by Mark Tufo
It’s funny how depth perception works on the open road. The waves of heat that emanated off the pavement somehow magnified the military vehicles, or maybe that was just how everything was in this new place. What seemed like half a mile, was taking us close to an hour to traverse. Even going as slow as we were, we would have been traveling at a three-mile-an-hour clip. We were burning through daylight like Deneaux burns through cigarettes. (If you are new to my journals, she is one of the most cantankerous old women that ever walked the face of the planet. She has the blood of Calamity Jane and the steady aim of Annie Oakley coursing through her veins.)
We were finally within a hundred yards, I had yet to see any movement or have that sense I was being watched through crosshairs. It was John that nearly gave me a heart attack. I was crouched low, trying to keep as small a profile as I could on my approach, when he dropped one of his boxes.
“Done,” he said as he stretched.
The convoy completely forgotten, I walked back towards him. “Bullshit.”
He proudly held the cardboard flap back.
“You ate an entire carton of Phrito’s?”
He smiled, his teeth most likely permanently stained corn yellow.
“Tonight, when we finally hunker down, you make sure you’re down wind. You ready, or do you need a few minutes to say good bye?”
“I’m good,” he replied as he put the still full box on his shoulder and marched on.
“Not sick of those? Really?”
“Why would I be?”
“Just stay low…let’s see what this is all about,” I told him.
We came up slowly. As the wind shifted, it was not difficult to ascertain that there was nothing living in the general vicinity. The oh-so-ever-present reek of death assailed at least my nostrils, John didn’t seem to care. Then again maybe it did.
“Stink weed?” he asked me.
I didn’t reply. To open my mouth would have sent jets of throat lubricating water to spray from my mouth. A fierce battle had been waged, and my more normal friends (zombies) were the opponent in this drama. A good number of civilians had been ripped apart as they approached the military blockade. I wondered if the zombies had come out of the woods much like our howlers.
Did they co-exist? From all I’d ever learned, predators don’t play well together. So, if not the woods, where then?
Zombies by nature were nomadic, roaming to where the food was. So, in all likelihood, zombies had migrated to this spot en masse. Zombies, people, and spent shells littered the ground; in some places, a few feet thick. It made traveling the roadway impossible, stepping on to the shoulder was far from my favorite idea as it brought us closer to the howlers and whatever other fucking nightmare lingered in there; my guess is there was a Bigfoot or two just for good measure.
John was openly weeping as we passed family after family; either ravaged or hewn in half by excessive crossfire—caught in the middle of an uncaring machinegun nest. If I ever found the puke that had manned that gun, I’d put the Derringer to his temple.
I understand panic, I do. I get it; in spades as a matter of fact. But to just mow civilians down; at that point, what are you saving? Certainly not your soul, because I’m sure Saint Peter will have something to say about that. I checked out a couple of the people, only to get an idea of how long ago this travesty had taken place; rigor mortis had come and gone, the bodies had not quite bloated. The ones that had not been infected were covered in flies and the beginnings of maggots. The insidious little bastards hadn’t taken up root yet.
It was no picnic to watch as human skin shifted underneath the movements of the fly larvae. Three days at the most, this had happened three days ago. Half a week ago, these people were concerned about their mortgages, car payments, whether Timmy or Tina needed braces, if their favorite baseball team was going to win a game. Just normal, everyday bullshit, the way life was meant to be.
“Fuck,” I said, dragging my hand over my face.
John was looking into the woods, fat tear drops cascading to the ground. “My wife isn’t here.”
“Let’s hope not,” I answered, although that wasn’t what he was thinking.
He meant she wasn’t ‘here’, wherever ‘here’ was. My initial answer still held more validity. We had zombies and these new howlers, this new world sucked. I grabbed John’s arm gently and turned him towards the olive drab of the military vehicles.
“I know you don’t want to head up there, but I’m not leaving you behind, and I need to see if I can salvage some ammo.”
