by Mark Tufo
“You look tired Talbot, but you look a lot like you did the day we got married.”
I turned towards her. I was a Marine when we got married so it only seemed right that I should be at the position of attention now. If you do not know what I am referring to, just take a moment to reread this part and then rethink it. I’ll wait…... got it?
Tracy laughed. “Yep, that looks a lot like it used to when we got married too, Mike.”
“And?”
“Not a chance.” She threw my clothes at me and laughed harder when my boxer briefs got hung up on their own personal hanger. “Get dressed, I want to get out of here before we bring any more trouble on these people.”
“Are BT and Jen ready?” I asked as my ‘hanger’ drooped and dropped its ‘load’ so to speak.
“Mike, they’ve been ready for over half an hour. You were in the shower for forty-five minutes. How the hell you could stand it, I’m not sure.”
“Forty-five minutes?” I could scarcely believe it myself.
“Maybe if you had got out sooner…” she said tauntingly.
“Oh that’s fair!” I yelled. “Now you tell me!”
“Maybe next time,” she said wistfully as she left the room to let me get dressed.
“I hope there is a next time,” I said to the closed door.
Within five minutes I was dressed and back outside. The brisk January North Dakota winter had nothing on the cold I had just endured both physically and spiritually. It almost felt balmy in retrospect.
BT was at the railing smoking another cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I commented as I put out my hand to take a drag.
“I don’t,” he replied as he handed it to me. “And you?”
“Me neither,” I said as I took a big draft of the sweet leaf. I savored my long exhalation of the vapor. “You know BT, you don’t have to come with us.”
“I know that Talbot,” he said as he took his cigarette back.
“You know that throng out there is coming for us, right?”
“I know that too, Talbot,” he said as he handed the cigarette back to me.
“If we left here and you and Jen stayed behind... You’d be safe, you know that right?”
“That I don’t know, Talbot. Stop bogarting and give me my cigarette back. What kind of man would I be if I left you now?”
“A live one.” I answered honestly.
He laughed at that and tossed his used cigarette over the railing. The cherry fizzled and smoldered out in a puddle of blood. He didn’t notice. I did.
“What do you expect me to do Talbot?” He wasn’t questioning me so much as he was actually asking my opinion.
I shrugged my shoulders. “There’s a good chance, BT, that my road leads to a giant fiery dead end.”
“That seems better than whiling away my days with a lesbian and a shrew. I’m going to smoke another cigarette, Talbot, weigh the consequences of my actions and then get in that fucking ugly ass minivan of yours.” My cue given, I left, saddened in the fact that I wasn’t going to get another drag of his cigarette.
I walked away just as Tracy was extracting herself from a hug with Maggie. “You’re getting better, Talbot.”
“Huh?”
“I saw you smoking that cigarette.”
“Aw shit, didn’t mean for you to see that.”
“Relax, I wasn’t talking about that. I meant that two months ago, hell two days ago you wouldn't have taken that cigarette from the Pope himself even if he had blessed it and dipped it in Holy Water first.”
“Huh. I hadn’t even thought about it.”
She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed me. “You taste like an ashtray.” And with that she walked away to descend down the ladder.
I gave Jen the same opportunity of Rights of Refusal to leave our merry band of misfits. Her answer, while different from BT’s, was eerily similar.
“Would it be better if I spent the rest of my days with a muscle headed man and a shrew?”
Tommy was crying as he disengaged from Maggie. “Are you sure, Miss Maggie, you won’t take some of these?” Tommy asked as he shoved his pillow full of Kit-Kats at her.
“Oh no dear, they just get stuck in my teeth and I never did have much of a sweet tooth.”
Tommy cocked his head to the side like she had just uttered the craziest thing in the world. “Really?” his earlier distress somewhat relieved.
Tommy and I were the only ones of our gang left upstairs. I went over and gave Greta a perfunctory hug. I could feel her tense up as I moved in. I’ve gripped furniture that had more love in it. Maggie was the complete opposite. She apparently had enough love for the both of them. Her tears nearly soaked through my jacket.
