by Mark Tufo
It was comical to watch the exaltation on the zombies’ faces as they thought they were nearing their prize, and then the shock as they fell through the stairs. With nothing else to do, I kept track of a couple of the zombies as they made their circuitous route from falling, to recovery, to climbing back up the basement stairs, to attempting the second flight of stairs once more. One was in his early thirties, wearing what was at one time a nice Armani suit and now wouldn’t fetch a dollar fifty at Savers. He wore one wing-tipped shoe, a red argyle sock, and his other foot was bare. His tie was off and the first two top buttons of his shirt were undone. The guy had probably been unwinding at Hooters after a hard day at work when he had ceased to care about stocks and bonds or accounting or selling insurance. No, the suit was too nice for that. He was probably a lawyer when he checked out from the human race. He seemed one of the more determined of the bunch to get at me and registered the biggest surprise when he ‘fell’ short of his goal. I dubbed him ‘Go-getter Gilbert’. He was averaging eight minutes from fall, to recovery, to fall.
Another zombie I had been keeping an eye on, ‘Dumpy Dorothy,’ was maybe in her late forties, early fifties. She was dressed in an undersized moo-moo, pink slippers, and in what remained of her hair were curlers. She was taking noticeably longer to make the circuitous route. She was right around twenty-two minutes. Maybe she was stopping to snack or check out the new Book-of-the-Day by Oprah.
Gilbert was making his sixth trip, almost lapping Dorothy again, when he changed his routine. He stood at the bottom of the landing, looked up at me, looked at the hole, all the while being jostled by zombies who were passing him up. I was intrigued. I stood up to get a better view of him. He followed me with his eyes; the dim light of intelligence was unnerving.
“Fuck this,” I muttered. I shouldered my rifle and took aim, but suddenly he was gone. Nothing else stopped. The zombies kept climbing, the zombies kept falling, but Gilbert never came back.
He had unnerved me. I wasn’t expecting him to come back with a homemade ladder, but he had recognized the futility of this avenue. My sincerest hope was that he had gone on in search of easier prey and not a way around my defenses. Dumpy Dorothy had made one more trip around—this time with a noticeable limp—before my shift was over. I was thankful to get back to the office; the inside of the house was easily as cold as the outside given the back doors were not even attached anymore. The office wasn’t a whole bunch warmer.
My thoughts of us holding out for three months or so seemed overly optimistic at this point. Nobody was talking, even the ever-jovial Tommy was pressed into the corner of the room, face towards the wall, with Bear in his arms. I could tell that his chest was heaving, and I thought he might be crying. I left him alone. If he wanted to be consoled he wouldn’t have been facing away.
I grabbed a book off my bookshelf that I had been reading before this mess had started. It was called After Twilight, I laughed out loud. That got me some annoyed looks from those around me. It was a zombie book. I hummed the book across the room, the noise blending in with the latest pitfall victim. I was stewing, wallowing in my own self-pity I guess, when Nicole called out to me.
“Hey, Dad, you should probably come see this,” she said. “I was in your bathroom and I was coming out when I noticed something strange.”
‘Stranger than zombies in our house?’ I wanted to shout. It’s not her fault Talbot, relax!
It was go see what was ‘strange’ or stay here and be miserable. I got up.
Coley grabbed my hand, something she hadn’t done since she was twelve and went from being Daddy’s little girl to some hormone-infused alien. That made me even more concerned. She led me into the bedroom, so far so good. On the left was our king-size bed, on the right was a dresser with a twenty-five inch television. The dresser and the television were against the wall we shared with dearly departed Techno Guy. She led me around to the other side of the television and then just pointed. In the gloom I still didn’t see anything. She pulled the shades open and peeled back the plastic covering, I saw a dark, blackish-red stain about the size of a bowling ball about three feet up on the wall. Even as I was watching, it was expanding. Unease descended on me like a heavy rain. I didn’t know what it meant or what it was, but that it wasn’t good was clear enough to me.
