Stronghold

by Ron Tufo

  “I am trying to find the old bastard that walked in front of me and made me swerve to miss him.”

  Now both of them are looking at me weird. “Hey Ron, you having another stroke? There was never anybody else here. We were right behind you and couldn’t understand why you cut your wheel so high and tight.”

  “Guys, do not fuck with me here. I just lost another truck to a walking phantom that looked an awful lot like Tonto. I am not in the mood for this.”

  From Steve, “Honest, Ron. Neither Gary nor I saw anything but fog and then the back of a bus. Speaking of which, do you hear the scraping coming from inside that thing?”

  “Oh no, man, not zombie school kids. I am not ready to deal with this shit. Truly I am not. We are going to all get into the UAZ and just drive slowly to the hospital. I am not shooting any kids today, even if they are zombies.”

  I drove on, even slower than before. If Chief Fogwalker made another appearance I wanted everyone to see him. We passed by the local high school and I shivered. Didn’t even want to think about what we might find in there. In typical Maine small towns, the lack of zoning restrictions was a matter of local pride. Just past the school was the National Guard Armory.

  My mood changed for the better as the patch of fog cleared and I could see past the chain link enclosure. Hummers and tank trucks, a wonderland! Gary and Steve were a step ahead of me, though.

  ”Think we can find a set of bolt cutters at the hospital? I don’t imagine you want to try and drive the truck through a locked gate?” Gary said.

  “No, probably not, to both questions. But I bet we can borrow a pair from Rob’s Hardware store back on Rte. 1. Somehow I don’t think he would mind,” I replied.

  Steve was just holding his head in his hands. He was just as much a goody two shoes as my sister. He never did handle the Talbot mood swings very well.

  “Okay, let’s do the hospital thing first and then come back for the toys!”

  High school kids with raging hormones, National Guard Armory with guns, and then a hospital with drugs. Makes sense in a sick, twisted way. We pulled in the main entranceway of the hospital and had a great view of all the zombies hanging out in emergency. Doctors, nurses, and patients were all mingling, having a wonderful time together, nibbling on each other. Cannibal zombies? This was a disgusting new revelation. I suppose people will eat anything when they get hungry enough.

  I got out of my seat, climbed into the truck bed and told Gary to pull up parallel to the emergency room. I was ending this now. I just fucking needed to shoot something. Gary did as requested while I loaded up the 50 cal and started to chew my own way into the emergency area Talbot style. I kicked at the back window of the truck. Gary got the message and moved along slowly in line with the building so I could take out the whole stinking emergency ward. It was just a little lacking in total satisfaction, but it felt good, nonetheless.

  Well, I guess what they say is true. Once you go Gatling you never go back. The 50 cal was great, don’t get me wrong, but it was no Gatling Gun. Not as loud, not as powerful, and not as devastating. It was real. It was fun. But it wasn’t real fun.

  “You feelin’ better now, man?” That was from Gary. Steve wasn’t able to talk again yet. Somehow I didn’t think he would be coming on any more short but hazardous day trips with us anytime soon.

  “Yeah, I am. Thanks. Park near the main entrance and hand me my rifle, would you? Let’s get inside and find the stuff we came for. I have a bad feeling about this place.”

  Not much was still working in the hospital but the place did not look like it had been scavenged very badly. The pharmacy was straight back from the entrance. We were moving with as much caution and quiet as we could when we heard ding and the fucking door to the elevator we had just walked past started to slide open on its gibs. It was just a sweet harmless little ding, but it came off like the chimes of Big Ben in a tunnel.

  Three guys all dove for the floor with rifles aimed at the opening when out rolls a stainless steel gurney with what was left of its occupant. Entrails were drooping over one side and a leg almost completely severed from the knee down was hanging over the other. That was it. Nothing else. What the fuck, man!

  Steve was prone in between Gary and me and started to heave. Both Gary and I hopped to vertical posthaste to get away from him. If he was gonna puke, fine. We all felt like that. Just not on me, okay?

