Stronghold

by Ron Tufo

  Gary managed a great toss, and I had my 32. Some full magazines came sailing along also and I felt a little less naked. Since Ida had retired from the field, her attack plan had gone all to hell. Okay by us. The fact that the action was far less coordinated gave us the fighting chance we needed in this clash. It literally took hours to be sure we had vacated all the zombies from the property and then from the houses.

  The most dangerous maneuver of the day was getting housebound zombies to follow someone out the door where we could dispatch them without having to steam clean the carpets.

  When we had first cleared some land for our homes, one particular scoop from the excavator unearthed an entire clutch of very large turtle eggs. Although we tried to replace them quickly and carefully into the hole from where they’d come, none of them ever hatched. Gary, who is the turtle buff in the family, explained that once they were disturbed even a tiny bit, it was all downhill after that. Very rarely did a clutch survive once it got discovered and moved in any way. The eggs had been just far enough along that we were able to recognize the species. They were snappers. We had come into close contact with this type of turtle way back when we were kids camping out at the appropriately named Turtle Pond near our home town. They are mean. They are an ancient species, dinosaur-type ancient, and their bite will cleanly sever a finger as well as any pair of garden loppers.

  We had just finished clearing both our home and Wink’s home and were walking back to my father’s place to take stock and plan for the huge job of cleanup, beginning tomorrow. One last and lonely zombie made his exit from the pond badly dragging one leg. I mean, if it wasn’t a zombie we would have pitied the poor thing. Why was he dragging his leg? Well, attached to it was the mother of all snapping turtles. We had seen her in the past, walking the road every June, looking for a nice warm place to lay her clutch. She would always dig some false holes to throw off the turtle egg predator foxes and the like, before settling on the right spot.

  I do believe that all the activity of intruders walking across the bottom of her pond eventually pissed her off something awful and she decided to do something about it. Bet ya that zombie had dragged her clear across from one side to the other and she never let go. Most zombies are that grayish, gunkish color, right? This poor slob was about as white as a member of the less-than-alive species could get! Not that zombies have an expression for pain, but this dude looked in absolute agony. Lyn took him out with her pistol from fifty feet. Damn that girl can shoot!

  Chapter 15

  Next time the bully demands your lunch money, tell him you left it on his mother’s dresser. - Tony Talbot, patriarch of the Talbot Clan

  There was at least one silver lining to traveling in a zombie infested world. The days of rush hour traffic were long gone. Although I wanted to resume the search for my daughter as soon as possible, I needed to talk with Squeak first before I made it generally known that we would be leaving in the morning. I had pretty much decided who should come with me and one of them was not going to be my best friend.

  “Squeak, you know how much I want you to be my wingman, but you really need to stay here for a couple of fundamental reasons. I need you to help defend the place. If that little crepe-skinned scab is able to mount another attack, I want to know that you are here where you can protect my family. Even more urgently, your sister needs you here. She has just been ripped from her home and her business then she has been brought to live in a goulash full of whackjob paranoids. No way I am going to take you with me. She doesn’t like me now; she will hate me if I take you on this little joyride.”

  Squeak had the good sense to agree with me. Made the whole speech kind of unnecessary when he said, “Ron, as much as I feel I need to be with you, I too think my place is here with my sister until she feels accepted and at home. I am sorry, but I am also relieved.”

  I had figured Mer and Gary would be my companions on this one. Mer, because again, no one knew where Melanie could be except her. Gary, because as much as we got on each other’s nerves, there was no one else I trusted more for their tactical abilities, other than my dad, and asking him to leave his home and make an extended trip were two things he just couldn’t do.

  We would take only the Suburban. In a pinch, its three standard bench seats could comfortably sleep three people. Hell, in a pinch it could sleep a family of seven. It was also way more comfortable to operate, and after long hours of driving Miss Sophie I could use some comfort.