I kept looking at the expanding stain. “Everyone up!” I yelled. I didn’t hear any signs of sound other than our tripping guests. “I said, EVERYONE UP!” I bellowed this part like I hadn’t bellowed since I had been in the Marine Corps. This time I heard the satisfactory sound of shifting people, live people that is.
“What is it?” Tracy asked from the doorway, wiping the sleep from her eyes.
Bear and Tommy were behind her. Tommy was clearly trying to rub the tears out of his eyes, fruitlessly I might add. It looked like he had been pouring it on.
“I’m not sure,” I answered Tracy, keeping my eyes on Tommy.
He knew something, and he wasn’t telling. That couldn’t be good by any stretch of the imagination. His eyes trailed to the stain, even though from his vantage point he couldn’t see it.
“The attic,” I said.
“What?” Came Tracy’s reply.
“Get everyone in the attic!” Concern raising my voice.
Nobody was moving with a speed I felt the moment warranted. There were moans and groans of protest about being uprooted. Paul had managed to get the stepladder out of the hall closet that was used primarily for getting into the attic. When he had put the ladder in place and pushed the hatch open he was greeted with a blast of super cold infused air.
“Mike, are you sure about this?” Paul shouted from the hallway. “The attic makes the rest of the house seem like the Bahamas.”
As if in reply a loud cracking noise ensued from the bedroom. A two-by-four had just been broken. The drywall on my side bulged dangerously outward. The zombies were using the only tactic they knew, overwhelming by sheer numbers. There must have been dozens of zombies on the other side of this wall just pressing with all their weight. The liquid on my wall was the seepage of the zombies that were being pressed hard enough to be juiced like an orange; a blood orange. I backed away. When the wall finally went, it wasn’t going to be subtle. It would be like someone had opened the floodgates.
“Paul, there had better be three people up there already!” I shouted.
I jumped when I realized he was behind me. “What’s going on?” he asked. “I heard the crack.”
“It’s the wall! Get everyone up in the attic.”
He looked at me for a moment longer. His cold-addled brain was working overtime to grasp the situation. A white dust covered hand broke through. Paul didn’t need any more evidence. He was off like a shot. I could hear the commotion behind me as Tracy, Paul, and Erin were debating the merits of what should go up in the attic.
“No time, guys!” I shouted as I fired my first round into the forehead of the interloper. It did little to stop the tidal surge of zombies as the one foot gap in the wall quickly became three feet.
The dresser and the TV came crashing down; never did like that TV. Bought it on Craigslist for $100, should have talked them down to $50, oh well now I could get a flat screen. You think I’m kidding, right? My mind was having such an unbelievably difficult time reasoning with the fact that zombies were busting through my bedroom wall that it became much easier to regale in the mundane. Thankfully, though, my reflexes weren’t hampered by the same problems. My Marine Corps-honed combat skills were in full effect, aim, breathe, squeeze, reacquire target, aim, breath, squeeze, reacquire.
Between shots I was inching my way backwards, yielding as little ground as possible, but the sheer press of numbers had me constantly moving.
“Paul, I need an update!” I yelled as I dropped a zombie no further than two feet away.
“All the kids are up, Tracy’s getting water!” was the reply.
I had been pushed out of the bedroom and was two feet away from the top of
the stairs. I lost valuable time as I reloaded the M-16. My first shot struck the ground as a zombie batted the barrel away in an attempt to get to me. I collapsed my tactical stock, making the M-16 much easier to wield in the increasingly tight space.
“Tracy, you’re about to make orphans, GET UP THERE NOW!” I shredded my throat trying to get my point across.
I backed up some more, making short work of the zombie that had the audacity to block my shot, but the ground given was my last. The heel of my right foot rested on nothing, I was at the edge of the stairs. There would be no further retreat. Zombies in front, zombies behind, and many bullets to shoot before I died.
“Bear, come on!” Paul yelled from the ladder. “Mike, everyone’s up except for Bear, me, and you.”