“Maggie, let him go.” Denmark chided her softly. “You’re gonna suffocate him.”
“I’m not going to do any such thing,” she told him, but the mild rebuke seemed to work as she let me go.
“Thank you Denmark.” I shook the older man’s hand. “This has been a respite I will not soon forget.”
“You had better not,” he answered me. His lip quivered a bit but the staunch old bastard didn’t let any tears fall.
Once down in the car we all took our turns to wave. I beeped the horn as we headed north to our next destination.
Tommy turned around in his seat so that he could watch the motel fade from sight. It wasn’t until it was completely out of view that he spoke. “They’re not going to make it through the winter.”
Brendon nearly slammed into my rear end as I screeched to a stop.
“What if we stay, Tommy?” I asked of him.
He shook his head. “They’ll die quicker.”
“FUCK!” I yelled as I slammed my hands on the steering wheel. Brendon had a hard time keeping up as I slammed my gas pedal to the floor.
CHAPTER 20 Journal Entry Eighteen
We had been cruising down the highway for a couple of hours, distance doing little to help me forget about the Gustovs (Denmark’s family name). How many times I wanted to turn back around, only to have Tommy’s words bubble to the surface. I could only pray that our visit with them was not what hastened the Gustovs’ demise. The ride was passing in a moody silence. Nobody in the car was talking, and I don’t think anyone would have listened even if they had. So when Tracy offered to drive because she knew the rest of the way, I relented. She’d be hard pressed to find anything worth hitting in this desolate white-blanketed landscape.
A few minutes later I found myself drifting in and out of sleep, only occasionally being awakened as Tracy jerked the wheel as if she had just remembered that she was driving and might want to keep the ton and a half van between the painted lines. Sleep grabbed hold and even Tracy’s quick wheel movements could not shake the veil of it from me.
The one good thing about being alive during the age of the zombies was that nightmares no longer had any power. What’s so scary about the boogeyman coming to get you and your legs feeling like lead? That sensation of not being able to run, the fear that pumped through your veins, the monster coming! And then blissful awareness, your mother scooping you up in her arms, kissing your sweat-dampened forehead. “It was all a dream, everything’s fine,” she would coo. Not my mother mind you, but someone’s mother would. My mother was too narcissistic to care about my bad dreams other than to wonder why I had the nerve to wake her up in the middle of the night when I was a child.
No, these days I tended to dream in the idyllic, where a gentle breeze or a beautiful sunset would be punctuated by the appearance of a unicorn or maybe Bambi. From these I would awaken in hell, where monsters were real and no matter how fast and how far I ran they were always right behind me. That was far scarier than any nightmare my mind could have ever imagined. Come to think of it, no matter how many times my legs got mired in deep grass or heavy mud or ultra shag carpeting, the boogeyman never caught me. Not once. Would I be that lucky in real life?
I was coming to alertness in degrees
, between the incessant beeping of some asshole’s horn and a not so gentle nudging. I was grudgingly letting go of my tentative grip on being figuratively dead to the world. Tracy’s hand slipped off my shoulder and into my jaw. That shattered what little of my subconscious remained in dreamland.
“Mike." Tracy shook me again even though I was obviously awake. “Brendon is flashing his lights and beeping his horn.”
“Got the horn part,” I said as I gripped my jaw. “Maybe it’s your driving.”
“Ha, ha. No, I think he needs something.”
“Then pull over.” Well, that seemed simple enough, problem solved.
“No, I started slowing down and he started flashing his lights faster, I think Coley was pointing to something behind us.”
I sat up fast. No way the zombies could be that close. I dreaded what I would see behind us. BT opened his eyes as soon as I turned around. He looked up at me, clearly seeing my anxiety. “What is it, Talbot?” BT asked without turning to look himself.
“Don’t know, don’t see anything yet.” We both let out a sigh of relief.
“Good grief. My two big badasses,” Tracy said.
I puffed out some indignation. And then I saw it. It was far away but it was distinct. “It’s a truck, no it’s two of… wait, no, its three of them.” A coldness swept across me. I don’t know why, maybe some of Tommy’s prescience had rubbed off on me, more than likely it was just my super-heightened sense of paranoia.