  It had at least the off-road capabilities of the Ridgeline or any of the other trucks or SUVs in the garage, with the notable exception of my beloved Ranger, and I was not subjecting that to the wrecking ball of my road trips. Although the Chevy had the gas mileage of a cruise ship, about twelve feet to the gallon, we would be carrying extra fuel no matter which vehicle we took.

  Seems like everyone was sad to see us leave. I knew why, too. It meant they were going to have to do the after battle cleanup without us. Except for Nancy, she was exuberant that I was going back out to find Melanie. I kind of expected to be hit with the Spartan mother speech: “Come back with your shield or on it.” In other words, “Don’t come back until you find our daughter.”

  We left just after an early and light breakfast. There would be no leisurely stop at Doc’s to say hi and see the kids. It was: point the truck south and go like hell. Gary’s first words of the trip, ”Hey bro, don’t even think about getting off the highway unless it is absolutely necessary. From what I remember you telling me, we should be clear all the way to southern Massachusetts, so just punch the accelerator. If we see anyone on the bridges that looks like they may want to play, I am just going to shoot them. Any questions?”

  Mer turned to ask her uncle something. “Let me rephrase that last statement, anything other than smart ass questions.” She was bagged. Nope, there were no questions.

  Took a little over a silent hour to reach 95 South. No sooner were we on the highway than Gary reaches into the backseat and breaks out a game of Trivial Pursuit. I started to laugh so hard I peed a little; probably shouldn’t have admitted that. In better times, Gary and I would make numerous trips back and forth to Maine at just about any excuse. We would almost always play a few games of trivia. Asking, answering, fighting about, disagreeing with the game’s answers and generally laughing ourselves silly would indeed help to pass the time of the long drive.

  In an effort to improve our rather mediocre scores, we would devise ways to artificially adjust the bottom line. We would have one six-question card per game on which we could take a mulligan, claiming that the questions were too obscure to be included in a true trivia game. Fact was, they were just too damn hard for us to puzzle out the answers. We would give ourselves a partial credit point for answers that were close. For instance, if the answer was Afghanistan and we thought it was Australia, then, hey, that’s a half-point.

  Gary’s foresight to have packed the game made for a few hours of reality escape that we all welcomed.

  Then we got near Boston. The underpass was not completely blocked, but it was tight enough that we had to considerably slow down. By slow down, I mean we had to crawl through. Just as we were moving into the shadow of the bridge, the rocks came. Meredith and I had warned Gary about what happened the last time we were here and he was ready. All three of us pointed pistols out the windows and opened fire.

  I have no fucking patience with idiots who did not give credence the warning they were given. I yelled up a very eloquent and timely hello. “Hey assholes! Yeah, it’s the same guys you threw rocks at last week. I see no one completed the assignment I gave you for homework. So run like hell now, motherfuckers, and you just might live. No negotiations anymore, just bullets.” I had no time nor energy to be wasted here. The metal they used for a barricade rang like the Liberty Bell until it began to shred from the lead that was pouring into it. Either they ran or they died. I did not give a rat’s ass. Just as well if they bought it. The new gene pool, if there was one, did not need this feeble excu
se for human DNA anyway.

  The stoning stopped. (I fucking can’t believe this is what they did all day. Sit around and hope someone drove under their bridge so they could throw things like a bunch of fucking bearded chimpanzees in a tree. God, I hate fake men. In their defense, since electronic comms went down and they had no social media they probably had no idea how to live.

  We finished wriggling through the underpass and were out of range of any more projectiles, although I would have severely doubted that any of them had cajones that big anyway.

  We were still on as stretch of highway we had cleared already and it just didn’t look like anyone else had been on the road. Really kind of frightful. I’m not sure why I thought that, but there sure as hell was no sign of any other road warriors.

