by Mark Tufo
I was busy wiping said goggles for the third time, and had already cut loose almost fifty feet of wire, when I felt the impact of the first zombie hitting the fence. My ladder shuddered, and my heart skipped a beat or two. I had almost forgotten about the persistent little buggers. Now Hector was looking up at me, arms outstretched, mouth agape. He was a heavyset Mexican man, small mustache, big belly. I’m not being racist. His name was Hector, it said as much on his name tag. That and he used to work at Tire Discount and he smelled as if he hadn’t showered after five shifts at the physically demanding job. Flies were buzzing around him, but notably not on him. The flies seemed to be attracted to the sweet smell of decaying meat that emanated from his mouth, but they were not enticed enough to get any closer. The oddest fact that struck me was not that a zombie was less than five feet from me, it was that flies were still around in December.
I wanted to put a round in Hector’s bloated melon, if for nothing more than to get his putrid-smelling ass away from me. But I had no inclination to see if the noise would attract more of his kind…or anybody else’s kind for that matter. So I kept cutting with the wire clippers, stepping down from my ladder to shift it over every five feet and climbing back up. And always, Hector followed like a lovelorn puppy. Hector’s friends had stayed at the gate to try their luck with Ben, who had only moved enough to get a better look at the zombies that wanted to eat him. For all intents and purposes it looked like a world-class staring competition.
On and on it went like this for another couple of hundred yards, Mr. Shuffles keeping consistent pace with my wire removal. My goggles had fogged for the umpteenth time, so this time I took my gloves off to get a better wipe down of the insistent miasma. After completing my job to a satisfactory level, I put my goggles back on and then began to pull my gloves on. The cold was having an adverse affect on me and I lost my grip on the second glove. As I reached over to try to grab the falling glove, I compounded my troubles. The wire cutters that I had stowed in my jacket’s breast pocket also fell as I leaned away from the ladder at an angle, and both items hit the ground and bounced, tumbling under the fence, they ended up at Hector’s feet. I swear, if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all.
“Any chance you could hand those back to me?” I asked Hector. He only replied with a soft moan. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
I climbed down the ladder. His eyes never broke contact with mine. The glove and the cutters were less than six inches away on the other side of the fence. I could easily reach under and grab them, but if I somehow got hung up, Hector would get his mid-morning snack after all. Noise be damned, I was going to shoot him. I’d learned enough painful lessons over the years to not tempt fate.
I began to un-sling my rifle, when Hector did something I was not expecting. He bent and recovered the glove and the cutters. With some motor skill difficulty he brought the glove to his nose and sniffed. Maybe he still smelled meat on them. He took a bite, ripping right through the thumb. He chewed for a moment and swallowed, then realized to his disappointment that it wasn’t his desired nourishment, he dropped the glove. The wire cutters became Hector’s next fascination. He started turning them over and over in his hands. He handled them like a newborn wearing mittens might, but I couldn’t help thinking that this tool was somehow stirring some long forgotten memory in what used to pass as a human mind. His bluish-purple hands finally got the tool into a potentially usable fashion. He then began to thrust the cutters at the fence. I wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was real or not. Was he trying to cut the fence? My mind whirled as the implications started setting in.
“Hey, Carl, umm, could you come here for a minute?” I yelled over my shoulder. I was afraid that if I looked away for more than a fraction of a second, Hector would miraculously figure out how to use the cutters and make his way through the fence before I could turn back around.
“Talbot, I’m a little busy,” Carl shouted back. Seems there were more rounds than I had expected, Carl had been busy picking them up and loading them into the trailer.
“Yeah, still you might want to see this,” I said determinedly, still not taking my eyes off Hector.
At one point the cutters made contact with the fence, but Hector did not have the dexterity to close the pliers to do any damage. He moaned at that point, and I would have sworn it was because of frustration.
Carl was walking over, wiping the sweat from his brow with a bandanna. “Lost your pliers?” he said matter-of-factly.