John didn’t say anything, his cheery disposition wiped clean. He kept his head down and moved the Phrito box to his left shoulder as a barrier to the atrocities that lay on that side. We walked in stony silence towards the blockade. I received no measure of satisfaction when I found the machine gunner’s position had been overrun. He died with his finger on the trigger. The irony of it was that it looked like a child zombie had inflicted the death blow before being shot herself. A zombie girl had latched herself onto the man’s neck and had been tearing a chunk free when someone had come up behind her and spilled her brains over the side of the gunner’s face.
“Guy that shot the zombie shot the machine gunner, too. Dumbass. Although I guess he was already dead.” I pushed the girl out of the way. She fell wetly to the side. Shock was etched on the man’s features as he seemed to look pleadingly at me. “Karma’s a bitch,” I told him. “This is what I’m looking for,” I said triumphantly, bending down, picking up a metal ammunition box.
They were 5.56 which were perfect; the only problem was they were linked for machinegun fire. Simple enough remedy, it would just take some time. I was going to keep this box close and go look for something that was ready to use right from the can. I helped John and his Phrito’s up into the cab of the closest truck. I also stashed my ammo with him.
“You alright, pal?” I asked him. He hadn’t said much and, more surprisingly, he hadn’t eaten anything in a bit.
Instead of asking me who pal was, which would have been normal, he asked something much more serious. “Why’d they all have to die, man?”
I looked him in the eyes. “Don’t know, I really don’t. But me and you…we’re going to find a way out of this mess. And to be honest, John, I’m not sure that everything we’re seeing right now isn’t some sort of dream. Figments of our imagination or, more than likely, a drug-induced conjuring. Last thing I truly remember was your van and then being here.”
“This is a flashback?” John asked with pleading eyes.
I’d been in some shitty situations along the path of my life but never anything quite like this right now. I hope it wasn’t a flash forward, a portent of things to come. “Let’s just hope it’s only a vision of zombie-things-to-come if we don’t change it.”
And like the intuitive person he was, he answered, “This is the worst rendition of the Christmas Carol I’ve ever lived through.”
You know I wanted to ask him how many he had lived through, but I dropped it. Maybe tonight, if we found some place safe to hang out I’d bring it back up. Odds would be he wouldn’t remember this conversation, though. As it was, I didn’t like to be out of his view for too long because we’d have to go through the introduction process again.
There were spent magazines everywhere, which was actually pretty cool considering I had left a couple of mine behind in my haste to leave. I saw more than one soldier that had been shot by a civilian. Easy enough to tell from the exit wounds. M-16s didn’t generally travel all the way through a human body. Usually it got hung up somewhere inside, which caused more destruction that way, bouncing and ricocheting off of bones and internal organs. More than once, the Geneva Convention had wanted to ban the cartridge because of this ‘design flaw’. The Russian-made 7.62—a much larger and heavier round—was considered to be more humane as it would travel clean through just about any soldier, whether they had a flak jacket on or not.
Some of the soldiers had fist-sized holes in their backs; indicatin
g high-powered hunting rifles. It didn’t look like a coordinated attack or an ambush. I just think it was scared people trying to get away from the blockade. Unfortunately, without much success. I don’t really know how long I’d been doing my survey of the destruction. Enough to know that men, women, children, civilians, military, howlers, and zombies had all met gruesome ends here.
The one and only blessing I found in regards to howlers was that it appeared that it did not necessarily need to be a head shot to take one down. I might have overlooked the female howler had she not had the signature sunburn I’d seen outside of the truck. She had on torn Capri pants, her ankles a blistered and angry red. Her forearms and hands were also the same tortured color. What stuck out was her long blond hair that glowed like golden wheat in the sunshine. It wasn’t the hair color; it was the lack of blood in it that I found interesting.
Was it a ruse? She was face down and I’d have to get close to turn her over. Son of a bitch.