I heard Bear come up beside me, his menacing bulk and deep growl made for a welcome ally. I moved to my left to get to the ladder before all means of retreat were cut off. Too late! In my haste to watch my precarious footing, a zombie had ensnared himself in my sling. I would have given him the damn thing if I wasn’t so tangled myself. I couldn’t even bring it up to shoot.
So this is how it ends. I had always expected something a little more dignified, but in those last few seconds, the revelation hit me. What could be more dignified then dying in defense of one’s own family and friends? Bear felt the same way. He launched himself at my assailant, bringing all three of us down into a Twister-Game-Gone-Bad pile. The barrel of my gun was all that kept the zombie from tearing into my face. I kept it between us like a fat guy would keep a box of Twinkies between him and a personal trainer. Bear was ripping and rending the zombie from the back, pulling his head further and further away from me. I pushed up with the gun to give the massive dog some help. I began to squirm out from the pile when Bear placed his colossal jaws around the zombie’s head and crushed it easier than I would have been able to crush a Coke can with my hands. The zombie’s eyes flew out, striking me in the chest. Diseased gray-black brain matter leaked out of its mouth and nose. I was already in overdrive to get out from under him; I now found another gear.
I had finally freed myself when I felt another hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t catch a break. I jerked my arm trying to break free.
“It’s me, dude,” Paul said reassuringly. “Come on, man, let’s go!”
I was at the foot of the ladder. Bear was the only thing that stood between us and death. Paul pulled me up to my feet.
“Bear, come on!” I yelled raggedly.
I knew it was futile, and somehow so did Bear. If he retreated now, most likely all three of us would die. There was more going on here than just a zombie attack. What it was I hoped to live long enough to find out.
Tommy poked his head through the opening. “Bye, Bear,” he sobbed, his tears striking me in the face.
Bear turned around and looked at Tommy and then me. I will swear to this day that he was smiling as he gave me a slight nod of his head. And then this thought was implanted into my head: ‘Don’t make me die for nothing.’
Paul must have received the same broadcast. He jumped up and grabbed the lip of the opening and hauled himself up, turning around and thrusting his hand down to help. Didn’t need it. With all the adrenaline I had flowing, I could have jumped from the first floor and made it. I closed the lid, not wanting to see Bear’s final stand. Tommy had pushed as far away from all of us as he could, grieving in his own way. Bear never whined, yelped, or barked, for that I am thankful. That would have been too much; no matter the consequences I would have descended into the maelstrom to help.
Chapter 27
Journal Entry – 24
* * *
The loud crack from below, which I could only conceive of as Bear’s demise, was immediately followed by a debilitating piercing through my skull. I rolled onto my side, hands thrust up to cover my ears as if that was going to do anything. The gesture was about as useful as giving the finger to a blind man. The feeling was tantamount to drinking the world’s largest Slurpee in world record time on the hottest day of summer. It was a brain freeze delivered on a heated ice pick. White flashes arced across my vision. It was long tense moments before I realized that I hadn’t had a stroke and that I wasn’t blind. As the agonizing effects wore away, I slowly sat up, rubbing my temples, and looking around. Everyone in our small group was in some state of recuperation from this attack.
“What…what was that?” Brendon said, holding his hand to his forehead, trying to find the entry hole the ice pick had made.
As the last shadows of the electrical storm in my brain petered out, I shifted my gaze to Tommy. He wore a grim expression on his face, but it wasn’t from pain, at least not the same pain that had afflicted the rest of us. A few ideas about what could have caused this were bantered around, including the change in temperature, but I knew the answer. Well not exactly, I knew who had caused it, I just didn’t know why.
A few hours later, our small band of survivors were huddled in the center of the attic trying in vain to conserve our body heat. It was quiet except for the constant chattering of teeth and floorboards creaking below us. This was to be our final resting place, enshrouded in pink r-16 fiberglass. It seemed fitting given the circumstances. The only thing I hated more than fiberglass was sticking forks in my eyes; you get the point. I was slipping in and out of sleep. The soft light of dawn began to trickle in through the eaves. The tinny sound of Jingle Bells heralded in the new day. I must be slipping into a coma, I mused, well what better place than the North Pole.
