by Mark Tufo
I went halfway down the basement steps and, looking up, I cut away most of the drywall above my head exposing the stairs that led to the second story. I then went back up the basement stairs and then onto the second floor risers. I cut away the carpet and pad. (It was old anyway; at least that’s what I told Tracy as I tried to calm her.) With a five-pound hammer and crowbar I removed four treads and four risers effectively leaving a four-foot by three-foot wide gaping wound in the middle of the stairs. All the noise had brought Nicole out from her shower prematurely. Her face had a look of bewilderment on it as she looked down at me and then at what remained of the stairs.
“Does Mom know?” she asked with concern in her eyes. “You know she’s going to kill you?” she answered when I didn’t respond immediately.
Nicole was privy to some of my more insane (or inane) ideas. Mostly her mom was able to get me to rein in the horses before they roamed too far away from the stable but not always. There was that one time in Canada when the Royal Mounted Police were involved. It almost became an international incident, but that’s ancient history, I was never charged.
“I know what I’m doing,” I answered huffily, a little ticked that she had the audacity to rain on my parade.
Now that I looked at my handiwork, I realized that I did sort of forget that this was still a functioning household. I couldn’t expect everyone to have to jump over this gap. If someone woke in the middle of the night and forgot, they’d find themselves in the basement in a heartbeat.
I went and snagged my circular saw and proceeded to flatten out the stringers. Those are the supports that hold the tread and the risers. They go up and across in the same fashion as the stairs. They are basically the frame and the stairs are the shelving. So I just took the saw and cut off four triangles on each side, effectively making the stringers flat.
The next thing I needed I didn’t have. I sent Travis out on his second scavenging trip. I hoped to hell Tracy was having a difficult time finding some rum, if she came home now with this giant perforation on her stairs my only hope was going to be getting on the other side of the hole and hoping she wouldn’t be able to bridge the gap. Thank God the boy beat his mother home. I would have taken him for ice cream if I had the time and there was any ice cream anywhere. He didn’t find exactly what I requested but under such a short gun, beggars couldn’t be choosers. What he brought was a piece of countertop from one of the abandoned units. It was about six feet by two-and-a-half feet. I trimmed a foot off the bottom, and then turned it over so the Formica top was now on the bottom. Then I attached four two-and-a-half inch lengths of two-inch-by-two-inch wood slats onto the counter bottom so there would be some sort of foothold. Obviously this would never pass a home inspection but I honestly didn’t think that was my biggest concern.
To finish off my wonderful contraption, I anchored two large eyehooks on either side of the end of the countertop that would be facing the top of the stairs. I then anchored two equally large eyehooks at the top of the stairs, one as close to the wall as possible and the other as close to the railing as possible.
The next thing was to tie it off. I needed to run rope from the ‘new’ stairs to the eye hooks at the top. I would like to say I knew how to tie these fancy quick release knots that would take a mere snap of the fingers to release, but that wasn’t the case. After my fourth granny knot on each side I figured prudence was the best course of action for the day. I got my fifth and last eyehook and made sure that I found a stud in the wall as I anchored it. I then took a length of rope and tied a utility knife to the eyehook. So if needed, one would only need to get the knife and cut both ends of the rope releasing the ‘faux’ stairs. Now that I was almost done there was only one thing left to do, try the stairs. The stairs seemed a lot sturdier ‘in theory.’
“Hey, Trav!” I yelled.
Travis came up from the basement where he and Tommy had been wrestling with Henry, who had gotten a whiff of Tommy’s secret stash of Pop-Tarts and was hell-bent on getting away with his prize.
“Yeah, Dad?” Travis asked as he appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
He’s young, if anything happens he’d heal faster. “Aw shit,” I mumbled to myself. Guilt got the better of me. “I want you to stand there and get help if anything happens to me.”
Travis looked at me like I was nuts until I pointed at my makeshift stair sled. This wouldn’t be the first emergency room visit Travis had to make with his father. Travis even had the presence of mind to step off the landing and into the foyer in case I went tobogganing. I white-knuckled the handrail as I placed my first foot down on the makeshift tread. Not so bad. It was when I placed my second foot onto the ‘stairs’ that the swaying began. With the combination of being secured only by rope, and three inches of play on each side, I had successfully made the first in-home carnival ride. Travis laughed as my face turned the same shade as my knuckles. This was going to take some serious getting used to. Nicole had come to the top of the stairs just in time to view the festivities.
“Do you remember Canada?” she asked, straight-faced, and again turned her back to finish whatever she had been doing.
Her point was made. Tracy hadn’t talked to me for over a month after that, this might even rival that momentous mark. As I reached the bottom rung of my contraption it slid over to the right. I had a death grip on the handrail, to the right I had a six-inch wide clear as day view of the basement stairs and they loomed ominously from this vantage point. This wasn’t going to work. If someone had to walk up or down the stairs carrying anything that required the use of one hand, this stairway was going to become a major spillway. I thought long and hard as I pondered my fall below, should I just put the thing back together? At that point I just might have. The problem, however, was that I had cut the stringer, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out a way to put that back together again, at least not correctly. Humpty-Dumpty had nothing on me. There had to be a way to stabilize this moving nightmare. The whole point of this trapdoor was that it was a quick release mechanism. I designed it (Okay so ‘design’ might be a little strong) to keep unfriendlies downstairs if the need ever arose. This was not going to be worth it though if everybody alive was nursing broken bones.