“Aw Talbot, you got that look on you,” BT lamented.
“What look, BT?” Tracy asked, looking in vain in the rear view mirror to see what had my panties all up in a bunch.
“Oh, that look that says trouble’s coming.”
“Yeah, and it’s driving three white Ford pickup trucks, probably F-350’s by the size of them. Travis?” I shook him awake. He came to full consciousness in under a handful of heartbeats.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Start handing out guns,” I told him without ever taking my eyes off the rapidly approaching trucks. He didn’t question me. He didn’t hesitate. Within thirty seconds we were all outfitted with our favorite projectile lobbers. I motioned to Brendon through the rear windshield that he should do the same as I pointed vigorously to my rifle. He held his up in response. He was of the same ilk that I was.
“Do you want to drive, Mike?” Tracy asked.
There were pros and cons to that question. The pros being that I could have her hide under the dashboard in some semblance of safety. The cons were my shooting would be seriously hampered and we would have to pull over to make the change. Our pursuers, if that was what they were, would make up some valuable time.
“Mike?” she asked, looking for a response to her earlier query. I was still in the midst of weighing options. “Should I speed up?”
“God no!” BT shouted.
I inwardly laughed. Tracy’s driving was suspect to begin with. Tracy driving with speed was tantamount to suicide by light pole.
Tracy turned all the way around to fix her steely eyed gaze full bore on BT.
“The road,” he said meekly. “Eyes on the road.” He pointed at his own as if to illustrate the point. “You gonna help me here Talbot?”
“You’re on your own, man.”
After what seemed like an indeterminable amount of time she finally relented. Feeling that she had made her point, she turned back to the highway.
“Holy fuck,” BT mumbled.
“You say something, BT?” Tracy asked angrily as she adjusted the rear view mirror to look at him. When only silence ensued from the backseat she smirked and said, “I didn’t think so.”
We waited, not as long as we wanted, but longer still than it seemed due to the tension. Tracy was traveling at a steady 65, our chasers must have been doing a pavement chewing 100 mph or so with the way they were gaining on us.
BT and I were now completely turned around, fixated on the chasers.
“Any chance they’re military?” BT asked hopefully.
“Doubt it,” I answered.
“Fellow survivors?” he queried.
“Well they’re survivors alright, but I don’t think they are of the fellowship type.” I knew BT was going to keep piecemealing questions together until he got to the heart of my unease. I didn’t give him the chance. “It’s those damn white trucks, like they all had to get the same damn thing, like a gang. Normal folks just trying to get through the day wouldn’t give a shit about what they were driving, so long as they were driving away from a shit storm. And look at the way they’re driving.”
“Maybe they just need some help,” Tracy interjected.
“Don’t squash my neurotic obsessions, Hon, they tend to keep us alive.”
The lead truck had made its way to Brendon’s wake. There was no waving, no horn beeping, no headlights flashing, no daisy throwing, no American flags.
“So much for needing help,” I said sourly.
“It was just a suggestion,” Tracy said peevishly, thinking that I was belittling her comment.
I was about to foolishly reply. It was my innate ability to get into trouble when no such thing existed, when I was saved by BT.
“Talbot,” he said, getting my attention back.
The lead truck was pulling up alongside Brendon’s minivan, the two trailing Fords filling in the vacant spaces, one on each side of the roadway. I saw a yellow gap-toothed, mullet haired man, ironically wearing a Chevy cap, lean out of the passenger side door. He was looking straight down and into the smaller vehicle. His lascivious grin was evident even from this distance. I watched as he ducked back into the truck. He held up two fingers and laughed. I was sort of impressed that he had the ability to count.
“What’s he doing?” Tracy asked nervously looking through her rear view mirrors.
“Counting,” BT filled in.
“Counting what?” Tracy asked.
“Women,” I said coldly.
“Dad!” Travis said, alarmed. “There are guys in the back of the truck.”
I had been so fixated on the cab I hadn’t looked. How the fuck I had missed them was beyond me. Three armed men were standing attached to some sort of harness device to a roll bar in the back.