“You know, you and my son, Captain Obvious, have a lot in common,” I said dryly.
“Just shoot the bastard and get them back,” he said as he began to turn around.
“Yeah I figured out that part all on my own, Dad,” I said dryly. “Look at what he’s doing.”
Carl got closer. “Well I’ll be damned. He’s trying to cut the fence. Well ain’t that a kick in the pants. Shoot him and get your pliers back.”
“Still right about that, but don’t you find that just a little freakin’ scary?” I asked him.
“What? Look at him, he can’t even make the damn things close. He’s not getting in here anytime soon,” Carl pointed out.
“It’s not whether he can operate the cutters, it’s that he is trying at all. It’s like he’s remembering a lost skill or trying to attain a new one,” I answered.
“So what?” Carl asked impatiently.
“So what?!” I retorted sharply. “If they have the ability to learn…”
The statement was left verbally unanswered but literally answered as we both turned to look when we heard the telltale twang of a chain link being cut. Hector appeared to be attempting to smile, but his rigor mortis-locked lips would not upturn no matter how hard he tried. What was not difficult to see was the light of accomplishment in his dead flat black eyes.
“Well doesn’t that beat all!” Carl said as he approached Hector. For the third time today I thought I was going to go deaf as Carl’s Magnum went off.
Any excitement that Hector felt was short-lived as his head exploded. It happened so fast he never even dropped the cutters. Brain matter showered down hitting the hard ground. It sounded like the beginning of a sleet storm. An eye lazily rolled on the ground, finally coming to rest and perpetually looking to the heavens. Carl was halfway back to the truck when Hector’s body finally slumped and partially rested up against the fence.
I was beginning to feel a lot like Ben, I was having a hard time moving. A couple of the gate zombies started heading my way. It would be a minute or two before they got here, but still I rushed to pry my pliers out of the cold dead hands of Hector. It would be ironic if he had one of those old NRA bumper stickers, although I didn’t think it applied to hand tools. Was this the first sign of shock? How the hell would I know? I’m the one asking myself the questions. My lost glove was within retrieval distance. But it was covered in quickly freezing viscera. I was going to have to take my chances with frostbite and the Dannert wire, the germaphobe in me couldn’t stomach the thought of putting that glove on again. I shakily climbed back on the ladder and began anew.
Carl had forced Ben back into action. Ben was using zip ties to bundle up the wire on the ground. This would make it easier to put into the truck and then install once we got back to Little Turtle. Jen had yet to come out of the truck, hell as far as I knew she hadn’t even peeked over the dashboard. Carl relieved me after he finished loading the rest of the ammo and any salvageable gun parts he could get his hands on. I was thankful for the opportunity to rest. My ungloved hand was frozen, but what was worse were the multiple cuts on my hand. The pain was irksome, sure, but the frenzy it caused in the zombies, that was worse. Every time one of the fat globules of hemoglobin splashed to the frozen tundra, the zombies would fall to the ground and tear up divots of sod to eat my offering. It was more than a little disturbing.
“Get your hand warmed up and then get rid of those things,” Carl said with no more compunction than if he had asked me to take out the tra
sh.
“What about the noise?” I asked with some dread. Killing zombies to save my ass was one thing, killing them like that made my blood run cold.
“What about it? Use your little pea shooter,” he said pointing to my M-16. “It’s a lot quieter than my Colts are, and we’ve been here for over an hour and we still only have five of the original six here.”
I saw his point. It’s just that I didn’t want to.
“Besides,” he continued, “we now have way more ammunition in your caliber than we do in mine.”
Again I understood his damn point. I grabbed the keys from Ben and headed for the truck. Jen looked pissed that I was invading her space as I climbed into the cab to turn on the heater. I couldn’t have cared less. Those that didn’t pull their own weight were chattel and didn’t deserve my consideration.
“Are we leaving now?” Jen asked hopefully.
I merely revved the engine a little more hoping the heat would kick on sooner rather than later.
