by Mark Tufo
“Even if I had thought to, I didn’t, Dad. My section, Gardening, is at the complete other end of the building. We barely made it as it was, and to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever said more than ‘hi’ to him. Although he gives me a damn sticker every time he sees me. He loves those stickers,” Justin said with a smile. “And come to think of it, Dad, Tommy was already on the roof when we got there. He’s the one that unlocked it for us.”
“Would he have access to the roof?” I asked.
Justin looked at me incredulously, “Dad, I’m not even sure if he knew there was a roof.”
There was more than meets the eye when it came to Tommy, and hopefully I’d have enough time to figure it out. I had a few minutes before Jed’s emergency gathering, and I just wanted to ask Tommy a thing or two. Tommy was in the midst of quaffing down some M&M’s. (I didn’t even remember liberating those from the store.)
“Hey, Tommy, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.
He looked up and a bunch of the M&M’s rolled to the floor. Tommy looked like he was having an internal battle with himself whether he should pick them up. Henry took care of the matter before it began to weigh too heavily on him. He pulled his gaze off Henry, maybe just a little miffed that the dog had eaten his candy, but then Tommy gave Henry a big kiss on the forehead as an offering of apology for having had a bad thought. Henry in return licked his face, which Tommy delighted in, but personally I think the lick had more to do with the smattering of Twinkie all over Tommy’s face.
“Tommy,” I said again, hoping to reel back his attention.
“Hey, Mr. T,” Tommy answered. “Oh right! Yeah, you can talk to me for a minute.”
I figured no sense in beating around the bush, so I asked him straight out. “Tommy, how did you get on the Walmart roof the other night?”
He was thinking hard. I almost believed I could hear the wheels creaking in his noggin. And then when he came out with the answer like it was no big deal…something he had been dealing with his entire life. “The Voice told me.”
Goose bumps ran up and down my arms. “The voice?” I asked hoping for some elaboration.
“Yeah, you know, The Voice…the one that tells you to do things,” he explained, digging into his bag of candy, thrilled when he pulled out a blue M&M.
The way he said it gave me the impression that he thought everyone had a guiding voice.
“Did you hear this same voice earlier tonight when you came to help me and Brendon?”
“Oh yeah, I was going to get my Yoo-Hoo and I stopped with the refrigerator door open. Are you mad because I left the door open? I forgot about it once before. The Voice told me where to look for the bow and then the arrows, and that I had to come help you quick ‘cause you were in a lot of trouble.” My mouth must have been hanging open, because he just kept going. “So you’re not mad about the fridge door being open?”
I snapped back to reality. “The door? No I’m not mad about the door. You saved my life, and Brendon’s, too. I don’t care if a few Popsicles melt.”
Tommy’s expression became one of alarm. “Not the Popsicles!” he said as he started to rise, I believe to go shut the fridge door.
I grabbed his arm. “Don’t worry, Tommy. The Popsicles are in the freezer,” I said, doing my best to calm his nerves.
His face relaxed. “Oh, okay. I only left the fridge door open,” he finished.
“Back to the voices,” I started, realizing he was once again paying at least some attention to me as he dug around in the bag looking for some more blue M&M’s.
“Voice,” he muttered.
“Huh?” came my reply.
“You said ‘voices,’ there’s only one, don’t you know that?” he said, but not in a condescending way.
“Well I do now,” I told him. Tommy just looked at me funny. I absolutely was intrigued; my ‘need to know’ meter was through the roof at this point. “Does the voice sound like God?” I asked conspiratorially.
“No,” he answered as he shook his head. His eyebrows creased as if to say I was nuts.
“Jesus?”
He shook his head again.
“The archangel Michael?”
“Who?” he asked, a look of disfavor crossing his face as he pulled a green one out of the bag.
Well if that wasn’t the voice, then there was no real reason to explain who Michael was. “Tommy, who does the voice belong to?” I asked.
Tommy leaned in real close and whispered in my ear, making sure no one else heard.