  Sometimes I think Karma has a personal vendetta for me. Can’t understand why. No sooner had I commented to my brother and daughter that we should have a clear ride into Mel’s hometown, that the snow started. It was a gentle, rather pleasing, large snowflake, no wind, snowfall. Just the kind pictured on a Currier and Ives winter in New England collector’s plate. (Hate those fucking things too! The jackass who painted those scenes had so obviously never been through a New England nor’easter.)

  Gary broke the moment. ”You know, Ron, I really don’t like the look of this sky. Wouldn’t surprise me if this one got kinda harsh.”

  Among other things, Gary was the family weatherman. He had been interested in weather prediction since he was a kid, complete with his own weather gauges. More often than not, he would verbally refute all the so-called professionals and get the call right. I had come to rely on his knowledge so much that I didn’t even tune in the weather broadcasts when we had them.

  The snow was indeed getting heavier and wind driven. Although the traction of the Suburban, especially given the weight it was carrying in supplies and passengers, was still adequate, visibility was not.

  We were passing through the last highly populated area we would hit before Mel’s town. It was getting dark and none of us were too thrilled with trying to find a location to spend the night. It began to look once again like my favorite weatherman had nailed it. We had to slow down even more. That was what saved our lives.

  As we approached another bridge, a semi-truck the size of an apartment I used to live in came barrel-assing through the cleared path on our side of the highway with barely just enough time for us to get out of its way. He kept going as if he had never even seen us. A distinct possibility, since neither of us had any lights on and even if we did, my bet was they wouldn’t penetrate much through the white stuff. In one way, it was too bad. Always good to find other live people and make an alliance. In the other way, I had no desire for a shootout or a bad guy encounter in a snow storm.

  Well, we avoided the collision but at quite a cost. I had zero control as we slid off the shoulder and down into the ravine next to the highway. Thank the heavens that the Suburban’s center of gravity was so much lower than most other SUVs or we would have been a rolling disaster. When our heads cleared and we took stock of any injuries, it could have been worse. Everyone was shaken but not injured. Nothing broken and most of our supplies had made it through intact. I rolled the power windows down to let in some cooler air and clear our heads a bit better with some fresh oxygen. Some of our extra fuel had jettisoned itself, but if the cans were still intact we could search them out and tie them down again.

  It was a unanimous vote that we get out of the Suburban while there was a still a speck of daylight left and see how bad things were. Turns out, they were pretty bad.

  We were just out of range of a bridge pylon with our winch cable to pull ourselves out of the hole. It was getting colder, windier and snowier so quickly that we had to focus on the Chevy to keep it in view. Well, this sucked!

  We never learned a simple basic lesson. However zombies are attracted to human flesh and brains, we were making it known that the salad bar was open. Mer noticed them first and so informed us with her girlish whisper of: “Oh Shit! See you back at the SUV guys!” In true Talbot fashion, she knew she did not have to move fast, just faster than her uncle and father. We were right behind her. I expected to see maybe two or three of our living-challenged brethren. What I did see was substantially more than that. There were only a few that were real close, but they were followed by too many to accurately count and I am just not that anal enough that I had to have an exact inventory. So, it was a lot.

  By the time Gary and I got to the Chevy, Mer already had her weapon loaded and aimed through her open window. She took out the first couple before Gary and I were able to get into the act too. I had an excellent shot at one approaching my side straight on, but before I pulled the trigger, a disease-ridden arm I hadn’t seen nearer the SUV reached into my window through the snow reduced focus and visibility.

  The windows in the Suburban are power windows. Cool, right? Nu-uh! Not-So-Cool. In infinite design wisdom, when the power is not on, the windows do not work. A lesson I shall never forget! I defy anyone to try and get the key in the ignition and to the “On” position while you are trying to scootch away from arms reaching in to get you, knowing that one scratch from the supposedly dead appendage can ruin your whole day.

  Gary was trying to cover me and his own window. A losing battle. Mer was screaming from the back, “Dad, now would be a good time to close the windows!”

