by Mark Tufo
He looked up at me, no, that’s not quite right, he slightly lifted his eyes to make them level with my own. ‘Holy Shit, when did that happen?’ I wondered in amazement.
“I’m gonna finish loading the truck,” he said as he turned.
A small wall of the living dead were coming our way, with what I would imagine was less than grand intentions and he gave less than two shits. Maybe a piss and a squirt, but that was about it.
He had already gone back into the store when I answered him. “Okay, sounds good.”
Tommy came up beside me, seemingly more in character as he devoured a Hostess Cupcake. “Wanff onef?”
“You know what Tommy, I think actually I do.” I took the offered cupcake from him and we shared a moment there eating our chocolaty snacks, watching the advancing zombies as if it were the most natural thing in the world, like maybe it was a sunrise. I guess it was more like a sunset and not quite so beautiful.
Tommy had at some time departed. I had somehow eaten a cupcake I couldn’t remember chewing and Travis had finished loading the truck bed.
“You coming Dad?” Travis asked with some concern. I guess I looked like the village idiot standing there. I would imagine I had chocolate on my face and I was gazing off into the distance, dimly aware that a viable threat was approaching.
“Uh yeah,” I answered as I absently dropped the cupcake wrapper clutched in my hand. I bent over and picked it back up, disposing of it in a trash barrel that would never again be emptied. What was the point? I didn’t have one and I couldn’t see the reason to look for one.
“You alright Talbot?” my wife asked as I got behind the wheel.
“That noticeable?”
“We’ve been married a long time but even if I had just met you I’d be able to tell.”
The zombies were still coming and would soon be within bow and arrow range but still I turned to face and answer Tracy as if I had all the time in the world.
“Brendon?” she asked, beating me to the punch.
“That’s definitely a big part of it. I’m not sure if I did more harm than good to BT. Chances are he’ll still die, whether from infection or my ineptitude.”
“Mike you saved him, what happens to him next is in God’s hands.”
“You still believe huh?” I asked her. In retrospect it was mean spirited and wasn’t going to help my bargaining power when I got to the Pearly Gates, provided that they actually existed.
Her facial features said it all, how dare I question what she did and did not believe in. I always used to give her a hard time that she didn’t believe in extra-terrestrials. I would pull out the arguments of how could there NOT be with the billions upon billions of solar systems, and if only a billionth of those could support life there would still be an infinitesimal amount of probable planets that were capable of harboring life. She’d have nothing to do with it. She also used to scoff at me when I would sometimes let it leak that I was preparing for Armageddon in one of the many different ways it was bound to happen, including zombies. Being right sucked if you couldn’t rub the ones your loved noses in it. Maybe we’d luck out and Alpha Centauri would get their shit together and attack us. Then I could have a twofer. I laughed out loud.
“Something funny?” Her arched eyebrow let me know that I was beginning to tread on uneven ground.
Zombies to the front, Tracy to the side, I was weighing my options carefully.
“No, no, I was just thinking about aliens,” I answered truthfully.
“What’s this got to do with Mexicans, Mike?”
I busted out laughing. If I had waited to start the truck and get out of the Rite-Aid parking lot AFTER I got myself under control, we would have made a wonderful lunch for the zombies. At this point I was thankful for the lack of traffic. My vision was distorted from the tears. Tracy glowered at me.
I had been in a foul mood for the majority of the day. I hadn’t completely pulled out from that dank place in my spirit but I had been granted a momentary reprieve. It was those small candles of light on this unlit path we lived on now that were going to sustain us all.
The drive up the highway was damn near uneventful, which in itself is a good thing. We saw an occasional bloated frozen cow or sheep. The more disturbing ones were picked to the bone. That could only mean one thing. There were some cars abandoned on the road, most likely from expired gas tanks. I pitied the fools that had got out to walk, and then I thought back to the bone frameworks previously mentioned. Nothing like a mass exodus had happened here. Sure, North Dakota wasn’t known for its population explosion but still.
