by Mark Tufo
“Well Tommy has a box of ring dings and Bill has a power bar or two, and…” he reasoned.
Are you kidding me? I screamed in my brain. Calm down, breathe, count to ten, scratch that, better make it five. One, two, three… .
“Get some help now!” I demanded. “That FOOD won’t last the night. As for your safe haven, do you have any blankets or tents or stoves or ANYTHING that will keep you warm?”
He just kept looking at me like I was nuts.
“Justin, you guys won’t make it two nights up there. If you don’t die of the elements, you’ll die of dehydration in at most four days.”
“We have beer!” he said triumphantly.
“How long is your thirty-pack going to last you? Through the night maybe,” I finished cynically.
“Dad, I’ve got to think about this, that’s a huge drop,” he responded.
“Okay fine, I’ll give you until…” I pulled up my sleeve to look at my non-existent watch. “NOW! Get your ass down here.”
He still hesitated. If for a second I thought I could bridge the gap from the ladder to the roof, I would have done it, just so I could grab him by the ear and get him.
“Oh shit,” Justin moaned as he moved to align himself with the ladder and begin down.
“Get your friends to help you!” I yelled up. He was finally doing what I wanted him to do, just not in the manner in which I wanted it done; isn’t that about typical for teenagers.
“Um, too late for that, Dad,” he added as his legs swung over the edge. “They just broke through the door.”
I didn’t need any more clarification than that. “Give me a second while I secure the ladder.”
Justin let go of the roof just as I was attempting to secure the ladder’s footholds. Somewhere in my semi-panicked mode I heard distant screams, and then it sounded like the world was blowing up. Justin fell and entirely missed the first two rungs. The ladder clanged and swayed violently as he caught himself on the third rung, his feet swinging wildly. He almost lost his tentative grip on the ladder when the Mossberg let go with a three-round burst, which was impressive considering it was a pump action shotgun. The closest zombie lay in a heap; what was left of him wouldn’t feed a runway model. His backup, however, had swelled to around twenty, the first group was about sixty yards away and the second group had just come around the corner. We were about to have one humdinger of a get together. Justin was halfway down the ladder when I swung my attention back to him. I looked past him to notice the fat kid with the Butterfinger gun peering cautiously over the edge. I wanted to get Justin down and just plain haul ass out of here. But I couldn’t do it.
“Wait ‘til Justin gets off the ladder, then swing your legs down. We’ll hold it steady,” I yelled. Justin looked up to see who I was talking to.
“Tommy!” Justin yelled. “You can do it.”
“They’re up here, Justin, they just killed Bill. I…I guess that means we won’t have to come in to work tomorrow,” Tommy said. His eyes had that hollowed out look I was growing to know so well.
Justin had finally hit terra firma.
“Justin, you’ve got thirty seconds to convince your fat friend to get his ass down here or we’re leaving,” I whispered harshly.
Tracy beeped the horn again.
I turned viciously. “Do you think that’s helping?” I barked. She wanted out and so did I, but I wasn’t leaving the big kid unless I had to, although I think we had passed that point a minute ago.
“Tommy!” Justin called. “Come on, man, there’s no time to figure it out, they’re up there, let’s go.”
Bill’s distant screams finally subsided, and I don’t think it was because he got away. That steeled Tommy’s resolve. He began to swing his huge bulk over the edge, still gripping the pellet gun. Images of the little girl clutching her doll welled up inside me.
“Let go of the pellet gun, Tommy!” I snapped, more for me than him in all likelihood. “It isn’t going to do you any good down here, and you’re going to need both hands to hold onto the ladder.”
I didn’t think anybody but the Man of Steel himself was going to be able to stop that bulk once it got in motion. The more I began to think it through, the less I liked the idea. The odds were good that Justin and I were about to become human pancakes, sandwiched under the enormous bulk of Tommy. I was about to grab Justin and have him abandon his post, no sense in both of us dying in this vain attempt, when the ladder vibrated slightly. I looked up. Tommy had grabbed the first rung and was beginning his descent.