  We could hear the significant scrabbling of someone, or something, behind the gurney but couldn’t see a damn thing. I swallowed my common sense first and snuck over to where I could get a better look into the elevator. What I saw was a former orderly who had probably needed to move a body. Maybe he hadn’t lunch yet and got bit too hungry while he took the long elevator plunge from the second floor to the first. Well, at least the dead guy on the gurney didn’t care that he was on the menu.

  He hadn’t so much pushed the gurney out of the elevator as nudged it off with his worming around looking for the tastiest parts. Probably the same action that had pressed the button and opened the door. I lowered my rifle and that was when it began.

  “Country roads, take me home, to the place I belonnnng….West Virginia…mountain mama…” Oh no, oh no. I backed up as quick as I could.

  As quick as I backed up, Gary moved forward as swiftly as he could. Steve just lay there wondering what the fuck was going on. The Winchester Model 1895 rifle carries five high powered rounds in a box style magazine. It took Gary less than three seconds to unload all of them into the elevator.

  From Gary’s mouth to our ears, “I fucking hate John Denver. You mean to tell me they couldn’t have found any Muzak other than that goofy-grinned douche-bag excuse for a singer? Ruined my entire fucking day. Jesus, now I am going to have his damn song in my head all afternoon.”

  “Did you get the zombie?”

  “Zombie? Why would I shoot the damn zombie? He wasn’t hurting anyone. Hell no, I needed all my shots to take out those stupid speakers. Who the hell programs that crap anyway? He’s the one I should be shooting.”

  My turn to chuckle at good karma. Excellent!

  Steve, on the other hand, couldn’t take anymore. “What is it with this family? How nuts are you guys? Your sister warned me, but nooooo, I wouldn’t listen to her. How bad can it be, I thought? They seem like such nice people. You are all freaking deranged. Crazier than my old Aunt Florence and she is world-class bat-shit loony.” Gary and I shrugged at each other. We had heard it all before. Gary turned to Steve without a blink. “You coming, man? We are going to hit the pharmacy and then see if there is anything for lunch in the cafeteria.”

  The state of the hospital pharmacy was, diplomatically put, a complete wasteland. Seems we were not the only Mainers in search of some chemical additions to our diets. The place had been utterly ransacked. Thank goodness we had Doc’s supply to fall back on. I was hoping the cafeteria vending machines fared somewhat better and was just scoping out the corridor that led there, when I noticed a glimpse of both Gary and Steve on their knees.

  I could just make out Gary whispering to Steve, “Bro-in-law, look for the little blue ones shaped like an oval. If you find them grab as many as you can. And especially try to see if there are any big green round ones with an OC on one side and an 80 on the other.”

  There are some things my brother knew that I just did not want to find out about. How he could identify pills just by their imprinting was one of those things. Actually, when you think about it, that knowledge goes a long way toward recognizing the reasons for a lot of Gary’s behavior patterns. I did yell back at them, though. “While you are down there try a find some white round ones that say AN627.” (Hey, I said it before. We all have our issues.)

  Gary and Steve both looked up at me with quizzical faces. I shot back, “Hey, you think you guys are the only ones with dependencies to help get through the day? If I were you guys, I would just grab a broom and dustpan and some plastic bags. I know we have one of those huge pharmaceutical volumes at ho
me. We can take everything and sort it out later. You know, like a puzzle for the kids. Well? Get to it. I’ll watch the door.” They switched their focus from me to each other. Steve went for the broom. Gary went in search of some bags.

  The vending machines in the cafeteria were in just as bad shape as the pharmacy. The only stuff left was a row of Heath Bars. Why do they even stock those things? No one ever buys them. Maybe they’re not gluten free? What bullshit. We have been eating bread for thousands of years and suddenly this generation has a gluten issue. I am pretty sure gluten was only addressed in 2011 by a scientist in Australia and then only as a problem for those with celiac disease. The rest is total malarkey. Now everyone wants to have the latest and greatest health issue so they can say: “Look at me I have a gluten allergy.” Why can’t this generation stick to some of the old tried and true problems like alcohol and tranquilizers?

