by Mark Tufo
“Hi Perla.” Cindy said as she wrapped her arms around her friend.
“Anything?” Perla asked.
Only the resulting silence answered her.
“I’m going to help Uncle Ron,” Travis said, removing the small blanket.
“Be careful, hon. Your dad used to tell me all sorts of horror stories about your uncle and that machine he’s using.”
“The back hoe?” Travis asked.
“Yeah, that thing. Just be careful.”
Travis looked like he wanted to tell his mother that there were way worse things to be afraid of. But now that he thought about it, being around his uncle using a fifteen-ton machine had its own inherent dangers.
***
Ron was fueling the machine and getting ready to check the hydraulics when Travis came out to the garage to meet him.
“You need any help?” Travis asked.
Ron actually preferred to work alone because he didn’t have the greatest track record running the big machine. There were enough houses with their siding missing to attest to that. But he could tell his nephew needed to keep busy doing something.
“Sure, I can’t get into the tree line with this beast and I need some holes dug about yay big,” Ron said, roughly showing a box about a foot deep by a foot across.
“What are they for?”
“Explosives.”
“Sweet,” Travis said as he went over to the wall and grabbed a pick and a shovel off the peg board. “I should have stayed with them,” Travis said to his uncle, his back still to him.
“They’re just late calling in. You don’t know if anything is wrong,” Ron answered his nephew. It sounded flat even as he said it.
“I’m faster than any of them, I’m as good a shot as my dad. I could have kept them out of trouble,” Travis sighed, turning to face his uncle, his seventeen-year-old features strained from the stress.
“Alright, I’m not going to lie, ever since your dad was a kid, he found some of the most unusual ways to get into trouble. It’s like he has a trouble-homing beacon on so it knows where to go. But somehow he always comes out smelling sweeter than when he went in. Now, I don’t know what kind of mess he’s gotten himself into this time, but there’s no reason at all to think he’s not going to pull out of it like he always does.” Ron’s words seemed to have a measurable effect on Travis. “Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do before they get back.” Ron wrapped his arm around Travis’ shoulder and showed him exactly where to start digging.
***
“Hi Tony, how you doing?” Tracy asked. She was sitting at the table with the radio.
“I wish they’d hurry up and get back,” he said, sitting down next to her. “This not knowing is horrible. If I was twenty years younger, I’d be out there looking for them.”
“I saw you on that on-ramp. I think you could handle yourself just fine.”
His eyes twinkled at her as he flashed a smile and grabbed her hand. “How have you put up with him so long?” Tony asked, half kidding, but also half serious. “That kid has more kinks and quirks than piping done by the Three Stooges.”
“That’s a pretty old reference, Tony, and I never liked that show growing up.”
“Butch…I mean Mike and I,” Tony started with a faraway look in his eye, “used to sit and watch it every Saturday morning. I’d seen them all, years before as a kid, but it was a way for the two of us to be together to do some bonding. I’d always wished that I had spent more time with my children as they were growing up, but Mike got the least time of any of them. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, now that I think about it.” And then he smiled.
“Well, at least I know where he gets his humor from. They’ll be back, Tony.”
“You’re that sure?” Tony asked, looking her in the eyes.
“I am,” she answered. “Do you want me to get you some more coffee?” Tracy asked, getting up so as not to give away her illusion of holding it together.
“I would,” Tony said, handing her his cup.
As Tracy was leaving the room, she turned to answer her father-in-law. “In spite of every flaw that man possesses, and there are more than I care to count, he is a wonderful father and husband with whom I cannot imagine spending the rest of my time here on earth without. That is why I have put up with him and why I know he will be back.”
Tears welled up in Tony’s eyes.
“I’ll be right back with the coffee,” Tracy said, giving Tony some time to collect himself.
Chapter Twelve – Mike Journal Entry 8
“Oh fuck!” Was the first thing out of my mouth. In retrospect, I wish I had thought of something better. My best friend had just been dealt a death sentence and the most profound thing I could think to say was an expletive. My English teacher was going to slap me upside the head if she ever found out. And then I followed that initial bad opening statement with one almost equally as lame. “Are you sure?”
BT rolled up his sleeve. A neat half moon wound on his forearm wept blood. “And before you go asking if what bit me was a zombie, you can match the wound up to that one’s mouth,” BT said, pointing to a zombie that laid close to his legs.