“Holy Crap!” was all I could mutter.
My amazement was short-lived, however. The zombies that broke through the door on the roof were looking over the edge. I wanted to shout at them triumphantly that they had lost, ‘no more dinner for you, nyah nyah nyah,’ when the first of them simply walked off the roof, followed by a second and a third and then a half dozen. The snapping of multiple bones ricocheted off the Walmart wall, sounding like small arms fire. It was deafening. It was sickening.
Tommy made it down the ladder and the three of us just stared at the horror that was unfolding in front of us. Most of the zombies had landed on legs that were now shattered beyond any use. Some had ended in a swan dive, never to rise again. The ones with the shattered legs and spinal columns started to pull themselves along with their arms or used their chins on the ground in a vain attempt to move. Whatever locomotion was available to them, they used to try to get to us. It was like watching The Terminator. Sadly, we were the Sarah Connors in this remake. Tracy’s horn blared again. Travis had finished reloading and was firing again. Our reverie broken, we ran for the car.
“Get in!” I yelled, as if anyone needed the instruction.
Tracy scooted over so I could drive. Tommy’s enormous bulk ended up on the hump seat in the back; he looked like a huge bowling ball, and my boys unhappily looked like two bowling pins pushed up against the windows.
“Sorry,” Tommy said as he tried his best to reduce the crushing effect of his immensity.
We were staring down thirty or so advancing zombies and had fifteen or so mostly disabled zombies to our rear. Tommy extended his Ring-Ding glazed hand to me.
“I’m Tommy,” he said with a beaming smile, mostly white teeth except for the chocolate stuck up on his gum line.
I sent my hand back. This wasn’t the time, but it was a conditioned response, and besides, I didn’t see any reason to dispense with civility. “I’m Dad…I mean Mr. Tal…oh forget it, you can just call me Mike,” I said.
“Mr. Tal, what’s that smell?” Tommy said as he still gripped my hand. I pulled back and grunted.
“Dad stepped in Henry crap!” Travis smiled.
“Great, just great,” I mumbled as I put the car in gear and gunned the engine.
I know Jeeps are tough, but how many bodies can I hit before I do irreparable damage? I’m sure the Chrysler Corporation never planned for this. I did my best to go around the edges of the oncoming horde, but with only twelve feet of width I only had so many options. Tracy ducked down under the dash as best she could. I could tell she was glaring at me in response to the damage I was about to inflict on her car. She’d have to wait, I could only deal with one deadly problem at a time.
Justin yelled, “Look out, Dad, I think you’re going to hit them!”
I honestly wanted to stop the car and thank Captain Obvious. If he hadn’t forewarned me, I might just have gone and hit the zombies without ever realizing I was going to.
The impact was more jarring than I think any of us were prepared for. I didn’t know a human body would have that much effect on a two-ton SUV. I guess it was because it was dead weight, and yes, even in my head I got the rim shot sound effect. By the time I’d plowed through the fourth or fifth zombie, it looked like we had gone through a car wash designed by Stephen King. Pieces of bone, flesh, and congealed blood littered the hood and the windshield. At some point in this zombie smash-up derby, I had the wherewithal to turn on the windshield
wipers and the washers. Even I was impressed with myself until Tracy let the wind out of my sails; I saw her hand pulling back into the relative safety under the dashboard.
I was feeling good that we would make it out of the parking lot, but I didn’t think Tracy’s car was going to make it much further than that. The radiator was shot, and steam was pouring out of the front of the car. I could hear the serpentine belt whining as it was being shredded against some foreign object. The car was bucking wildly like we were on an unbroken horse. It felt like either the engine or the transmission was about to drop onto the ground. In all likelihood it was going to be both. But even at the blistering fifteen mph that I was making, I was still putting distance between ourselves and the pack that followed. The car made it halfway home before it just plain died.