“Wha...what is that?” Travis gabbled.
I had been under the impression the noise was only in my head; I was too fogged out from the cold to realize that it was external. I lured myself back from the abyss, my hands shaking as I reached into my pocket. It was my Blackberry, I had set the alarm after Thanksgiving to alert me to get up and make Christmas breakfast.
“Everyone, get up,” I said, shaking those who didn’t stir. If I had been that close to perpetual sleep than so were the rest. I kept shaking them. “Get up, it’s Christmas.”
I don’t know why I felt so jubilant, the last Christmas miracle I had heard of happened two thousand and ten years ago. Everyone had finally stirred and was looking at me with mixed results. Some irked that I had awoken them, others thankful, but all were wondering why I wore that idiotic grin. Tommy was still mourning Bear but apparently my grin was infectious because he began to don one himself.
“What’s going on here, Talbot?” Paul asked.
“Yeah,” Erin piped in. “Do you know something we don’t?” she asked as she breathed warm air into her cold hands. Her movements were restricted from the bear hug she was enclosed in from Paul.
“Nothing’s going on,” I intoned, much to the chagrin of the crowd. “It’s just that it’s Christmas, we’re alive.”
“For how long?” Tracy threw in. I ignored the comment.
“I could go for some bacon,” Travis said.
“Oh yeah, and some of those cream cheese stuffed rolls Mom makes,” Nicole added.
“I could go for a beer,” Justin said, pulling his head off the floor. I looked at him sternly but secretly that sounded good. Lord knows that we were living in a refrigerator. We should get the benefit of its contents.
We passed a good portion of the day relating some of our fondest Christmas stories, even some of the worst, which elicited a lot of laughs. Tommy heard the noise first and pointed over to the eaves. I was about to ask him what he was pointing at and then the rest of us started picking it up, faint at first.
“Does that sound like bells to anyone?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah…it’s Santa,” Tracy said sarcastically. She was having the toughest time throwing off her cloak of pessimism.
“That’s not bells,” Brendon said. “I lived long enough up in the mountains to tell that sound. It’s chains, tire chains,” he clarified excitedly.
The tire chain sound was immediately followed by the incessantly strong thrum of a large d
iesel engine and then a blaring horn. Whoever it was wasn’t trying to hide their presence.
“Everyone, cover your ears,” I said as I grabbed the Benelli. It took three ear-blasting shots, from which I would lose a fair measure of hearing, before sunlight streamed in from above.
The hole was big enough for me to fit my head through, even with my inflated ego. I could see the giant semi heading up here from the direction of the clubhouse. It was slow going as it pushed zombies away with its giant plow. The truck body herked and jerked, whether from the contact with the zombies or an inexperienced driver I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care how Santa got here, just as long as he was on the way.
“What is it?” came the consensus questions from the attic.
“It’s Alex’ beautiful modified truck,” I shouted down triumphantly.
“Is it coming here?” Tracy asked hopefully.
I had just assumed it was, but there was no real reason to believe that. It was time to give it one.
“All right, everyone, cover your ears again.” Two more blasts later and I had managed to get half my body through the hole. I felt like a cork in a wine bottle.
Paul had come up behind me. “Ever hear of Atkins, fat boy?” he asked sarcastically.
“Wonderful, everyone needs a smart ass, now push me through,” I said sourly.
Paul and Brendon each grabbed one of my legs and pushed. I popped out like a Mentos in Diet Coke. For one fateful second I thought I was going to tumble off the roof and into the gaggle of zombies below. Paul poked his head through just in time to see me come to a stop a mere foot away from the edge of the roof. The six inches of snow more than likely saved my life. If I had hit a clean roof, I would have bounced once and gone over the edge.
“Whoo, that was close,” Paul said, color coming back to his features.
I gingerly crawled back up to the hole. “You’re telling me.”