Stronghold

by Ron Tufo

  Ida kept on taunting me, but Nancy had made her case. I had gotten my biochemistry down to a pharmacologically acceptable level where I could actually enjoy her rhetoric for what it was, pure unadulterated bullshit. My son was taking more offense at it than I was. “Dad, you want me to try and take her out for you? She comes out from behind that big oak every now again to give some orders. If I concentrate on her I am sure I will get a good shot.”

  With a sternness I didn’t mean to have, I said, “Mark, if you shoot her, I will never forgive you. She is mine and mine alone. Don’t even take a shot, no matter how easy it may be. Am I clear? You know the way Grampa went after Mayweather? This is the same thing. She has threatened my family and that never, ever goes unpunished.”

  The zombies were endless. There were so many newly dead that they were blocking the view from some of the windows. Ammo was not going to be the deciding factor in this fight. Being able to see what we had to shoot at would be, though.

  The bulge in our basement walkout slider was moving beyond worrisome to downright disturbing. We had not been able to use reinforced steel there; didn’t have any pieces long enough, just some hollow aluminum tubing. If that gave it up it would be an entry point for the zombies that we would be hard pressed to secure.

  I had Mark move to the first floor window above the basement double doors and just start firing into the mess of would be intruders. My thinking was that if he piled up enough dead, they would take some of the pressure off the door by blocking it. Good theory, anyway. Ida must have seen him because her counter command to her zombies was to keep moving away the dead and keep attacking that door. How she got them to do anything that resembled a coordinated action was beyond me. Mark had, unfortunately, paid attention to my earlier speech and would not take a shot at her. Sometimes I just amaze myself that I am that one-tracked of a mind.

  Mark’s window was the only one that could get a decent angle at the battering ram of zombies and he just wasn’t able to keep up with the mass of infected meat that was trying to force its way into our home.

  The tubing on the doors was now doing more harm than good. It had become a smaller point of pressure distribution that lent itself to crinkling the glass and eventually to…crystalizing it.

  We heard the puncture all the way upstairs. Mark saw the press of zombies lurch and fall forward into the basement. The only defense between floors was now the spiral staircase. Zombies had enough trouble climbing regular stairs, and that spiral slowed them even more. For a while.

  Like all their victories over live people, their sheer mass in numbers proved to be the overwhelming factor. Bodies just kept piling up and piling up until the stairs were as invisible as the view out the windows, and still they were climbing over their own refuse of flesh.

  All of us were now grouped together near the front door. If we had horses to hide behind we surely would have looked like the last of the 7th Cavalry. The only positive part of this whole mess, if you could call it a positive, was that Ida couldn’t see us either.

  Although sometimes my decisions haven’t been the best ones, they were decisions, and we sure as shit needed one now. To make our stand here was a sure and quick death. We could not hold against the seemingly unlimited number of zombies that were pouring into the house. To open the front door might give us some room to maneuver, or it might just be another avenue of access to the midday buffet.

  Nancy and I could keep the zombies off us for a few moments. I told Melissa to open the door and Mark and Mer to start shooting through it the moment it was open. Mer had the best thought. “Dad, give us a sec to load fresh magazines. I think we are going to need them!”

  I smiled my best “I am so proud of you” smile.

  Melissa waited until they were ready and just like on Let’s Make a Deal, Door No.#1 was opened and oh, man, how I hoped we would win the brand new car!

  A couple of well-placed shots cleared the front. We made a hasty exit from the house and I closed the door on the way out. That at least slowed the zombies inside from getting to us again anytime soon. We needed to get to another secure home as quickly as we could. Back to back and belly to belly we moved across the front yard and out into the street. Wink’s house was closer to us than my father’s. I made the call to start crabbing toward his place. We had moved about a dozen paces when around the curve came Hom and Wink, also crab-walking back to back with a press of Zombies tightening around them. Hom gave us a sideways nod that spoke volumes. I saw her reach for her machete, a relic from her previous life in the jungle, and accurately behead a too close to shoot zombie with a wide arc stroke. The zombie had gotten inside their defensive zone and was moving into Wink’s blind spot. She was lucky the zombie in question was a woman not much taller than her, or she would never have been able to reach high enough to do the head slicing thing! Being a gentleman, Wink turned to her and gave her a beam of thanks and a loving smile before returning his vigilance outward again. Their home had also been overrun, and they had been heading for our place. Oh goody!