Chapter 5
Journal Entry – 5
* * *
Any semblance of a chance I thought I had of getting to Nicole’s had vanished. After the damage from the second or third zombie hit, and with the addition of Tommy to our load, I didn’t know how we would have fit her and Brendon in the car. But still my heart sank. Sure, I’d saved one of my kids, but one was still out there. And to top it off, I wasn’t completely sure about the saving part. We were a good mile and a half away from sanctuary and there were still a bunch of zombies on the loose. I tried the ignition a couple of times with no success. I would have kept at it if it weren’t for the fact that the sound would be attracting some undesirables and we had to leave. We could hear sirens and some small arms fire off in the distance—even some small explosions. Homemade bombs, I mused, I should have thought of that. I got out of the car quickly. Motioning everyone else to do the same, I opened the trunk to a yawning and stretching Henry.
“Dammit,” I said in frustration.
We had more guns, food, and ammo than we were going to be able to carry. Add that to the fact I would have to lug Henry because he couldn’t walk more than two hundred yards before he would begin panting like a sex offender at a cheerleader convention. I know to everyone else he’s just a dog, and right now it’s survival of the fittest, but I would no sooner leave him to die than I would one of my kids. Tommy had finally gotten his immeasurable bulk out of the car to look in the trunk.
“What’s the matter, Mr. T?” he asked with a huge grin, the smile broadening when he noticed the boxes labeled MREs.
I wanted to yell at him but he just seemed so damn happy, so instead I answered him dejectedly. “Well Tommy, we just have too much stuff to carry plus the dog, and I have to figure out what to leave behind.”
Leaving most of the ammo seemed the logical thing to do. It was by far the heaviest; no food meant starvation. We could leave the two-and-a-half gallon water jug, too. I figured we’d still be able to get water through the pipes at least for a little while longer. So it was Henry, the firearms, whatever ammo we could carry in our pockets, and the MREs.
“Could you take the slings off the rifles, Mr. T?” Tommy said, his infectious grin never leaving his face.
I should have known how strong the kid was just by the way he caught his bulk on the ladder. I shook my head in disbelief as we walked away from the car. He had fashioned a couple of crude carrying devices with the slings. He had the three boxes of MREs strapped to his back, off to his sides he hefted the four cases of ammo, and in his arms lay a slumbering Henry. He probably could have carried me too and not even have lost a step.
It would have been a beautiful fall night; the crispness in the air always harkened me back to my youth and the start of school. But the smell, the fetid odor of the dead and the living dead blended together to create one humongous wave of putrid stink. It pervaded everything. Only Tommy seemed to be immune as he walked on seemingly unencumbered by the undead bouquet. The first mile or so went by unremarkably; we heard things (mostly screams) in the distance, but never anything too close.
Things got radically difficult once we had about a half mile to go. I was asking Tommy for the tenth time if he wanted some help. He was telling me for the tenth time that he was fine, but he stopped short and the smile melted from his face. I followed his line of sight, and IF I had been smiling I would have stopped, too. It didn’t look like an ambush; it looked more like a convergence. The problem being, we were the attraction upon which they were converging. We were almost entirely surrounded. The only breaks in the zombie lines were caused by either natural occurrences like the fast running stream on our left, or the large block wall that surrounded the Isuzu dealership parking lot on our right. Otherwise this looked like a textbook besieging. We were outnumbered easily fifty-to-one. Good thing they didn’t know how to shoot.
“There’s no way they pulled this off without some communication,” I said out loud just to hear my thoughts manifest themselves.
“Mr. T, do you want me to put Henry down so I can shoot?” Tommy asked.
“Not yet, Tommy, we’re not going to stay and fight. Justin, I want you on my right side a step or two back. Travis, I want you on my left the same step or two behind me. Tracy, Tommy, you two stay close in behind us.” Again with the superfluous directions, both of them were already close enough to tell if I was wearing boxers or briefs.
“Okay, boys, we’re not going to worry too much about what’s coming behind and to the sides of us, we’re going to concentrate our shots to the front and slightly to our left and right. Understood?” I asked, looking both of them in the eyes to make sure we were on the same page and to gauge their readiness.
