by Tufo, Mark
“What is going on?” I asked. The question was immediately forgotten when Koala spoke.
“I am so sorry. I’ve really been alone for a while even before. Just been me and Jumper for the last five years. Sister lived up the street she’d care for him on my runs. I hit the lottery on my last trip. If you’re hungry, the pantry is pulled up right to the back of the house.”
Mia nodded at Jess who went out to the kitchen. “Holy crap” issued forth.
Patches followed Jess to see what she was looking at. I stayed put, just in case. I felt better about the two-legger, but I wanted to make sure he wasn’t a deceiver like the cat said they could be. Ben-Ben was looking at Koala’s hand, hoping more of the sticky food would reappear.
“This is incredible,” Jess said, walking out the back of the house and into a huge wheeler container.
“I was heading to Louisiana,” Koala said from the living room, “in preparation for the storm that was heading that way. When I started to run into zombies and the roads were getting choked with people just trying to get out, I turned around and headed home. I figured if I was going to die it was going to be with the one I love. I knew I couldn’t haul that stuff in here, and leaving it on the street wasn’t a great idea either. No way I could go out every time I needed something, either zombies or—”
“Others would get it.” Mia finished. She had stepped over to the threshold and was looking at what Jess had walked in to.
“The bay window was old and I was going to need to replace it anyway, so I just backed my trailer right up and through the damned thing.” Koala laughed.
Jess was looking at stacks of bottled water, pallets of granola bars, crates of dried food products, juice in boxes, even a few boxes of pet foods.
“This is incredible. How long will this food last?” Jess’ question drifted out from the trailer.
“Longer than we have,” Koala said softly, hugging Jumper’s head.
“We?” Mia asked.
“Stage-3 colon cancer,” he answered her. “And well, you’ve seen Jumper. I’m just trying to last longer than him so his last few weeks can be peaceful, not painful. You know what I mean?” Koala asked with a tortured expression on his face.
I could tell from the scents he was throwing off that he was saddened by the thought of losing his friend and also scared with the prospect of dying. Mia came over and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“I know how sick he is,” Jumper told me. “I’ve been trying to hold on as long as I can so that he won’t be alone when he finally releases.”
“That’s a good thing,” I told him.
“Can I feed Zach and the animals?” Jess asked, coming back into the living room. She saw that Mia was sitting next to the man and his eyes were glossed over as if ready to tear. A questioning look passed over Jess’ features.
“Yeah sure,” he said, wiping his eyes; I guess before anything could spill down. “Please grab whatever you’d like. There’s more there than...there’s plenty.”
The same look of confusion was still on Jess’ face as she turned back around. I was curious to learn about the man, but once I heard the familiar sound of a dog food bag being opened, my stomach took control. I went out into the kitchen and looked into the back of the food container room for the giant wheeler.
Jess put Zach on a chair with a small box of what looked like small crunchy donuts.
“Come here, Patches.” Jess next put down a small bowl of food for the cat.
The cat, which usually sniffed around her food for long minutes and would then even sometimes walk away from it as if she didn’t care, was a totally different animal this time.
“Sorry,” she said as she looked up.
Bits of food were falling from her mouth as she said it. She was attacking it like I expected a wolf would attack a deer. And then I thought back. At least I’d been fed in Las Vegas; the cat hadn’t eaten in days. I let her enjoy herself without me watching her make a mess. I’ve got to admit, though, the memory of that food flying around her head and water sloshing out of her bowl will bring me fond memories for a long while. She’s always so dainty, dipping her head down and taking one piece chewing it long and carefully before going on to the next.
I thought that was perhaps the funniest thing I’d seen in a season when Ben-Ben went and did one better.
“Come here, puppies,” Jess said as she got us a couple of bowls of food and water.
“I feel funny,” Ben-Ben barked from the other room. He caught the corner of the wall with his shoulder as he walked into the room. He completely spun around so he was facing where he had just come from.