“Are we leaving?” she asked again. This time she leaned over, grabbed the gearshift and shoved it into gear. The truck lurched forward and stalled. I was thrown forward and almost broke my damn nose on the steering column as I was already leaning forward trying to garner some heat. Both Carl and Ben were looking up at me, puzzlement on their features. I shrugged an over-exaggerated ‘sorry’ gesture.
I hissed at Jen, “You touch that shift box again and I’ll break your fucking wrist!”
She pulled back as if I had slapped her.
“If you’re so concerned about getting out of here quicker maybe you should be helping instead of hiding.”
Defiance was on her face, but defeat was in her features. She wanted to lash out, but she didn’t have the intrepidity to go through with it. She settled back into her uneasy crouch, this time, however, she sat with her back to me. My hands began to unfreeze by small degrees. The pins and needles effect gave way to nails and tacks…and then finally to spikes and stakes. The pain was more intense than I was expecting. I must have been close to frostbite. As the torture began to subside, I looked around the cab; I knew I had seen a pair of work gloves. They were cheaply made and would do little to stop the bite of the wire, but I hoped that it would at least keep some of the bitter sting of the cold away. I stayed a few minutes longer than I needed to, gathering my reserves to go deal with our unwanted transients.
“Dammit,” I said as I shut off the truck. Jen jumped a bit but didn’t turn around. My feet had no sooner hit the ground, when I heard the telltale sound of the lock being engaged. “Useless!” I said a little louder than I needed to.
I was having a difficult time empathizing with her. Here we were in the fight of our lives and she had just given up.
The side of me that didn’t want to kill, not even zombies, spoke up, How would you feel if Tracy had become a zombie?
Don’t even think it! my internal dialogue continued.
Or one of your kids?
I’m telling you! Shut up!
Well?
Damn you! I’d probably want to curl up into a ball and die, my masculine side finally iterated.
Hmm, my feminine side mocked.
You can still kiss my ass. I aimed my rifle and fired off five rounds, killing all of our nonhuman visitors. My feminine side had been stilled.
The ensuing quiet was only briefly interrupted by the twang of wire cutters severing through wire holders. Carl hadn’t so much as turned to look as I had mowed down the noxious audience. My breathing had quickened as if from heavy exertion. Sweat formed and quickly began to freeze on my brow. I had yet to put the rifle down, gravity finally taking over and pushed the barrel towards the ground.
Ben, noticing my distress, came over. “You all right, Talbot?” he asked with concern.
It took a moment for me to acknowledge his presence. I turned towards him, my pupils dilated, my face as pale as the breath I exhaled.
“I could get real philosophical with that question, Ben.” And that was my only answer to his inquiry as I went to the ladder to see if Carl needed any assistance. Ben scratched his head and began zip tying the coils again.
Not much was said as the three of us worked. I know, at least for me, I was thankful for the lack of speech. It was much nicer to be lost in the hard work. Carl and I switched off on climbing the ladder. My legs were burning from the strain of going up and down and I would have said something but Carl didn’t so much as utter a heavy sigh, and the guy had a decade or so on me. There was no way I was going to let him know I was hurting. Between my shifts on top I would help Ben coil and then pull the coil into the truck. We had a system and it was going well. I was thinking at this point we wouldn’t have to spend the night.
The remainder of the day was eerily quiet, no more zombies, no other people and not even any animals. I could understand why there were no people, either they were zombies, dead, or fled. The animals had most likely taken off, too—please don’t let there be zombie rabbits! But if the animals had fled because of the zombies, where were they? And as if my questions materialized into reality, I smelled them first. At first I had thought Carl had let one rip, but unless he had eaten rotten fish tacos the previous night, it couldn’t be him. I must have turned a shade of green because Carl finally broke his vow of silence.
“What’s a matter, Talbot? You look like something’s disagreeing with you. It’s not all this hard work is it?” he asked, laughing a little at his own humor. I didn’t have to answer him, I watched as his face took on the same hue as mine. “Oh sweet Jesus!” He magically produced a bandanna, as only people of his generation can, and began to tie it around his face to block at least some of the odor.