They were both scared, but they knew what had to be done. When the zombies were within fifty yards, I gave the signal. The signal involved me shooting. The frontline of the zombies crumpled under our withering fire, acrid smoke filled the air. Heads burst, limbs were blown apart, a river of thickening blood flowed in our direction, and hair fluttered down. But still they came, fearless, relentless but most disturbing of all, quietly. There was no battle cry, no gallant speeches, just the slow steady mindless march of the zombies.
Kill or be killed, we fired on. The barrel of my M-16 shone a dull red. I knew I was moments away from making a deadly-looking paperweight. We were making headway, but it was much too slow. Our frontal assault was nearly complete, but to our sides and rear the zombies had halved their distance, some even closer than that. Our break towards freedom was close…but not close enough. I slung my M-16 over my shoulder, the barrel grazing my cheek on the way. The smell of my burning flesh seemed to excite our opposition more.
I pulled out my 9 mm Glock and began to shoot zombies that had closed to within fifty feet. I motioned for the boys to keep shooting to the front. We had to have dropped half of them, most of those fatally, but the survivors still pressed in. I then noticed something strange; some of the zombies started to leave the fray. It was in ones and twos at first and then it was in fives and tens, and just like that we found ourselves alone in the road. The tattered remnants of what attacked us were now heading for new quarry. I watched as two men emerged from a small copse of trees about one hundred yards to our right. They started running for all they were worth towards a nearby golf course, the zombies in pursuit, not hot pursuit mind you, but definitely trailing them. Sweat was pouring off my body, “Sweatin’ to the Zombies.” It could be the next big workout fad. Maybe I’ll run it by Richard Simmons.
One of these days I was going to get a psych eval.
“Dad, what just happened?” Travis asked.
Justin was hopped up on beer and adrenaline. “We’re just too bad assed for them!” he cheered just a little too loudly.
I thought about it for a second before I answered. “I think Justin has it mostly right…we weren’t worth the losses, and they found an easier food source and went for it.” But that still raised a lot more troubling questions than it answered. I would have to dwell on it eventually, but for right now I wanted to get out of this killing zone.
There was several questions I wanted answered, who was going to answer them was a different question. How had
the zombies pulled off a coordinated attack? That the attack was coordinated I had no doubt, we had been completely surrounded. And why, when they were so close to taking us, did they stop? Because if they were scared, they never once betrayed their emotions. I looked like hell and I smelled worse. If I kept this up, the zombies would think I was one of their own.
The remaining distance to the house was covered in a subdued silence. Even the gregarious Tommy was quiet. We knew how close we had come to feeling death’s cold embrace. Henry slept on in Tommy’s arms.
As we approached our town-home complex I had the boys once again spread out into flanking positions. Our complex was roughly ten square acres. It housed over three hundred units and was surrounded by an eight foot high stone and cement wall. There were four entrances—two on the northern side and two on the southern. The security of the complex was part of the reason we had moved here. The other was monetary; we couldn’t afford anything better. The two northern entrance points had large, card-activated chain link fence gates. The two southern facing gates had nothing. That made no sense to me. Did the designers just hope that a criminal, upon seeing the northern gates, wouldn’t try another avenue to gain entry? Although the residents would be up a creek if said criminal came this way first. I’d like to have said they were getting ready to install the gates, but I’d lived here for almost two years and hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a construction crew.
A large RV had been toppled on its side, completely covering the first entrance. It was placed with entirely too much precision to have been an accident. There wasn’t a gap on either side; this passageway was closed. We would have to walk another two hundred yards to the next opening. Hope surged. It appeared that a defense had been mounted at the Little Turtle housing community. As we got closer to the next entrance I saw a school bus, this one still on its wheels. The passenger side of the school bus covered most of the entrance. The only parts that were vulnerable to entry were towards the front end and underneath the bus itself. This would have been unsettling if we were dealing with a conventional enemy, but that bulk was going to stop ninety-nine percent of the zombies that attacked it. Smart bastard, whoever thought of that, I thought admiringly.