  Where in fucking hell had all of these zombies come from? I had no doubt that Ida had put out a call to arms. How she had done it was something I couldn’t even speculate, but she had done it, nevertheless.

  Gabby got a sniff of what was happening outside of her protective enclosure and shot out from under the porch. My heart soared. Here comes my brave old dog to help us fight the Zombie Peril! Yeah, right. She zipped right by us at full speed and only once looked back as if to say, "You guys coming or what?” She would be getting no doggie treats from me for a while!

  Our two little groups rifled our way into one and headed the only way left to us. The fact that I hadn’t seen my favorite little sack of talking manure in a while meant that she was probably with the group that had gotten into our house. It would be just like her to want to be there when I bought the farm. Tough noogies, Ida.

  We now looked like a pin cushion moving toward my father’s house with all the pins pointed outward. The horde was actually thinning a bit as we got closer to dad’s house, and for the first time in what seemed like hours, I felt a thread of hope that we might live long enough for me to hug my father again.

  We started slowly, everyone judging how best to move and not leave even an inch unguarded. We picked up speed when everyone fell into the rhythm of it and my father’s house came into view. There was Gary on the porch, for all the world to see, talking into one of the dolls! As scared as we were, Hom broke out into fits of laughter. Its partner doll had broken from a fall in the first few minutes of their defense. Gary had been trying to reach us with no chance of success. Well, I still gave him points for continuing to try to raise a response for as long as he did.

  I yelled up to the house, “Hey Gary! I don’t think there is anyone home at Wink’s. You can hang up now.” My brother still has his baseball arm. Damn doll almost hit me.

  Once into the very much unattacked house, we got the lowdown. Zombies had bypassed them completely. They had picked off what they could see, but the zombies were coming through the woods and heading straight for Wink’s place and our house. It was just the type of attack that would work, and you would never know that route existed if you hadn’t scoped it out personally. Ida’s little nighttime visit was exposed for what it was: a successful scouting expedition.

  No one at the house could believe there were so many zombies on the property. No way they had all come down the road or through the woods. As Gary looked through his self-proclaimed Zombie-Sighter (binoculars) he saw that the duck fences were still intact and most of the ducks were just busy doing what ducks do, eating and shitting. So where did all our not-so-neighborly cousins come from?

  Gary was just swinging his eyes around in a three-sixty when he did a double-take.

  “Oh my god! I think I can answer your question now, Ron. Here. Take a look across the pond. He handed me the longeyes and I gasped out loud just as soon as I got a focus.

  “Folks, I think we are in bigger trou
ble than we thought. There are zombies crawling into the water from across the pond and getting out on our side. Holy Fucking Shit balls, they are swimming across to us.”

  Lyn blurted out, “Zombies can swim? That is not good!” Ensign Evidently strikes again.

  Gary answered, “No shit, Sherlock!” That got him a right cross to the shoulder from my sister. Bet it hurt, too.

  We had never prepared for an attack from the water. Well, that really sucked; just what I wanted for Christmas. A brand new Zombie Swim Doll complete with fins and a bathing suit. (Diving snorkel optional.)

  Squeak grabbed the binos from me and got a look of his own. “No, man. They are not swimming, they are walking all the way. Look at them as they get out. They have been slogging all the way across the bottom of the pond.” Made sense in a sick kind of way. They don’t breathe, so what would stop them from an underwater walk?

  They were so thickly packed as they emerged from the pond that it was beyond hope to think we could hold against them. Steve shot right into them. We saw the head of a zombie take the hit and he still didn’t fall down. They were so tightly packed they were holding each other upright.