  Anyway, Gary sees the Heath Bars and goes “Jackpot! My favorite!” No accounting for taste. No sooner had he finished loading up on English Toffee and we were looking for the best way back to the truck, when we heard sounds upstairs. Not your usual zombie giveaway scraping and stumbling, but voices raised in discussion. No one could make out any words, but it was certainly something worth finding out about. If there were any living people up there, we needed to know if they were potential allies or enemies.

  We climbed the stairs. Hospital generator or not, the elevator was no longer an option. As we got to the second floor. I pushed hard on the door that would let us out into the corridor. No dice. It wasn’t budging. Steve leaned in with me and even with the two us it was a no go. Gary put down his goodie bag and unslung his rifle.

  “Gary, Gary! No way, man. We are in a closed area. My ears are bad enough already.”

  “Relax, bro. I am not going to shoot it. I just want to get a running start.” With that being said, he backs up a couple stairs and begins a classic slapstick scene. Half a dozen running steps later, he leans his shoulder in like a fullback punching through for a short gain. You guessed it. The door opens just as he makes his move. It was really cool to watch him fly across the second floor hallway and smack his head into the wall at the end. Made my day.

  “Aki Tanaka! What in the world are you doing here? Not that I am not glad to see you, but why the heck are you here!”

  “Ron Talbot! Why am I not surprised the Talbots are surviving though this atrocity. We were here for a family vacation down in Camden. My daughter, who is expecting her first child, went into labor early and Waldo Hospital was the only one with the staff and room that she needed.”

  Once again, Steve is slack-jawed, looking at me, then looking at the Japanese man, and then back at me. Gary was still shaking out some cobwebs.

  “Steve, I would like you to meet Akihiro Tanaka, an old friend from Massachusetts. His family lives in Boston. In fact, he was the quarterback on our high school football team. Oh man, Squeak is gonna flip when he finds out you are here, Aki. This is my very confused brother in law, Steve.” While we were still on the Three Stooges theme, Aki bowed while Steve stuck out his hand. You know the rest of the drill.

  Aki spoke next. “Meat!? Meat is up here too? Oh my goodness."

  Aki comes from a very traditionally cultured and proper Japanese family. “Oh my goodness” are the strongest words I have ever heard him use. Maybe he’ll get over it someday, especially if he spends enough time with my family. It was wonderful to see him. “We heard your American gangster entrance downstairs in the emergency area. Figured it was just a matter of time before you made your way up here. My father and I were just arguing…” (anyone else would have called it a whispered discussion) “…whether or not it would be safe to make our presence known when we heard you coming up the stairs. I thought to open the door before anymore shooting started.”

  Gary was barely one foot back into the conscious realm when he saw Aki smiling at him. “Wow, God is Japanese. Who knew!” The ensuing laughs felt good. We reached down and helped my wobbly brother get his feet under him.

  “Why are you here, Aki? Everything all right?” Yeah, stupid question. Too late, though. Once again my mouth was ahead of my brain in the never ending competition for sensible rhetoric.

  “Believe it or not, my entire family, plus our newest addition, are here. We locked ourselves in the IC ward when we saw what was happening. We have some of the hospital staff in there with us, too. Given that my daughter just gave birth, what better place to be? We have plenty of food, water, and facilities–as long as the hospital generators hold out. After that, we will need to find some other arrangements. We are working on that problem now. C’mon, let’s get out of the hallway before our unwanted guests decide to pay us a visit. Besides, I want you to meet my family and new granddaughter.”

  Steve walked with Gary, who was still looking like he took a helmet to helmet hit in the big game and was heading for the locker room and a concussion protocol. He really was a mess. Just kept asking if he had scored.