The knowledge was worth the risk. Howlers were faster and smarter than zombies. If I didn’t need to be particularly concerned with putting a bullet in their skulls, then we were that much better off.
I made sure the safety was off, I had my finger resting lightly on the trigger guard. I licked my lips and, with my left foot, I hooked it under her thigh, lifted, and pushed her over. I looked at her face for any signs of life, some clue to her deception, a fluttering eyelid a twitch of her mouth. Nothing. Her face was frozen in fury, she was pissed off and left nothing to the imagination in that regards. She had a series of at least three bullets, traveling up from her navel and across her right breast. The bullets had torn her open, blood had cascaded from her. Flies swarmed to the wounds and enjoyed the banquet.
“Just great,” I said as got down on my haunches. I placed the muzzle of my barrel against her head. I moved my hand closer to her face. “This sucks.”
Everyone has watched enough horror flicks to realize this is when the dumbass gets bitten. We’re all sitting in our seats at the movie theater shoving popcorn in our maws, telling our significant others ‘we’d never do that, he’s a dumbass.’ Yup I was the dumbass, but at least this time the monster’s seemingly dead eyes didn’t fly open as it latched onto my hand, ripping my thumb off.
“Thank God for small miracles,” I said aloud after examining her entire face and head for any sign of trauma.
Nothing, not a scratch on her face except for some minor burning on the left side that must have been exposed as she was dying. When I was done looking at her, I stood. “Hey, God, I really appreciate the small miracle, but a big one would really be fucking appreciated!” I said to the heavens. That was pretty much going to get me sent to the disciplinary division of Heaven. I’d deal with that problem after this one.
Back to the task at hand and what was going to keep us alive. God was going to have to wait his (or her) turn. It seemed zombies, howlers, and even my wife Tracy had staked a claim at meting out some justice. I found a fair amount of dropped bullets and mags, and I hastily filled a couple to make sure I had adequate firepower in case something arose. I don’t know where the day went. I was just noticing that it was getting more difficult to see into the far back of the troop transports. The canvas coverings were hiding any treasure and the sun on its downward path was making it more difficult. I had enough ammo for a sustained battle, but nothing even remotely akin to finding a safe place from which to wage this battle. I was just looking into the back of my tenth (thirtieth?) troop transport truck when I heard the slow dying bleat of a truck horn on its last legs. Too many descriptors, dying implied last legs, oh well, hopefully this journal entry won’t be scooped up by an English professor (or basically anyone with a rudimentary hold on the language).
I popped my head out of a truck I, odds were good that John was just playing with the horn. The beauty of his condition (primarily stoned) was that his short-term memory was really only good for about three breaths or one deep inhalation; that should be clear enough, knowing John the way I do. The bleat came again, this one not much more than a goose hiccup. I walked back over to where I had left him. He was downing bags of Phrito’s and pointing out the front windshield. I couldn’t see from my location, at least not until I stepped on the running board of the truck he was in. It was a zombie hoard, and they were coming at a decent clip. Runners seemed to be intermingled with the shufflers, I could tell because they usually looked less dead if that makes sense, fresher corpses may be a better explanation. But they weren’t running…so far.
I had yet to figure out the relationship with the runners and the shufflers…why they hung out together. I can’t imagine it was any sort of symbiotic relationship. I very much doubt that the runners tracked and trapped the food, and then patiently waited for the shufflers to catch up so they could eat. I could see some benefit for the runners to stay with the slow ones, safety in numbers, less likely to get shot if you’re in a group of a couple of hundred. That implied thinking, and I for one was not yet at the point where I wanted to believe that was an option. My zombies were going to stay stupid eating-machines right up until they caught and ate me. I began to scan the area, nothing worth a damn stood out as a viable defense.
“I’m thinking maybe you should have yelled,” I told him. I rested the barrel of my rifle on the hood of the truck. “My old boss always told me to be proactive in the face of a crisis.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” John said before I pulled the trigger.
