zombies was that, for the most part, they were in each other’s way and none able to get a clear bite on me. It was impossible from my angle to tell what was going on considering I was flat on my back under a pigsty pile of putrid flesh. The load was becoming lighter as zombies were literally being flung off of me. Only two people I knew could pull that off, BT and Tommy. Bullets whined all around me, hitting the ground not more than three inches from my head. Whoever was shooting was getting a wee bit too close for my comfort.
“Get up!” Tommy shouted. There was a true look of terror on his face, even more than the clusterfuck of zombies around us would account for.
“You make it sound like I’ve been sunbathing!” I smacked the butt of my rifle against the jaw of the last zombie pressing down on me. Teeth flew out of her head. Didn’t matter, the jagged ones she had left still looked like they could do enough damage. Tommy ripped her so violently upwards she pulled me with her. I found myself in the much more desirable position of standing.
“Fuck! Who’s shooting?” A bullet grazed across my thigh.
“Sorry, man!” It was BT. He stood atop the truck that was parked half inside of Ron’s house.
Tommy had a bar of iron. It looked like a damn car axle, especially when he swung it. He mowed through zombies as easily as a scythe through wheat. The muscles bunched on his arms as he heaved through every swing. I’d taken one step to stay in behind him when I felt something penetrate my chest and wrap coldly around my heart. It felt so real, so physical, I actually rubbed my right hand over where I figured the entry wound was. When my hand came away clean, well I mean, without any fresh blood or gore, I figured it was a heart attack, a sort of a payback for all the shit food I’d eaten growing up. One can only scarf down so many French fries before they catch up.
“It’s Payne!” Tommy huffed out. He was tiring from his attempts to keep the zombies from biting distance.
“It is painful.” I told him, thinking he somehow knew what was happening inside my chest cavity. Then I figured that he, indeed, did know what was happening, and he didn’t say painful, he said pain, as in Payne the vampire. I didn’t do anything consciously because, well, I didn’t consciously know how to deal with this particular problem. I turned to her and just struck out with everything I had, hoping some of the pellets from my psychic shotgun would hit home. Won’t lie, I grinned when she staggered back a step and the vamp next to her reached out to keep her steady. The amount of energy I’d expended on the one hit threatened to cave my legs in. I reached out with my right hand and grabbed hold of Tommy’s shoulder, letting him make a path for us. It was all I could do to hold on. I turned to get a quick look at our new adversary. She’d recovered much quicker than I had, but she did not reach out again. I took that as promising sign.
14
“Why isn’t he dead?” Sophia asked innocently. “I thought you were going to kill him.” Her head was tilted to the side slightly as she asked the question.
“It is not for lack of trying.” Payne smoothed her dress as she stood. “He is a strong one. The bloodline runs deep within him.”
“He is but a halfling, and a newly created one at that,” Charity said in a probing tone.
“He may be new, but the blood running through him is an ancient one. I should know, considering it is mine.”
“How far removed from the source is he?” Charity asked. There was concern in her voice.
“The same as myself, two.”
“That cannot even be possible!” Charity cried out.
“And yet it is. Come, we will leave them to their devices for now while I dwell on this new development.”
15
Mike Journal Entry 11
I was spent. Felt like a rag doll while first Tommy and then BT manhandled me around and into the house. I caught a glimpse of Nancy on the floor, Tracy and Stephanie at her side trying to stem the tide of blood. I would have pointed out the fact that it was too late, but they knew that. They were offering comfort in her final moments. Besides, I was having a difficult time keeping my eyes from crossing and passing out. I’d once gone to a party and someone pulled out an Apogee bong, or something like that. Thing was four-feet tall. Someone actually had to hold the flame in place, burning the weed while you sucked for all you were worth. I filled that thing up, looked like downtown LA during rush hour inside that glass tube.
When I felt like I couldn’t pull any more in, I let go of the carburetor. For those of you smart folks who are not savvy to the ways of a bong, this has the effect of releasing all the stored up smoke into your lungs in one fell swoop. I was no virgin to joints, pipes, or normal bongs. But this thing was like the nuclear bomb of bongs. That smoke hit me like I’d been punched in the head. My eyes crossed, and I fell over on my ass. Someone caught the bong before it could fall over as well. Unfortunately, I’d not been treated with the same respect, although I did receive a chorus of guffaws! Where was I? Oh yeah, that was basically how I was feeling after my encounter with Payne. I couldn’t see straight, my brain was clouded over, and my chest felt mule-kicked. I’d said back then, I’d never do it again. Looks like I’d lied.