  The zombies who had already been involved in the attack were now making their way down toward the new battlefield with Ida scolding them from behind. They were being joined by the naval assault group and massing once again for another push.

  Everyone was pressed into bearing a gun. It still probably wouldn’t be enough firepower, but we were all determined that if we went down it wasn’t going to be for lack of fighting. No one was complaining. Everyone was scared.

  How often I have heard that courage isn’t the absence of fear, it is the mastering of it. This fight was the first fight we all felt we wouldn’t win, and still my family and friends stood sky-high. Without orders, each person took up a position, checked their weapons and waited for the zombies to close for killing shots. Knowing that the closer they came, the more would re-die from one shot. They were just that deep in numbers.

  “We will be gnawing at your bones very soon, Talbot. You have nowhere left to go. Come to me now and I will spare your family.”

  Even Nancy, who would trust a used car salesman, looked at me and hissed, “Who the fuck does she think she’s kidding?”

  Squeak took a shot that clipped Ida’s ear just as she was winding down her latest threat. He swore out loud. Manuia chided him in Samoan–something about being around the Talbot’s for too long. Squeak turned and said to her, “Sister, my language is probably the least of our worries right now.” I do believe that for the first time, Manuia realized how close to our own deaths we all were. For a Samoan, she turned a lovely shade of pale.

  “Gary, do you think if you concentrated enough fire you could create a lane for me to the garage?”

  “Well, yeah, Ron. Are you leaving? I don’t think a truck will make it all the way through this mess before getting hung up.”

  “Just keep your shots high enough you don’t take me out too. I want the best shooters on this. You, Lyn, and dad. Got it? No fucking around. I am running for it just as soon as you have enough room to shoot zombies and still clear my head.”

  My sureshots lined up on the front deck and began to volley shoot into the ranks of the enemy. It would not be an easy run, and I hoped like hell the garage door was unlocked. The last thing I wanted was to be fumbling with the keys when I reached my goal.

  Bad Idea! Bad Idea! Fucking horribly fucking bad idea!! I could think of nothing else as bullets were whizzing over my head close enough that I could feel the displaced air. Like deer flies I couldn’t swat away, they continually buzzed by my ears. In fact, I didn’t dare raise my hand for fear of losing it to a badly timed head swat. I could tell which shots were Gary’s. They were the closest ones. If I lived through this I would so enjoy kicking the shit out of him. Don’t know if I could still take him, but it would sure be fun trying.

  To make this whole thing even more of a challenge, I had to be running over zombodies. They fell where they were shot and were not the least bit considerate enough to roll out of my path. I squished into parts I would rather not be squishing into and went to a knee more than once. I so firmly believed that each fall would be my last one. But I would push my self back up, sinking my hands into gucky zombie parts better left unidentified. Covered in bad things, I was slowly making it through to the garage. My shooters were still keeping a path open.

  “I see you, Talbot. Are you trying to run away, Talbot? I always knew you were a coward. You won’t get far, you know. Soon enough my army will envelope you in their arms and bring you to me. I will disembowel you slowly and hideously and I will enjoy it.” There was a non-hideous way to disembowel someone? Ida really needed to work on her inspirational speeches.

  I was mere feet from the garage door. Shots were actually hitting the side of the building now as they passed through zombie heads. I couldn’t wait to tell Gary he could hit the side of a barn. I’m pretty sure my thoughts were becoming less than lucid, that’s assuming they were ever completely lucid, and I was getting giddy with exhaustion as the door loomed closer and closer. Hours then days then months came and went and still I was not there.

  My outstretched zombiegoop-covered hand finally closed on the door lever. My brother Mike would never have lived through this. He would have had to cut his hand off to stay mentally alive. Oh my, how happy was I? Very fucking happy. First, because we had chosen to install levers and not knobs; I don’t think I would have been able to get enough grip to turn a knob anymore. Second, elation of elations, the door was not locked. A quick entry and I closed the door behind me. I could still hear the Wicked Witch of the West spurring on her fetid munchkins to force open the door. Too late, my pretty!