I sat back in my chair hard when he told me. I was searching his face for any signs of deception or amusement. I found neither. The voice Tommy heard in his head belonged to Ryan Seacrest.
Oh that’s rich, I thought. I had just moments earlier been locked in a life-or-death gun battle, and I now found myself on the verge of laughing hysterically. I knew the voice wasn’t actually Ryan Seacrest’s, but that didn’t stop Tommy from believing in it wholesale. Something was going on. I couldn’t wait to see what Ryan had in store for Tommy next, as long as it didn’t get the kid hurt. I gave him a big hug which he reciprocated in spades, and went to get something to eat before the meeting, shaking my head and muttering “Ryan fucking Seacrest” all the way to the kitchen.
Chapter 11
Journal Entry – 11
* * *
The mood at the meeting was, in a word, depressed. We had lost eight of our small community and none of them were Mrs. Deneaux, I thought sourly. There had been five raiders, four were killed, one wounded and subsequently captured. You guessed it, my old pal Durgan had lived.
“Okay,” Jed began, “so now the question is, what do we do with the prisoner.”
“Kill him!”
“Shoot him!”
“Put him outside the gates!”
There was an assortment of angry replies from the group.
Jed was trying his best to restore order, but the crowd (mob) wanted nothing to do with it. Eight of their own had been killed and they wanted good old-fashioned Western justice.
“Talbot, this is the second run-in you’ve had with this guy. What’s your opinion?” Jed opted to turn the discussion over to me.
Thanks so much, Jed, for dumping this mess on me, I thought sourly as I stood up. “Jed, Durgan is dangerous and probably insane, but there isn’t anywhere here that we could lock him up. Even if we did, we would have to spread our already thin resources to guard him. I’m also not much for cold-blooded murder, so I guess I haven’t solved anything,” I sat down dejectedly.
Jed scowled at me as if to say ‘Thanks for nothing.’ I shrugged. I wasn’t getting paid the big bucks to make the difficult decisions. “Well then, we’re just going to have to set up a court system. I know that man killed our friends and neighbors, but I will not condone a lynch mob.”
“What gives you the right? He killed my best friend!” More than one resident yelled their agreement with Don Griffin, the man that had shouted out. “We know the outcome of the trial already, let’s just skip the formalities.” The yells of agreement were louder and contained more voices; it appeared to me that Jed was quickly losing ground and his tenuous hold on power.
I don’t know why I stood again, part of me thinks it’s because my whole life I’ve bucked the system. Society says go ‘right’ I go ‘left.’ I’ve always been a rebel…even if only in my mind.
“LISTEN!” I shouted. I waited a few seconds for the murmurs to die down. “You know Jed and I don’t always see eye-to-eye.” That received some laughs, most people remembering an easier life when the biggest problem was the correct time to put out the trash. “But he’s right—THIS TIME,” I emphasized. “I would like nothing more than to kill Durgan, but not like this, not in cold blood. Mr. Griffin?” I asked. “Could you, even now, as mad as you are, walk up to that man and kill him?” I didn’t want him to have enough time to ponder the question. He was still pissed, so I hastened on. “Of course you can’t, you’re not a murderer. I know it’s c
liché, but do you want to step down to the level of that man?” I spat out the last word. It tasted funny on my tongue even as I was saying it. “Jed’s right,” I said with less vehemence. “We have to hold onto our civility or we just become a pack of rabid dogs.” The crowd wasn’t overly enthused with my speech, but the dissension had died down and I think if put to a vote even Don Griffin would acquiesce.
Jed thanked me with a slight nod. “All right, we will meet tomorrow to discuss who will preside over the trial, who will defend the accused, who will prosecute and who will sit on the jury.” There was still some grumbling in the audience, but it didn’t look like Jed was going to have his power usurped tonight. Jed continued. “Okay, now we have the more pressing concern of having to figure out how to defend against invaders. I honestly thought that zombies would be our only threat, for that I take full responsibility. I had the misconceived notion that any survivors would be thrilled at the prospect of joining our small society, not destroying it. If five armed men can cause this much destruction, we have to come up with another plan.”