“What the fuck are they doing?” BT asked.
“They’re strapped in to the truck so they don’t fall out when they try to take us over.”
“Take us over? What are you talking about Mike?” Tracy asked. Her fear almost ended the confrontation right there and then. She had let her foot come off the accelerator and our minivan was slowing at an alarming rate while Brendon, who was intent on keeping an eye on the truck next to him, was inadvertently pressing down on the accelerator in a vain attempt to get out from the situation. He actually tapped our bumper before Tracy realized what was happening. Redneck number one thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. He motioned to the driver to speed up.
Within seconds our newfound guests were alongside the Terrible Teal machine. Redneck number one was even uglier up close, his pock marked face must have made him a true charmer in high school. If not for rape, farm animals or his sister I was sure he would have never gotten laid. He leaned back in. My heart stilled as I watched him mouth the words ‘Only one’, and then he laughed. Before they sped up to get in front of us he leaned back out and made a ‘V’ sign with his fingers, his long tobacco stained tongue flicking back and forth in the base of the sign.
“Fuck you!” I yelled, leaning over Tracy’s lap.
He laughed and spit out some chew, then motioned for the driver to pull ahead.
“Fuck. Tracy, you can’t let him pull ahead of you.”
“Why not, maybe they’ll just keep going,” she said hopefully.
“Remember that talk we had a few years back about the Easter bunny and how he isn’t real?”
“Fuck you Talbot.”
“That’s the Tracy I’m looking for. Do not let him pull ahead of us, once he does those three gunmen in the back have us.
”
Tracy’s foot turned to molten lead. The Terrible Teal machine, for all her ugliness, gave us all she had. Redneck number one was motioning for his driver to go faster, his expression, a cross between wonder and anger.
He was never going to hear me but I said it anyway. It was more uplifting to us in the car anyway. “You picked the wrong caravan to waylay, dipshit. We’re not your typical sheep.”
He might not have heard me but I could tell my crazy grin had unsettled him some. He was yelling at the driver. The truck was inching forward, the cab of their truck was now even with our front grill.
“Tracy.”
“I’m trying damnit!” she screamed. The minivan whined under the strain. Brendon and the two chaser trucks fell behind. The tachometer was buried in the red. I could hear the hamsters in the engine caterwauling for their lives. The Ford fell back a couple of inches or the minivan surged forward, tough to tell at 120 mph. The three men in the back were even with us but seemed much more intent on holding on for dear life than firing off any rounds. We were creeping even again. Tracy was sweating bullets. Oh, nope that was me. I was dripping all over her while I leaned over to get a better vantage point.
“Talbot, get the fuck off my lap,” she said in a strained voice.
“Oh right, sorry. It’s going to get loud in here real soon, you ready.”
She spared a split second to look over at me. The strain of the event was beginning to wear on her. “They still haven’t done anything Mike.”
“Yeah, and I’m not going to give them chance.”
Tommy picked this most inopportune time to talk. “I watched a special on the History Channel the night before the deaders came.”
BT turned to look at him, even Tracy hazarded a glance in the rearview mirror. When Tommy spoke and it wasn’t in regards to Pop-Tarts, you definitely wanted to listen.
“It was about Pearl Harbor and how the Japanese had struck before they had declared war. It was something that they still regret having done. It wasn’t honorable.”
FUCK Honor, this was our lives!!! My decision was now not sitting well with the rest of the occupants of the car. We were all 99% sure of the intentions of the truck but there was still that one fucking percent chance they were just creeps, nothing worse. Tracy had managed to stay completely even with the lead truck. The engine was in danger of throwing a rod. Redneck number one opened up the back window to the truck bed. The ugly fuck erased all our doubts of their purpose. Even over the howling wind, it was impossible to not hear his words. I believe in my heart it was divine intervention we heard him at all. The physics of the speed we were traveling at and the whipping of the wind through the windows made hearing anything other than our engine’s screaming protests a difficult prospect. But we all heard him as clear as if we were having tea in a library.