I ended up attaching wood to both sides, and after some serious pep talking to myself, I braved another walk on the wild slide. Most of the play was gone so the swaying was kept to a minimum. At one point I even let go of the handrail; I was feeling a little saucy. Still, I didn’t want anybody on this thing unless they were completely aware of their surroundings.
My next bold move was to place duct tape over both light switches, the one at the foot and the head of the stairs, to keep them on twenty-four seven. This also wasn’t going to win me any brownie points with the wife, but at least I’d be able to see her coming when she went to push me down the stairs. I got Travis and quickly departed the scene of my crime. It would be for the best if I wasn’t there when Tracy decided to kill me.
Work around the wall was frenetic to say the least. Whatever Jed and Alex had told the workforce to incite them had done its job all too well. Alex had decided that it would be wise to begin the project on the shorter gate sides. His reasoning being the zombies would look for the natural openings. He had split up his workforce into two equal parts and sent them on their tasks. He was constantly driving from end to end to supervise the progress. The idea was simple enough to implement and ingenious in its design. The problem was materials. Ideally 1 inch thick metal plating (roughly four-feet-by-eight-feet) attached to the wall, braced with train track thick metal support beams welded to another footer plate with one foot spikes driven into the ground was the optimum set up. The strengthening pylons were spaced eight feet apart from each other. Alex had only enough of the metal plating and supports to alternate with the less strong wooden supports and only on the sides with the gates. The long walls that were on the west and east sides were all going to be supported by one inch thick plywood and four-by-fours,
still a formidable defense but not nearly as imposing looking as its metal cousins. Propping the RV was proving difficult; if even a modicum of pressure was applied the roof began to buckle. This troubled Alex but with time short and work to be done, this was a problem he would have to work out later.
The biggest concerns Alex fought with all day were the gates. They were by nature the weakest points of defense, but because of pressure from the residents, his hands were tied on how well he could bolster them, because whatever he put up to stop the zombies had to be able to be moved in a hurry in case of a mass exodus. What people didn’t understand was that, by that point, there would be no mass exodus. Just like the song says, ‘Nobody gets out of here alive.’ It was like the roach motel in theory, if the zombies get in, the people don’t get out. But folks wanted to hold onto that hope, even as asinine as it was. They were putting themselves in MORE danger by being so pigheaded. That was why I was working so hard on my exit strategy.
Chapter 18
Journal Entry – 16
* * *
I found Alex up in the southeast corner. I had only known this man for a few days and I already considered him one of my closest friends. Funny how that happens. I’ve known some acquaintances my entire adult life and I wouldn’t go to their weddings unless there was an open bar. Alex and his family had made such an impression on me he was rapidly climbing up the charts to those few who I would take a bullet for. Dramatic I know, but Marines think of these kinds of things.
“Hey, Alex, how’s it going?” I asked as I clapped my hand on his shoulder.
He turned to look, a scowl on his face. “Could be better, Talbot. I could have more laborers, more material and some engineers, other than that just peachy.” Then his demeanor changed, a grin split his broad face. “Heard about your home decorating.”
I was floored. I know news travels fast, especially within a closed community, but this is nuts. Then I discovered my culprit. Tommy meekly waved as he hefted the two hundred pound plating into place as if it weighed nothing more than its wooden counterpart.
Alex saw who I was looking at. “I wish I had fifty of him. The kid is strong as an ox.”
I smiled back at Tommy as he held the plating in position with one hand while with the other he fiddled around in his pocket until he was rewarded with a Three-Musketeers bar.
“And he works for minimum wage,” Alex laughed.
“Alex,” I started in a serious tone, “that’s part of the reason I came to find you.” I spent the next few minutes telling him about my exit plan if everything went south. I also, to no avail, tried to get him to move closer to my house.
“I can’t move,” he bemoaned. “My wife finally feels safe. She has just stopped screaming in her sleep and she has some new friends that live around us. I know that they also provide a constant source of well-being for her. Mi amigo, I’m not even sure if what you have told me will work, although it’s a start. Ladders you say? Sounds about as safe as your sledding stairs.”
“Do you think these will work?” I asked, pointing to the supports.
“For awhile,” he answered solemnly.
“That’s reassuring,” I answered caustically.
He shrugged. “What can I tell you? The walls should be fine once the stanchions are up. It’s the gates that are going to be the problem. Short of putting up a wall, I don’t know.” He shrugged again with the truth of what he left unsaid.
“That’s all the more reason you should either move in with me or at least next to me,” I told him.
Alex was no martyr. He had no desire to go down with the ship; his family meant everything to him. When it finally dawned on him that he was embarking on a doomed endeavor he wanted to rethink his choices.
“I will talk to Marta tonight.” His sickly smile did not produce much confidence.