“How about putting their severed heads on pikes outside the gates,” Griffin griped. Apparently he wasn’t quite done. Jed did the best thing he could. He ignored the comment.
“Listen, folks, I made a mistake,” Jed said dejectedly. “We are going to have to be more vigilant, and more vigilance means more guards.”
That did not sit well with the natives. “We already spend most of our day doing guard duty, what’s the sense of living if all we’re doing is defending against dying?” said one of the gentlemen I had seen around the complex walking his Bassett Hound during better times. There were other irritable words but Basset Hound man had pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Jed put his hands up in a placating manner before he began. “This is just temporary, I’ve already been talking to Alex and he has come up with plans for guard towers, and thanks to Talbot we now have the equipment and supplies to build them. They will be about fifteen feet tall, with a retractable ladder, armor plating, and lights. Because of their height, the guards on duty will be able to cover a wider range. This will mean fewer guards in the foreseeable future. We have also had ideas about heightening the wall but materials are going to be a factor. So if anyone can think of something, I’m all ears.”
I stood up again. I didn’t get the same reproachable look from Jed I had received the first time. “I think I know what we can do, although I’m not all that thrilled about it. There’s a National Guard armory about seven miles from here. Their entire enclosure is surrounded by Dannert barbed wire. We could cut it down and place it here. It will be close, but I think there will be enough.”
For those of you who don’t know what Dannert barbed wire is, picture it as beefed up barbed wire. This stuff is nasty. It literally has razors positioned on it every few inches. The team that was going to have to retrieve this stuff was most likely going to need blood infusions when the task was completed. Like a dumb ass, I had volunteered. Why didn’t I listen to my drill instructor from boot camp? He told us flat out, ‘Don’t EVER volunteer for anything! If you’re picked you go, but don’t EVER volunteer your worthless lives!’ Words to live by. Nice going, Talbot.
“All right, now that we know I’m going, we’re going to need a few more people, some to guard and most to help haul this stuff.” Clearly these people had never been to boot camp, because I got more than enough volunteers without any serious cajoling. “A couple of things. Bring the heaviest gauge clothing you can. This stuff will slice through denim like a shark through water. I’m not kidding. Next, does anyone know how to drive a truck?” Thank God someone answered, because just thinking about driving that behemoth again made my stomach turn.
“Excellent, excellent,” Jed continued. “Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. Alex will ask for volunteers to help build and erect eight towers. Three towers each on the west and east sides and one on each of the gated sides. We’ve got the folks going with Talbot, we’ll need ten or so people for food distribution, and on a more lugubrious note…”
The guy next to me asked what in the hell ‘lugubrious’ meant. I had no clue, I was in remedial English in high school so I just shrugged.
“…we will need a burial detail for those of our family and friends that have fallen.” I tuned back in to Jed’s instructions.
Don Griffin immediately shot his hand up. “I’ll go,” he said sullenly. “He was my friend.” The remainder of folks already not on one of the other work details raised their hands also.
“All right, folks, let’s let this night be done,” Jed finished.
Chairs squeaked, backs popped, soft sighs emanated from the crowd as the meeting came to an end. I walked up to Jed. He wasn’t a spring chicken when this carnival ride began. He was looking every bit of his age and then some.
I opened with, “You been getting any sleep, Jed?” He rubbed his eyes in response. “Jed, you can’t do it all. You can’t be mayor and sheriff and a soldier, that’s too much,” I empathized.
“What, because of my age!” he shot back. He softened when he saw the look of semi-shock on my face. “I’m sorry, Talbot, you’ve been an unexpected ally during this…this crisis. You’re right I am tired. I’m dead tired. No pun intended,” he said as he pointed a bony finger at me. “I’m afraid.”
I moved in to comfort him.
He shrugged me away. “Not for me, you pansy, I always knew you Marines were a fruity lot.” I laughed and so did he. The expression looked more natural on him than the scowl I had always thought was permanently fixed to his face. “Now if you’re not going to get all soft on me, I’d like to continue.”