“Here Mr. T,” Tommy said as he handed me a heavy brown paper bag. Normally I would tell him to wait because I had to concentrate on driving. I was pretty sure some pimply faced teenager wasn’t going to be coming in the other direction texting his friend lying about who he had banged the night before.
“What you got here, Tommy?” I asked as I took the bag. Although from the weight of it and the feel of the glass bottle it couldn’t have been anything other than booze.
“I got you some Jeff Daniels,” he answered.
I laughed, again thankful for the small release of endorphins. “I think you mean Jack.”
“That’s what I said,” he answered.
“But why, Tommy, you know I can’t stand the stuff.”
“Oh, it’s not for you,” he answered with a smile.
Tracy turned to look him in the eye. A mischievous grin spread across his face. He knew something and he wasn’t going to spill all his beans at once.
“Tommy, I’ll hide your Pop-Tarts,” Tracy threatened, going right for the jugular. Dancing lightly around the subject had never been at the top of her repertoire. Tommy grabbed his backpack and pushed it behind himself. “I’m serious,” she added, making a mock attempt to reach around him. I watched in the rear view mirror as the sheer look of terror came over his face. It released an even bigger amount of happy juice into my veins. I didn’t laugh out loud though. If Tracy couldn’t get that bag from him she might make me try and I had no desire to be such an abject point of fear for the kid.
She resorted to less than honorable tactics. She started tickling him. Tommy’s face turned a bright crimson. His laughter made everything around him shine. The minivan swayed down the highway as his bulk thrashed back and forth in a vain attempt to get away from her ministrations.
“Alright… alright!” he croaked out in between laborious inhalations of breath. When he hesitated for a fraction more of a second longer than Tracy was willing to tolerate, she started up again. I felt for the kid, if he had been older I would have feared his heart wouldn’t be able to take much more. “I’ll tell!” he squealed. Snot, tears and chocolate goo coalesced in a pool on his shirt as he fought to regain control. On anyone else that would have been the most disgusting sight I had seen, on Tommy it was merely endearing. “Aw, I messed up my Star Wars shirt,” Tommy said as he looked down at his belly.
“Tommy!” Tracy shouted as she held her hand up high in a claw like fashion, ready to strike and do more damage.
“Okay, okay stop, but my shirt.” Tracy’s hand got higher. “Your mom likes Jeff Daniels.”
“Jack,” I said.
He looked over towards me. “That’s what I said.”
Tracy looked over at me, pissed that I was helping Tommy stall. I might be a big bad Marine but I’m as ticklish as a puppy. If she started that crap with me, this minivan would be cart-wheeling down the roadway in about ten seconds. “We’re good,” I said, holding up my hands.
She redirected towards Tommy, convinced that I would no longer interfere with her. She was right.
“Ryan said your mom likes Jeff Daniels!” he yelled out before Tracy could descend back on him.
She sat back down hard in her seat, a look of bafflement, relief and wonderment across her face. After long seconds of processing the information she turned back towards Tommy.
“You sure?” she asked querulously.
Tommy be
amed. No answer was necessary at that point.
“Ryan said my mom likes Jack Daniels?” Tracy reiterated, nearly sobbing.
“Yep, Jeff Daniels.”
“Jack,” I said, adding my penny and a half.
“That’s what I said,” Tommy said, looking at me in the rearview mirror like I had lost my marbles. The earnest way that he was looking at me made me wonder if maybe he had said Jack and I was slowly going insane. Okay so ‘slowly’ would probably be the wrong descriptor, something along the lines of breaking the speed of light might be more apt.
My eyebrows knitted of their own volition. “Tracy, what did Tommy say?” I needed help.
“Oh Mike, he said my mom was alright.” Now she was full on crying.