I placed my hand again on his shoulder. “Alex, you have to do more than talk to her. You have to convince her.” His skin tone wasn’t recuperating. “Listen, her friends are welcome to move, too. We’re only talking about a tenth of a mile away at most. This isn’t a coast-to-coast thing.”
My arguing wasn’t winning him over. He saw the logic in what he needed to do. It was just convincing his better half about this. His wife had always been ruled by the heart and not the head. “All right, all right, I’ll back off, for now. Just tell me where you need me and Travis to work.”
His shoulders slouched a bit in relaxation. Alex would talk to his wife, just not at the moment.
The day was cold the work was hard. It was uneventful except for the occasional hammer hit to thumb, and no they weren’t all mine, I only did it twice. I was barely able to contain my tears the second time. The support beams had been completed on the two shorter gated sides and we had finished a good third of the east wall without anything too exceptional happening, and just like that, it changed.
The alarm arose from the north gate. People began shouting. I hadn’t heard any shooting yet, so I figured things were still somewhat all right. Like every other looky-loo, I left what I was doing mid-swing—probably a good thing. I think I was lined up for a third hit on my throbbing appendage, and this time the tears would have spilled. This would have been considerable entertainment for Travis. I’m sure he thinks I don’t have tear ducts. The makers of the Hallmark commercials would be happy to know that I do, but I’m not telling anyone.
There was a group of sixty or seventy people at the gate by the time I got there. That was a good quarter of our population. I would’ve figured everyone would have been here, but then it was nice to realize the gate guards and the tower guards hadn’t left their posts, plus there were still a considerable number of folks who were just plain traumatized. Some so much so that they didn’t even come out to get food; it had to be delivered.
I meandered my way up to the front trying to figure out what was going on. There were no zombies or human invaders that I could see. I was wondering if someone had inadvertently hit the alarm. It wouldn’t be the first time. Luckily this hadn’t yet fallen under the boy who cried wolf syndrome, yet.
I had made it up to the front of the crowd and curled my fingers around the chain links. My fingers tightened as I saw what had aroused the natives. Standing in the field across from our little community was what I can only describe as the harbinger of doom. It was the symbol of everything that was wrong with the world right now. It was death incarnate. It was the four horsemen of the apocalypse all rolled into one package. It was the woman zombie that had killed Spindler. At one time she was some daddy’s little girl, all pigtails and Sunday dresses. All sugar and spice and everything nice, all Barbie and Ken playhouse. Now she was the crux of all that was evil.
She stood in that field two hundred yards away and still the closeness of her chilled my heart. Her tattered clothes swayed in a nonexistent breeze as if she created her own tempest of atrocity. The crowd which had been loud and alarmed grew as quiet as I had. The pall of impending doom disquieted us all. The only sounds were of clothes rustling together as each person tried their best to gain a better vantage. Some had seen enough. They peeled away, possibly to tell others that the boogieman was real and he was a she. The guard at the gate had half raised his weapon to take a shot but seemed to have frozen mid-decision. He looked like he wanted to leave with some of the others; I couldn’t say I blamed him.
When the zombie pointed at us, my breath caught in my lungs. I felt as if a frozen ice pick had been thrust into my chest. Cold blood radiated out from that phantom piercing. I had the distinct feeling she was pointing at me, but wouldn’t all humans look the same to a zombie? I mean, I don’t think I could tell one cow from another. They all taste delicious to me. I’m not saying that we were cattle, but to a zombie we are, right? I found myself slowly moving back and to the right, almost subconsciously. Sure, I had a history with that thing but that didn’t mean I wanted a future. I mean at least with her…it…whatever. Even from this distance her outstretched arm with her straight as an a
rrow index finger followed my slow retreat. Un-fucking-fortunately this did not go unnoticed. The damn guard, who should have immediately shot that abomination, visually followed the line of sight of the zombie’s finger.
“Talbot?” he turned and looked at me. “She’s pointing at you, I think.”
I stopped, frozen for a moment, hoping that she would drop that accusatory pointer. She didn’t. The guard grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the fore. I was sweating and shivering at the same time. It was not a pleasant sensation.
“That’s a zombie, isn’t it?” he asked. I hadn’t found my voice yet, it was locked away somewhere in shock and awe. “But how could it be? For chrissakes she’s pointing, ain’t no zombie can point. Right? But I can smell her from here. And the way she moves, she ain’t human.”
I don’t know who he was talking to. I hadn’t even acknowledged his existence yet. My concentration was centered on her, it. My attention became so focused, I don’t know if it was a trick of the light or she was magic, to this day I still haven’t figured it out. The only way I can describe what happened next was as if my consciousness was pulled to within a few feet of her. Her pointing became a gesture of ‘come here,’ something which I could tell was a difficult maneuver for her considering the rigor that had to have set in. That finger being able to curl and unfurl made her grimace in concentration. She mouthed the word ‘come.’ I was thankful that this was only my consciousness and not my true presence. I could see her breath and it had nothing to do with the cold. Every impulse screamed at me to flee, but I was even more compelled to go.