“I’ll try to keep my hands to myself,” I assured him.
“I’m afraid for our little community we’ve got here. The TV reports say that humanity is on the brink of extinction.”
“Oh, you know how the news exaggerates,” I cut in, trying to lighten the mood.
He wasn’t having any of it. He continued joylessly, “There are other holdouts out there, and eventually we’ll find a way to get in touch with them. But right now we have to stay alive, and if it isn’t against those soulless zombies, we also have to be on guard against humanity’s worst offenders. So maybe the zombies don’t have any clue what they’re doing,” (on an aside, I wanted to interject a differing opinion but, wisely or not, I kept it to myself) “but that animal Durgan, he is the epitome of evil. I saw him, he was laughing while he was killing folks. Laughing, Talbot!” he almost screamed. “It almost doesn’t seem worth it, if that’s what we’re trying to save, let the damn zombies have the place.”
Holy crap, I didn’t think I’d ever hear Jed getting ready to throw in the towel. He must be a lot more tired than he looked.
“Jed, I’d be inclined to agree with you,” I said slowly. He looked at me with his head slightly tilted as if to say ‘Bah, you’d never agree with me.’ I pushed on. “There have been days, even before all this atrocity came raining down, that I wanted to just give up. But there are more important things in this world than just me. I trudge on because of my family and because of my friends, and most of all…” I paused for dramatic effect, “because of you.” I raced in real quick and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow, Jed!” I yelled as I raced out of the meeting hall, something clattered close to my heels.
“Fuckin’ fruit,” Jed said softly, smiling as he wiped his cheek.
Chapter 12
December 13th
Journal Entry – 12
* * *
I woke up early, dressed, and got out of the house as quickly as I could. I had made up my mind last night that I wasn’t bringing the boys, but I hadn’t told them yet. This was going to bite me in the ass. I could already feel the teeth marks. The added stress of having to look out for their welfare weighed heavily on me, and I was looking forward to not having that burden. Yeah, they were better under pressure than me, at least for this situation, and their aim was nearly equal to
mine. The idea of zombies being real had not completely set in to my reality. Justin and Travis, however, had not only grasped the implications of this corporeality, they were easily sliding into this new lifestyle. I take no small measure of responsibility for their transitional ease. My psychoses had to have spilled over. I’d been preparing for some form of Armageddon for the better part of three decades. And the other factor has to be the video games that are rife with otherworldly monsters, including but not limited to zombies. They’d been prepared and partially desensitized. I trusted them implicitly. I just couldn’t handle the apprehensiveness of looking out for them. Besides, truth be told, if anything ever happened to one of the kids Tracy would kill me, and I’m not talking that ‘ha, ha’ figurative shit either.
So I left the house early, my breath leaving vapor trails behind. I carried enough ammo to almost be a hindrance, but it was a comforting weight all the same. Looking back on this day, I wish I had volunteered for the grave digging party. That would have been a clambake by comparison. The truck was already idling with the heat going, for which I was thankful. I was beginning to feel the bite of the cold through my thin gloves. I wasn’t going to wear anything heavier that might hinder my access to the trigger. I walked up to the four people that were huddled by the front grille of the truck. I rightfully assumed they were the wire gathering team. I didn’t ‘know’ any of them, even though I’d seen them around the complex in one fashion or another.
There was Jen, the ‘feminine’ partner in the pairing with Jo(e)—the neighbor we had slaughtered coming out of my garage. (That nightmare still ranked in the top three). She wasn’t nearly as outgoing as her former lover, and I had never said more than pleasantries to her. I always thought it was a waste that she was a lesbian. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why she avoided me. Maybe she had been able to pick up on my lascivious thoughts. She wasn’t looking so good these days, though. The deliberation she was giving the mourning process had aged her considerably. Her elfish features had diminished. If I’m being honest it’s not so much that her looks weren’t still there, it was more like her soul was hanging by a thread. The light behind her eyes had dulled leaving nothing more than two dimmed irises. The blackness that threatened to envelope them was not more than a heartbeat away.