“Back already?” Mia asked from the living room.
“Riley, where are you?” Ben-Ben asked.
“Looks like the medicinal marijuana is starting to work,” Koala said.
I followed Jess as she went to retrieve Ben-Ben. “Oh, you poor thing.” She was smiling as she picked him up. “You spazz,” she told him.
His eyes were half shut like he was going to sleep and his tongue was hanging out. She picked him up in her arms and walked back over to the food bowls.
“I’m flying!” he said excitedly, and then he licked Jess’ face.
I thought the cat’s wild eating was something to behold; she couldn’t hold a cookie to what Ben-Ben was doing to his food. He had finished his bowl before I got more than a few mouthfuls down and then he had pushed my face out of the way so he could eat mine. “Sporry,” he had mumbled as he did so.
Jess motioned with her finger for me to follow her. I came back out to the room where Mia, Koala, and Jumper were.
“Here you go, pretty girl,” Jess said as she stroked my muzzle. She put down a bowl of food just for me. I had no sooner taken a bite, than I noticed Patches not more than a stride away, watching me intently, her tail swishing back and forth at a rapid pace.
“You eating in there, too?” Ben-Ben asked from the kitchen. “I’ll be right out!” he said excitedly.
I usually liked to enjoy my food, but I wasn’t going to get the chance today. I attacked that thing like it was cow meat and still I couldn’t finish it before Ben-Ben tried to crowd me out, with Patches at his side.
“Isn’t this food just the most wonderful thing you’ve ever eaten?” he asked the cat.
“I’ve had better,” she replied, but that didn’t stop her from eating.
At some point, Jess and Mia ate. Must have snuck it inside the great container, because I’m pretty sure Ben-Ben wouldn’t have left them alone. When the small dog was done with his third bowl of food, his stomach was practically scraping on the fake fur flooring. He hopped up onto the couch, crawled over Koala’s lap, and nestled in with Jumper.
“Don’t let me get in your way,” Koala said as he did so.
“He’s warm…feels good,” Jumper said as he shifted his head.
It was a little while later, the shadows in the house getting longer. Koala had lain down and was head-to-head with Jumper and Ben-Ben. Jess was sitting in one of the big chairs, Zach in her arms, and I was down by her feet. Patches had found some place else to sleep in the house. She liked her alone time and hadn’t truly been afforded any lately, especially all crammed into the wheeler like we were. Probably trying to figure out a way for world domination knowing her.
The only one not relaxing was Mia. She would sit for a bit and then get up pacing nervously and then always go over to the outside viewer before she would start the routine all over again. I could sense her nervousness, so I went up to her as she was standing there, looking out. I figured if she petted my head she might feel better. I know it works for me.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she said over and over. She looked down at me when I nuzzled my head into her leg. “Hi, sweet girl. Got any ideas?”
“About what?” I groaned back as she rubbed my ears.
“I should have never left that stupid car out in the middle of the street,” she said, standing back to look out the viewer.
/> I hopped up, my front paws resting on the small ledge so that I could also see what she was seeing. The wheeler was indeed out in the middle of the hard packed ground. Dead ones were all around it – well, I guess all around everything really.
“Icely comes looking for us…he’s going to know where we are,” she said, biting at one of her fingers.
I thought if she was still hungry there was plenty of more food, no need to eat herself. Two-leggers are funny like that.
On our next trip to the window (Mia kept rubbing my head in a worried manner – I could do this all night) “Stupid, stupid, stupid” changed to “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She let the material fall back into place and moved quickly away from the window. I didn’t see it, but it was impossible not to hear the paws of another wheeler moving across the hard ground or the loud beating of its heart as it stopped near to where we had.
“Jess,” Mia said in a loud whisper, “Icely’s here.”
Jess nearly dropped a startled Zach she had gotten up so quickly. He cried from the sudden and maddened movement of his sister.