Now whether Tommy had said Jack or Jeff was open to debate, but not once did he say Carol Yentas was okay. Sure it was implied. Dead people don’t really like anything except maybe staying dead. I’d be damned though if I was going to be the one that pissed on her cheerios, rained on her parade, took a dump on her tulips, whatever. We had a glimmer of hope in a sea of somberness. The home team needed a win and right now Tommy was pitching a gem. Tracy fairly bounced in her seat the remaining hour of our journey. I could tell she was wavering with bouts of happiness and fits of caution. It is a tough thing to open one’s self to the prospect of something happening that is beyond the belief of what is expected, and then once you attain that state of inner balance to have what you hoped for ripped from you.
To get the full effect of this analogy, just for a moment consider yourself a huge, NO, HUGE Red Sox fan (like me) and it is the magical year of the Lord nineteen hundred and eighty six and it is Game Six, the Sox are ONE FUCKING OUT from winning the World Series, something you never expected to see in your lifetime. You suck Babe Ruth! A dribbler, a DRIBBLER is hit up the first base line. I had literally, along with all my friends, popped that bottle of champagne. Cold liquor was bubbling all over my hand as I watched in disbelief as the ball went through BILLY BUCKNER’S legs. I had never known up to that point in life what getting a dream crushed felt like. It was something akin to running over rabbits with a lawn mower. Blood, fur and bone bits everywhere, yep it was pretty much like that. So I’m basically saying that I could empathize with her, in a roundabout way.
The rural road that led up to Carol’s was, for the minivan, nearly impassable. It had seen some random traffic and if I kept the speed low enough I could follow in the barely visible grooves some other traveler had made. On two occasions some gentle bumper pushing from Jen got me out of some deeper furrows.
“Maybe we should let Jen go first, she can make a better trail for us, Hon.”
Tracy’s unspoken look of ‘Not a fucking chance’ shut me up.
When we got to 7 Washburn Road, we were met with a sea of white. An unbroken blanket of snow lay a foot deep. It might as well have been a moat, there was no way this car was getting through it. The old Victorian style house was set a good two hundred yards off the roadway but even from here it was impossible to not see the blotches of crimson that dotted the yard.
“Talbot, is that blood?” Tracy asked. We both saw the giant dream-crushing boot hovering over us. “Where are the bodies?”
“My guess is under the snow.” My thoughts however traveled a little darker. I figured that they had got what they came for and had long since left. Tracy had started to fumble with the door lock. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m going up there,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ve got to see what happened.” She gulped.
“Hold on. You can’t walk up there. That snow’s at least a foot deep. If something or somebody is still here you’ll never be able to run for it. We’ll hop in the back of Jen’s truck.”
Within a minute we had armed ourselves and climbed up into the back of the truck. My concern lay in my thoughts of how I was going to pick up Tracy’s pieces of broken soul when she discovered her mother was gone. Oh and gone I hoped she was. If we found her eaten body or worse yet her as zombie, I didn’t know how the Talbots would be able to muster on. The cold reddened Tracy’s features but even that couldn’t compare to the red in her eyes. Tommy was busy wetting his fingertips and smoothing back an invisible cowlick, as if trying to make himself presentable. Well of all the signs he could be portraying, that was one of the better ones. As we jostled our way up the yard, I wasn’t convinced we were still on the driveway as the splashes of blood became more pronounced. But it wasn’t just blood, I noticed a boot sticking up in one of the piles. In another was an outstretched hand. It sort of reminded me of a sapling struggling for light. I would have shot it if I really thought it was going to take root.
One thing I could tell was, there hadn’t really been a battle here. Some of the bodies had been out for a lot longer than the others. There was one that aside from a tuft of hair sticking up, I would have never known was there. The blood had been completely covered with subsequent snowfall. A few were fresh, and that could only mean one thing, there was something here worth trying to eat.
My sight was brought to the fore by movement. Someone had risen out of a chair and was standing on the porch. Even from this distance I could tell that they had one mean mother of a breech-loading shotgun at the ready.
Tracy shocked me as she yelled out, “Mom!?”
I wanted to say something about her giving us away but the roar of the truck engine as it struggled to cut through the snow could probably be heard for miles in this new, quiet world. Come to think of it, I was never ever going to miss the sound of a jackhammer at 7:33 in the morning on a Saturday. The shape of the person on the porch had the general shape of someone’s grandmother but the majority of my focus was on that ten-gauge shotgun. We were close enough that if that person started to shoot slugs we’d be able to count ourselves among the other lawn ornaments.