  Aki’s family was understandably nervous as they opened the IC room doors for us. His dad and esteemed grandmother, who had to be a bazillion years old, were all there. His daughter Mayumi was holding her first child. She introduced us to the new baby, whom she had named Ruth. No sooner had she said the name out loud than grandma broke into hysterics. Steve, Gary, and I are wondering what the hell did we do? It seems esteemed grandmother, who was a Buddhist, could not understand why her favorite great granddaughter would choose a biblical name for her great-great granddaughter. Unacceptable was the word she used as Aki translated for us. I do believe this was another “Oh My Goodness” moment for Aki. He just wasn’t going to give us a literal translation. It really sounded as if old grandma had told her to take a flying fuck with that name.

  “Let me get this straight, Aki. You guys have all been in here since the whole zombie thing showed up the hospital?”

  “Yes, we have been quite comfortable. Plenty of everything. We forage as we can and the doctor and nurses who are here in the ward with us know where everything is. We know there are zombies still on the other floors, but we have sealed ourselves in. We are as safe as we can be here. Thank Buddha that Mayumi’s labor went on longer than was expected or our little Ruth would have been out in the main hospital with everyone else.”

  “Aki, I would be happy to have you join us at our home. We can get some transportation here in only a couple of hours. Where is your mom?”

  Aki awkwardly dropped his gaze and his shoulders toward the floor. “My Mom was upstairs in the pediatric ward when we first saw the zombie attack. My father and I were just going up there again to try and find her. Hopefully she has found refuge in some room, just as we have. We cannot give up trying to find her, but we cannot stand against the zombies up there. Every time we go we must run back too soon to do much of a search. No, Ron. Thank you, but, no. We will not leave without mother. At some point we will find her, then we are going to leave and go back to defend our own homes. You know how important that is to my family.”

  “Look man, we have our weapons. We can go up with you and look for your mom. I do warn you, though, expect the worst.”

  “We have already seen the worst, Ron. You will see what I mean when we go up.” I gave him a quizzical look but no more information was forthcoming.

  An elevator that Gary had not ventilated already was playing a muzak version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” As soon as Steve heard it, he gave a worried look to his brother-in-law. Gary just stepped in the car and smiled. Evidently some musical wallpaper was tolerable. He shrugged and joined Gary, who was blissfully ignoring that the elevator was running on emergency power. Aki and I took the nearby stairs.

  Even at my slow and steady stair climbing pace we got to the third floor just as the elevator doors were opening. Gaucho Gary already had his gun pointing out into the hallway. Aki made a reference to me. “I can see the family resemblance.” I smiled and said, “Hey man, we are still alive!”

  Th
e hallway was empty as of yet, but you could hear zombie clickclack noise around the corner. We gathered up and took a peek. Empty. How was that? We could still hear the noises. Again, like a bad movie, we started to move down the adjacent hallway.

  It took only a moment before we reached the end of the passage where the pediatric ward was located and the source of the caterwauling. There, lined up in their cribs were a half dozen zombie babies. Zombino’s! Fucking Zombino’s! How pathetically disturbing. “Aki, you knew what we were going to find, didn’t you? Oh man, this is wrong on so many levels.”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  “Of course! Maybe. Definitely not. I would have thought you were telling me a bad joke. This is gruesome.”

  From Steve: “Ron, these used-to-be-babies are not half as gruesome as what is over here.” He pointed to the feeding area where there was a young mom who was nursing her newborn in the most natural way. She was fifty shades grayer than normal for a human being and the baby was still taking nourishment. To say that the kid was suckling would be a hulking understatement. She had chewed through most of her mother’s mammary gland. Gives breast feeding a whole new definition. Gary puked. And one by one we were all next to him. I would have gotten more out of my system but my liver and stomach were blocked by my heart.

  The next time I made love with my wife was going to be an interesting experience, and not in a good way.

  We searched the remainder of the floor. Knocked on every door. Checked every lab and office. Steve shot his first zombie. I didn’t know he had anything else left in his stomach. Surprise! Looked in every stairwell, every elevator. Our hearts were not really in the search after what we had seen, but we did our best because we had the deepest sympathy for Aki and his family.

  Aki thanked us and assured us that they would all be fine for at least as long as it took to find his mom. I wanted to tell him that the odds were pretty long, but I could see in his eyes how had to hang on to some hope.