“Icely? John ‘Icely’ Huntington?” Koala asked.
“You know him?” Mia turned back from the window.
“Not personally…I’ve heard of him. Hard to be a truck driver in this region and not know about him. He ran most, if not all of the illegal trucking in the Nevada area. What’s he want with you two?”
“He runs Vegas now,” Mia replied. “We were held captive there.”
“He runs Vegas? Pretty impressive for a thug. You guys important somehow that he would come this far looking for you.”
“I was one of his wives,” Mia said defiantly, looking for any sort of condescending look from Koala.
“I was to become one. Riley over there tried to kill him, Patches bit him,” Jess said.
“And I think Ben-Ben urinated on his rug,” Mia added.
Koala suppressed a snort at that. “Persian?” he asked.
“I think so,” Mia said.
I looked over to the cat. “Rug,” was her one word reply. “Fake floor furs,” she added when she didn’t think I had understood her. I hadn’t.
So Ben-Ben had finally made water inside when it was acceptable – good for him. Wish I had thought of it.
Koala walked over to the viewer and looked out. “Looks like there’s four of them in the car. Nice to see the zombies are finally on our side.”
“There’s got to be too many zombies for them to get here right?” Jess asked.
“Doubtful,” Mia said. “I don’t think there could ever be enough zombies.”
I wanted to see what was going on, I jumped back up and poked my head between the material and the viewer. There were indeed bunches of dead ones all around the car. A female two-legger got out one of the doors in the rear of the wheeler. She was carrying a deadly looking fire stick. An explosion of flame burst from the end of it as she sent more metal bees out faster than I’d ever heard before. Dead ones were torn in half. I think she was screaming as she swept the fire stick back and forth.
“Machinegun!” Koala pulled me away from the window. “Must have really been an expensive rug. Come on,” he said to Mia.
I followed as Mia and Jess followed the man into the back of his house.
“We need to leave,” Patches said to me as we walked. “Those people will kill us all.”
“You have any ideas?” I asked her.
“Not me, I’m just the muscle,” she replied coyly.
I turned to look at her. “You’re funny, cat. I’m really starting to like you.”
“Riley, what’s going on?” Ben-Ben asked, slamming into the back of Patches he was running so fast. They slid halfway across the food room on the shiny ground.
“I could do without this one,” Patches said as she extradited herself from the tangle of paws and fur.
I wanted to laugh, but I was so scared, and it was impossible not to pick up on the nerves the two-leggers were throwing off. They knew how much trouble we were in, maybe more so. I didn’t exactly know what a machinegun was but it sounded wicked, almost like a pack of coyotes, or two cats. Any of them or all of them; pure evil.
“...only have the one shotgun and a couple of twenty-twos,” Koala was telling the females when I caught up. “Not much use against a machinegun.”
“Better than nothing,” Mia said. “We’ve both got nine-millimeters, but not many rounds.”
“Well I got plenty of rounds,” he told them. He grabbed three of the small fire sticks, a couple of boxes of metal bees and headed back into the living room.
“Jumper?” Koala asked. The large dog had gotten off the couch and was standing next to it on shaky legs.
“If I die, it’s going to be in defense of my human,” Jumper barked softy.
I wanted to tell him that no one was going to die today, but I’d never been good at lying.
“Nobody is going to die today,” Patches told him. She said it with such ease and conviction that I almost believed her.
More fire sticks had joined in the shooting.
“Damned fools, the more they shoot, the more zombies are going to come,” Koala said as he quickly shoved bees into the sticks.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Jess asked.
He stopped for a second, his head popping up from his task. “Yeah I guess that’s true.”
A few of the bees struck the house; it was so loud my ears hurt.
“You alright, Zach?” I asked, going over to his chair.
“I want my mom,” Zach said tremulously, his bottom lip quivering.
Me too, I thought.
“I wonder if my time has come,” Koala said, not really to anybody. I was not sure if I was the only one that heard him.