BT put me down on a chair. Unlike the bong encounter, which took me a full ten minutes to pick myself up and two hours to stop drooling on myself, I was feeling better after about five minutes. I mean physically I was feeling better; mentally I was a fucking mess. Nancy, my brother’s wife, was lost. I began picking up her screams as my senses started to return to equilibrium. Ron’s basement looked like a war zone triage, respite with all the sounds. I don’t even know if he had a clue his wife was dying. What am I saying? Of course he didn’t, or he’d be down here by her side wailing at the heavens. Would he though? He fancied himself an agnostic. He believed in nothing but the here and now. I’d always thought that a pretty narrow view of the world previously, and my idea of that view had been broadened in the last year or so. Who did you blame when things went wrong? The nothingness?
I was having a difficult time getting my bearings, but we were still in the middle of a war. Just because I was out for the standing eight count didn’t mean everyone else had stopped. Tommy, Travis, and BT had gotten in front of the women. Meredith was urging them to grab her mother and go upstairs. I honestly didn’t think bringing her deeper in was a good idea at this point. I don’t want to sound callous, but she was a handful of breaths away from playing for the other team.
I reached out. I looked more like I was trying to keep from falling over when I grabbed Meredith’s shoulder. “Get your dad,” I urged her.
“We have to take my mom upstairs.”
“Meredith, get your dad.”
She got it at that point, whether she wanted to or not. Tears were falling by the time she got to the steps.
“I need a gun!”
BT looked over his shoulder and to the women behind. There were three there. I grabbed Tracy’s. She’d been using a 9 mm carbine. Not the optimum weapon, but it beat using my hands and probably the slingshot that Trip was wielding. I’m not sure when he got that. I certainly don’t recall, although something niggled in the back of my head in regard to his projectile launcher. As if he knew I was thinking about him, he turned to me and winked then started whistling. Again, I don’t know why, but my bladder threatened to loosen. It was just that whistlers, all of a sudden, had sparked a fear in me.
He stopped as suddenly as he’d started, or maybe I couldn’t hear him anymore because I was firing a gun. Don’t know, don’t care. After a bit, I heard the heavy sobbing that had a distinctive male timbre. Meredith had indeed gotten her dad. I’d been through a lot, I’
d seen a lot, even done a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more deep and mournful sound coming from a person. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was from some wild animal. My heart broke. I did all I could think to do, which was keep pulling the trigger and hopefully drown out that sound. He was living a reality I never wanted to be party to.
16
Mike Journal Entry 12
We won the day, whether the zombies had been spurred on by the Gothic Girls and had faltered when they left or the new survival instinct within our enemy had finally decided that the losses were too great and had withdrawn. Didn’t matter. They withdrew, although, to call today a victory was a gross distortion of that word. Nancy Talbot had died. Four of us had had to wrestle Ron away from his wife before she could do her resurrection thing. Tommy gave her the last rites: one she deserved in the form of prayer and one she most certainly did not. This involved a long metal spike driven through her temple and a quick spin to make sure no synapses could keep firing. I watched out of respect and guilt. Of everyone who had died since this had started, I felt like her demise was the one that most deserved to be laid at my feet. Ron spiraled from fits of rage to wails of the damned. My heart lurched with each pounding or cry out. I noticed more than one person keeping an extra eye out on me, expecting me to do something stupid.
In fairness, I was never too far from doing something stupid. I guess I just looked more apt to do something at that moment. I didn’t do much of anything actually. I was kind of half-expecting Ron to shoot me in the chest with a shotgun for bringing this grief upon him. That he didn’t just showed how broken he was. What didn’t dawn on me, and perhaps maybe never would, was a simple fact that Tommy brought to light. It played out a couple of days later. The house was as quiet as one might expect. Although this wasn’t the peace of a mausoleum, it was more an expectant type of silence, as if a fuse had been lit and everyone was waiting for the resultant explosion. It came soon enough. Instead of a shotgun, it was Ron’s fist. I’d come in from the deck, my turn on guard duty. My head was hanging down, like it did a lot those last couple of days. The smash hit me like a sledge on my right cheek. Hard enough, my head hit the frame of the door. There was a little buckling to my knees, but I stayed standing. I think mostly because I did hit the frame. I instantly knew what was happening. There was no need for me to look into the mask of rage my brother wore as his blows rained down on me. I did not move. I did not try to deflect the hits or inflict my own damage. I stood there as if this were my own personal penance.