I looked up at him. “Mind about what, John?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell you?”
“No, man, you didn’t tell me. What should I be minding about?”
“When I get nervous, my fingers tend to work on their own.”
“John, what the hell are you talking about? We’ve got some funkies coming, and I’d really like to drop some of the faster ones.”
“The bullets, man, the bullets.”
My heart was sinking. “Oh, John, what about the bullets?” I asked, figuring he had somehow pulled all the lead tips off. I was about to get John out of the truck and make a run for it. It didn’t look like we’d have enough for a firefight.
He tossed all the metal clips out the window. I started laughing. He had removed the connectors that had held the individual bullets together so that they could be fired through a light machinegun.
“I’d kiss you right now if I thought my man-card could take that kind of serious hit.”
“Man-card?”
“Do you know how to load a magazine?” I asked hopefully, handing him up six of the ones I had pilfered.
“Like Sports Illustrated?” he asked back. I put the magazines back in my pockets.
“Worth a shot I suppose. Just make sure all the bullets are back in the box and the lid is latched, okay? We’re going to have to leave here soon.”
“Can I keep the truck?”
“I wish.”
The dying horn bleat was an indicator of the good odds that this behemoth would not start. Although, in retrospect, why I didn’t try some of the other trucks eludes me; time had expired on that option, no sense on dwelling on it. Just as I lined up my shot again, I heard the clatter of brass into steel. I would have shaken my head if it wouldn’t have messed up my targeting.
“Boom,” I whispered as I sent a high-speed projectile down range.
The speeder’s head exploded in a splintered shower of bone and blood. He dropped and was immediately trampled underfoot. That was a hard thing to watch, the loss of any sign of humanity. That, more than anything, attested to their savagery and how far they would go to attain their goals.
I’d been to combat in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. I’ve fought Iraqis, Afghanis, insurgents, and a half dozen other enemies I can’t remember the names of. They all hated us as much as, if not more than, we hated them. We were fighting to keep our friends alive and to get back home to Mom and apple pie. (Not my mom’s apple pie mind you, but someone’s mom’s apple pie.) The pe
ople we were fighting were generally fighting for their country or the way in which they chose to live their lives. They had every right to fight like demons, and often times, they did…performing atrocity after atrocity. But as I write here today, I will tell you—be it Taliban, Rebel, or Usurper—that fighting force would stop and pause with whatever the fuck they were doing when one of their own took a head shot.
There is something so primal when you watch the man next to you have his hopes, dreams, thoughts, and beliefs literally destroyed in an instant; his brains torn from the rest of his body. Advances would halt, retreats would move back quicker, planning shifted to survival. Whatever it was, the enemy would stop and alter course.
Nothing is more demoralizing to an enemy than a sniper wiping out a comrade with a head shot. It took the fight out of them and that’s why we aimed for that particularly part of the anatomy. The point? The point is that zombies didn’t give a fuck; didn’t concern them in the least. Maybe on some level they were happy because it meant one less mouth to feed; less competition when they did get a hold of their prey. Those were my thoughts as I sent a magazine of bullets scorching towards their targets.
Most hit, because with this many of them, it would have been harder to miss. Chests caved in as impacts shattered rib cages and sternums; legs were sheared off from the ferocity of the bullets. Arms became little better than T-Rex appendages as I pulverized them. And then, on occasion, I was rewarded with the assassination shot. Heads snapped back, necks recoiled from the shock of taking in something with so much force. I popped in a second magazine. When I was fairly confident I had done a good number on the speeders, I told John it was time to go. I was thankful he had grabbed the ammo case, I could only hope and pray it was full of bullets and not of Phrito’s. Speaking of which, where were they?
He hopped down from the truck, I followed suit. “Where are your snacks?” I asked.
“Almost done.”
“Are you kidding me? How long have I been gone?” Seemed like an hour, two at the most.