  If I could have stretched my arms around Sophie I would have given her the biggest hug ever. Up into the operator’s seat, keys right where I left them. A moment to heat up the glow plugs and that beautiful CAT diesel came thundering to life. In a heartbeat I had gone from being the patient in the next game of “Operation” to being the leading man in Terminator: Rise of the Machines. Eat your heart out, Schwarzenegger. Time to crush some trespassers. Why bother opening the equipment entrance to the garage when you can make a way more dramatic entrance on to the battlefield.

  In high 3rd gear all the way, the big dozer rumbled through the garage door like it was tissue paper.

  I could now see Ida hiding behind an old spruce tree wide enough to provide her big ass almost sufficient cover. If I couldn’t get to shoot her, I would be just as thrilled to make sure she became nothing more than a smear in the dirt. I aimed straight for her. Her ulcered, watery eyes locked onto mine and the threat to what was left of her already questionable health told her she was no longer the predator but had become the prey. A guard of zombies came to her, seemingly unbidden, and carried her from the field. She wouldn’t die today. Suck. Ruined my whole morning.

  I twisted the joystick (the dozer’s, not mine!) and aimed to make a sweep across the densest pack of zombies in an attempt to provide a respite for the shooters in the house. The quickset plan was to make repeated passes through the tightest packed zombies until we could push them back by more traditional means; that would be by shooting the little bastards.

  I started my first pass and heard the cheers coming from the house. Felt like I had just won the Super Bowl single-handed! Ah, my adoring fans. Stood upon the seat and took and exaggerated bow. I looked up to see my dad smiling at me, Squeak throwing his hands up in the air, and Gary flipping me off. Some things never change. Sophie must have taken out damn near a hundred zombies with her blade and half again that number got made into a puree under her tracks. Hey, this was fun!

  I was concentrating on my steerage with eyes over the right side of the operator’s seat when a shot rang off the metal dash in front of me. Fuckin' Gary! Up to his shit again. I looked up at the house to see if he noticed the Boston salute I gave him and another shot hit within an inch of the first. Wha
t the Fuck! I finally got a bead on him–he was pointing frantically over my head. Yes, I am slower than the average bear on the uptake. I figured he wants me to look over to my left, so I flip him one last bird and turn my head.

  Double dastardly damn! Not feet, but inches, from my shoulder is the ugliest, gooiest zombie of them all reaching for me. The only weapon I had was a pry bar. I stood up from the seat, leaving Sophie to drive herself for a moment. With an unmoving joystick, big dozers can usually go for miles straight ahead though just about anything until they run out of fuel. I grabbed my salvation, (again, the pry bar, you deviant) and commenced with de-zombifieing my Sophie

  The worst part of all this was that I had to look back up at Gary and mouth a “Thank you.” Karma sucks. I saw him swinging a pistol and making like he wanted to fling it to me. I was still too far away for even his distance and accuracy, but I made it known that I would keep coming closer until he could wing it to me. I really wanted to be close enough to be sure I could catch it in such a way that I didn’t take myself out. I recognized that it was my little .32 bedroom gun. It did not have a safety and I was not going to trust my brother to toss me an unloaded weapon. In the meantime, I was able to communicate a sign language strategy for getting unwanted riders off my dozer. At the end of a pass I would swing the girl around and present the other side of her to anyone who wanted some more target practice. I would climb out of my seat and hide on the far side until the zoms on the shooter’s side were cleared, then I would get back in the seat and wait until the next pass to clear whatever the far side had picked up in the interim.

  Most of the zombies who’d made it far enough up onto the machine to be a possible threat were pretty easily unbalanced by giving the dozer a quick shake. They were then thrown into the moving tracks to be totally mutilated. Even I had a tough time watching that process. I got close enough on one pass for Lyn to see the whole thing. First time I ever saw my sister puke. Watching a still kind-of-alive being of any sort get pulled into rolling metal teeth shouldn’t be high on anyone’s entertainment lineup.