Jumper had creaked his way over to the front door and was waiting, expectant I guess the cat would say. I was impressed by his display but did not know how effectual he would be as a first line of defense. I would gladly add my teeth to his presence when the time came.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Well lookie what we got here,” the driver of the car said. He was driving a non-descript blue sedan. It looked enough like a cop car, but that wasn’t why Sedgwick liked it. Hated cops, loved the control.
“That’s definitely Icely’s car,” Ned, the passenger, replied.
“Anybody in it?” the woman, Dianna, asked from the back seat. She seated a magazine into her Israeli built Uzi.
“Put the damn toy away,” Sedgwick said. “You heard Schools, Icely wants the bitches alive.”
“Yeah, well Icely and Schools aren’t here,” she said defiantly.
“Listen, Dianna, we got a good thing going on in Vegas. You ain’t gonna fuck this up for us.”
“Just stop the car so we can see if the little princesses are in there,” she replied.
“The doors are open and there are zombies around…they’re food by now,” the fourth – and as of yet silent one in the group – said. His name was Nick Anthony but they called him “Grumper” because he was generally in a foul mood.
“I agree with Grumper,” Ned said. “Just back the car up and let’s get the fuck out of here. We’ll tell him what we saw.”
“We leave without a head and he’ll take ours instead,” Dianna said.
“Shit…she’s right,” Sedgwick agreed.
“I’m always right,” she said as she opened her door.
“What are you doing?” Sedgwick asked.
If he said anything else it was drowned out by the blazing fire of her sub-machinegun. Zombies stutter-stepped as they received multiple rounds.
“The fucking head, Brain-child,” Grumper yelled through the open door.
“This is so much more fun!” she screamed.
More than a few of the zombies folded in on themselves as their torsos were shredded, their heads dropping down by their knees. They would turn so they could keep looking towards the potential food source but could not reconcile the fact that they were no longer looking
forward. Their legs would move in the only direction they knew, frustrating the zombies as they moved further away from their prey.
“That’s hilarious,” Grumper said as he got out of his side.
“Waste of fucking bullets is what it is,” Ned replied, watching the action. “If they were in the area they sure as hell aren’t now,” he said to Sedgwick.
“Let them finish the zeds off and we’ll check the car for any clues,” the driver responded.
“Aren’t you piss-wads getting in on this?” Dianna asked as she reached back in and got another magazine.
“Killed enough zombies for two lifetimes,” Sedgwick told her. “Have a blast.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Psychotic bitch,” Ned replied. “How the hell did she end up in our car?”
“She’s my sister,” Sedgwick said.
“Oh yeah.” Ned laughed.
It didn’t take long for Grumper and Dianna to decimate the local zombie population. Her gun was still smoking when Ned and Sedgwick got out.
“Keys are in it,” Sedgwick said, getting in behind the wheel of Icely’s car.
“And apparently it works,” Ned added as Sedgwick started the car.
“Quarter tank of gas.” Sedgwick shut the engine down.
The street was quiet except for the steady thrum of the sedan engine and the occasional kicking of a piece of brass.
“Hijack?” Dianna asked.
“Possible,” Ned told her, no gunshots to the car, though.
Sedgwick looked around, “Sure are plenty of houses they could be holed in right now. Probably even watching us.”
“This sucks,” Grumper said. “They can shoot at us, but we can’t return fire?”
“Fuck that. I’m not taking a round for Icely, King of Vegas or not,” Dianna said.
“Not often I agree with your crazy sister, Sedgwick, but on this one I do,” Ned said.
“Is that anyway to talk about your blushing bride?” Dianna asked.
“Love you, honey.” Ned blew her a kiss.
“Let’s hope for all our sakes, theirs included, we can find enough of their tasty tidbits to bring back to the boss. That way his revenge is completed, we don’t get shot at, and these poor bastards don’t have to be tortured,” Sedgwick said.