  Gary was doing his best to get a shot off, but he was across from me in the front seat. Fucking wonderful. I am either going to be a zombie or a headshot victim. Marvelous choice.

  Meredith had been smart enough to say: “Fuck This Shit,” and had moved away from her window to the middle of the truck. She had arms reaching in from both sides but the Chevy was just wide enough that unless one of them was Shaquille O’Neal, nobody was going to be reaching her. Be it forever written that Talbot females are the unquestionably superior species.

  So, I’m struggling between getting a shot of my own as more arms were reaching toward me and getting the ignition in the right position. Not winning this race here! I finally ducked and yelled: “Gary! Take your shots at all the windows, man.”

  Once he saw me duck, he looked at me and precisely said: “About time!” though the look said: “About fucking time, you dummy.” A few shots and broken eardrum blood vessels later, the windows were up and we were at least momentarily secure.

  Let’s see, we were in a big old SUV, in a ditch, in a snowstorm, in the dark, too far for our winch to do any good, and surrounded by an ever growing number of zombies. I was really beat after driving all day; I definitely needed to get some sleep.

  I love it when people look at me and say, “Are you out of your ever-lovin’mind?” because then I can look back at them and answer, “Cool. So what’s your plan?” When I get nothing back but blank stares, I do figure it is a good time to get some rest because if that’s the case, then we are going to need it if and when a plan ever does come to mind.

  If there was ever a clump of frustrated zombies, this was it. Here they were all around an easy meal and they couldn’t get through to it. Needless to say, the meal, such as it was, was as nervous as hell, and trying to sleep with various chitter and chatter going on everywhere which was as bad as diners who had been waiting too long for a waitress to get to them.

  The human brain is an amazingly adaptive organ. At some point, even if the bearer is not aware of it, it stops hearing the sounds it doesn’t want to hear anymore. (Think living near an airport or a train station or having a neighbor who thinks they know how to play the tuba.) It may have been into the wee hours of the morning, but we all fell asleep. Even more amazingly, we all lived through it and got to wake up in the morning, if not refreshed, then at least alive. But wait, something had changed! We could barely see out of the snow encased SUV windows. Someone had to be the brave soul who was going to crack the seal and see what was (or hopefully was not) out there. Zombies had been known to give up the fight in search of an easier chomping victi
m, so our fingers were crossed!

  While Gary and I were busy trying to convince the other guy to do the honors, Meredith reached over, turned on the ignition and opened her own window just a smidge. Still, it was a smidge more than her two “protectors” had managed.

  Yup, the zombies were still there. As she started to immediately close the window, and close our hopes of somehow surviving this encounter, I had a thought. “Sweetheart, leave your window open for a moment, would you?”

  ”Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said, but I believe underneath that was “Fuck you, dad. You want a window open, open your own!” Hers closed with a pop and left me to act on my own idea, which I usually try to avoid doing.

  I powered down my glass about two inches, enough to see, but hopefully not enough for anything to come through too far. Nothing happened. I got really brave and rolled it down a bit more. Still nothing.

  Rolled little more, and fuck me, an arm popped into the cab and hit me square in the shoulder. A few seconds of very deep and manly screams later, I was still alive and not being bitten, scratched or otherwise violated, proving my point.

  I knew it was quite cold outside, I hoped it was well below freezing. We had been turning on the heat every hour or so for a few minutes until we all fell asleep in spite of the temperature. Body heat is a wonderful thing. It kept the inside of the Chevy at a comfortable forty-five degrees. Balmy, compared to the blizzard conditions outside.

  If I had the stones, I could have probably broken off the zom’s arm and beat the crap out of my brother just on general principles. Fact was, it and every other zombie surrounding our vehicle, was frozen solid. I remembered back to Iza’s window incident in her bedroom and started a silent prayer to Mother Nature to keep the day nice and cold. Meredith has been known, on occasion, to challenge Aunt Lyn on the Ensign Evidently award. “So that’s why all the noise stopped late last night.”