Ben had, at this point, just emerged from the back of the trailer. “Oh geez! What is that smell!” he yelled.
“Talbot, we’ve got fifty more yards of wire to go,” Carl began. “Do we cut and run so to speak or stay and finish? But from that stench you know we’re not dealing with some onesy and twosy lost zombies. That smells like the mother lode.”
“Cut it,” I said as I made the executive decision. “All this wire does no good if we can’t get it there. I was wondering why there were no animals around here.”
My last words fell to the grounds without an ear to pick them up. Carl had already ascended the ladder to this time cut the wire itself and not the holders.
“Look out below!” Carl yelled a moment too late.
The Dannert wire sliced past my face at an alarming rate, a couple inches more to the right and my facial features would have been neatly severed from their resting place. I looked up at Carl more in shock than anything.
He shrugged a bit and said, “Eh, it didn’t get you did it? Quit your belly aching.”
I didn’t know which was worse, the close call or the smell. I wanted to give Carl a little ‘what for’, but speaking meant that I would have to suck in more of the foul stench-laden air. I flipped him the finger and he laughed; so much for making a statement.
The armory sat on a lot by itself and afforded luxurious views on all sides. The closest homes were across Buckley Avenue and a small greenway lay between the street and the houses. All in all it was about five hundred yards away, and it was from there the zombies began to spill forth. At first only a few ambled out, then half a dozen and almost within a blink of an eye there were hundreds. They stood in the greenway, some swaying like abhorrent stalks of corn. Their numbers swelled; standing room became a premium commodity as their numbers increased and still they didn’t move. We lost precious time as the three of us just stood in awe wondering what kind of manifestation we were witnessing. Of course it was at this point that Jen decided to peek her head over the dashboard. The détente was broken by her shrill screams. Like the prince’s kiss to Sleeping Beauty, the noise got the zombies moving, and, in turn, so did we. We had about a hundred and fifty yards of wire that still needed to be loaded into the truck and I was a moment away from having to cut it loose when the zombies made i
t to the sidewalk. Again they stopped.
“What are they doing? Are they afraid of traffic?” I said aloud.
“Maybe they’re looking for a crosswalk,” Carl snorted.
Of us all he looked the least nonplussed, as if this were just some normal ordinary occurrence. We kept loading the wire, and I kept a wary eye on the zombies waiting for any indication they would make their move. It didn’t happen.
Ben asked me what they were doing as we closed up the rear of the trailer. I wanted to scream at him, ‘How the hell would I know, do I look like a fucking zombie expert, you dumb hillbilly illiterate turd!!’ Instead civility got the better of me, and I shrugged. “Hell if I know,” I told him instead.
Jen’s cacophonous voice assaulted all of our ears as soon as we entered the cab. She was somewhere between sobbing and screaming her desire to vacate the premises as soon as possible.
“Oh for the love of God, girl, shut up!” Carl said evenly. His words had the desired effect; she shut up almost immediately, although she switched to an almost as bothersome half hiccup, half hushed sob. I think the screaming was better. This was the sound of the defeated.
The truck started on the very first turnover attempt. I was figuring that was good news. At least it wasn’t going to be like those low budget horror slasher flicks, where the heroine either can’t start her car or trips over a nonexistent tree root. Thank God for small favors.
The truck roared to life but we weren’t moving. “Please don’t tell me the transmission isn’t working?” I gave voice to my concern.
Carl and Ben both turned to me in unison as if on some unseen telepathic command.
“What?” I asked. Fear began to mount. A few more seconds of this and I might end up on the floor mat with Jen.
I don’t to this day know how they did it, but Ben and Carl, as if it was choreographed, simultaneously looked out the windshield at the same time. I followed the path of their gaze.
Realization dawned. “The gate? You want me to open the gate? Go through the damn thing,” I half yelled. Jen bawled a little louder.