I banged on the roof of the truck for Jen to stop.
She looked out her window. “What’s up Mike?”
“Stop the truck and kill the engine,” I told her.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” she asked.
“Nope,” I answered truthfully. The truck engine simmered to a stop, the pinging of the heated motor the only sound to break up the muffled day.
“Mom?!” Tracy yelled out again.
Nothing, no response. Only the steady unwavering double barrel of a large caliber shotgun. After a few seconds the barrel dipped imperceptibly.
“Tracy?!” came the tremulous reply.
That was it. Tracy was down off the bed of the truck and running at full tilt, which really wasn’t all that fast when you’re knee deep in snow. I banged on the roof of the truck again.
“Wagons forward!” I yelled and gestured. Don’t ask me why, seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Tracy was PISSED OFF when we passed her on by, and even more so when Jen nearly blocked off the entire porch entrance. As she caught up to us, her passing glance was so cold it burned my face.
“Mike?” Carol asked.
“Hey Mom,” I said as I jumped down off the bed of the truck.
Tracy had rushed full tilt into her mother’s arms, there was some crying and sobbing and some general tear jerking and I think that Carol and Tracy might have also blubbered. I wasn’t sure, couldn’t see much through the haze of salty water. Must have sat on my keys again.
I joined in the small huddle, God she smelled like chocolate chip cookies, how do grandmothers do that? “We brought you something,” I told her. “It’s Jeff Daniels,” I said needlessly, the shape of the paper bag gave away the contents. Kind of like trying to gift wrap a bike, why bother.
“Jack Daniels?” Carol asked.
Tommy had come down off the truck and was watching the reunion. “That’s what he said,” with a tone that implied we all must have gone over the edge.
Carol gasped as she looked at Tommy. “You’re the one from my dreams.”
Tommy looked perplexed. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Gran Y,” he
said.
“Sure you do. You’re the one that likes those little flavored shingles in the foil packs.”
Tommy looked aghast. “Pop-Tarts aren’t shingles, Gran Y.”
I thought I was going to have to catch Carol from falling when she saw all three kids, safe and sound.
“Oh my God! I prayed for this day! I never thought that you would all make it.” She was openly crying. Yeah I was too, so sue me. “Come here! Come here!” she motioned to them all. Our group huddle was ungainly, but it felt so right.
“Oh my God, Mom, we never thought...” Tracy hitched.
“Me?” Carol laughed. “I’m too tough an old bird for them. Not sure if they even got by Big Bertha here,” she said, shaking her shotgun, “that they’d even want me.” She shook her head. “I’ve spent damn near my entire life on this farm. I’m as tough as the soil Daddy used to try and cull crops from.” She smiled grimly for a moment, then burst into joyous laughter at the sight of her family gathered around her.
I couldn’t help myself. I hugged her again. I was having a heavy estrogen flow day.
“You smell just like cookies,” I told her out loud.
“That’s because I’m making some. Don’t look so surprised, Tommy told me you were coming. Of course, I didn’t believe him at first. I thought it might be the onset of advanced Alzheimer’s or maybe schizophrenia or maybe even just plain old loneliness, but I figured what the hell, might as well be ready. Oh and by the way, Tommy,” she said, stopping to look at him.
Had we told her his name? I didn’t think so.
Carol continued, “I didn’t have any gummy bears to put in with the chocolate chips.”
Tommy handed her a bag of gummy bears from his pocket. Was it coincidence? Now Tommy is usually a walking pantry to begin with, but he didn’t even hesitate when he reached into one of his many hidden storage compartments.
Carol took the bag as if she had been expecting this. “Great, I’ll put them in with the next batch.”
“You still have power out here, Carol?” I asked her.
“Gotta be pretty self sufficient when you live this far in the outskirts. See any power lines, city boy? The generator is in the barn.”