I wanted to tell him that most likely wasn’t going to happen. The zombie in question appeared to have every skeletal feature in its face and skull crushed, but even still, it was easy to see that it was indeed a zombie and not some random urbanite, gone cannibal. I sat down heavily next to BT. “How long ago?”
BT looked over at me. “Couple of hours, I think, lost track of time after I pulled that trigger for the thousandth time. I was really hoping to avoid the part where you blow my head off.”
“Wait…what? I can’t do that, BT!” I exclaimed, getting back on my feet.
“Listen, pencil-neck, you are not going to let me become a zombie. I will purposefully hunt you and you alone until I eat your skinny ass.”
“Great, you can join Eliza.” I meant it as a jest, but as the reality of that statement hit, we both became silent for a moment. I tightened my grip on my rifle.
“You have to, Mike. I won’t hold it against you. I’ll talk to you when you get upstairs.”
We both stopped talking.
“This really is going to be an awkward conversation,” I said to BT, referring to his statement about running into me on the streets of Heaven.
“He has to let you in, doesn’t he?” BT asked. “I mean you’ve done so much good.”
“That’s just it, BT, there’s nothing for him to let in. Whatever corporeal part of me I housed is gone, and that, my friend, was my golden ticket. Without it, I’m just another bag of bones.”
“I would have brought more beer if I’d known we were going to have a party,” BT said.
‘What?’ my stare asked.
“You know, the whole pity party thing.”
“Not hilarious. Come on, get up,” I said, extending my hand.
“Wouldn’t it just be easier if you shot me where I sit?” BT asked.
“Come on, man, let’s just see if there’s anything we can do. Maybe the wound wasn’t deep enough to transfer the parasite. The house I just left, the lady living there is a nurse.”
“Mike, you’re stalling.”
“No shit!” I yelled at him. “How much of a rush do you think I’m in to put a bullet in my friend?”
“Okay, fair enough,” BT said as he got up. “You think a nurse in North Carolina is going to have any kind of answer for me?”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t think the Dalai Lama himself had an answer, but it bought me some time. Within a few minutes, we were within sight of Mary’s home. Some of her dinner guests had departed, but not enough of them. I’d say a good fifteen to twenty were still hanging around for some leftovers or maybe a doggie bag.
“How we going to get by them? I’ve got ten rounds,” I told BT.
“I’m fully loaded,” BT answered.
“You’re holding a bat.”
“Yup. It hasn’t ran out of ammo
yet.”
“Where’s your sword?”
“It got stuck,” he answered.
I had no desire to know how it had become so imbedded in its victim that not even BT could dislodge it.
“No way, BT, we’ll figure out something else.”
“By the time you think of something else, I’ll be nibbling on your innards. Yo zombies, I’ve got something for you!” BT yelled, standing up from our hiding spot behind a small bush.
“I hate close combat, BT.”
“Don’t get anywhere near my swing; homie don’t play that,” BT said with a wild glare in his eyes.
***
“Mom! Mom! I see the big man again and Mike!” Josh shouted from his mother’s bedroom window. He had been keeping a watch out ever since his play partner had left.
Mary and Gary came running in from the kitchen.
“My God, he’s huge!” Mary exclaimed.
“What the hell is he doing?” Gary asked, watching as BT roared and brought his bat up. Gary turned slightly to his left and saw zombies running straight for BT. “They’ll kill him.” And then Gary watched in alarm as Mike stepped up next to BT. Gary ran out of the room into the living room to grab his rifle.
Mary was too enthralled in the scene before her to notice the departure.
“Mom, what are they doing?” Josh turned to look up at his mother.
“You should stop watching,” she said robotically, but she made no move to shield him from the view.
***
The first zombie reached BT and met a blissful exit from this world, courtesy of a Louisville Slugger, the preferred choice of zombie slayers nationwide. The zombie’s skull conformed to wrap itself around the bat. Crushed bone giving way to hard wood. I don’t know how I saw it, but the force of the contact was so hard, I watched the zombie’s dental fillings fly from its mouth. There were seven of them, apparently somebody liked their sweets.
BT had pulled the bat back and was swinging again before the first zombie could find its final resting place. It was those damn twitching legs that I think about a lot when I wake up in the middle of the night. BT’s next swing caught zombie number two square in the mouth; and the shattering of its teeth made me cringe. The third zombie that made it to BT was a young woman, and BT didn’t hesitate a beat as he brought the meat of the bat down on the top of her skull. The sheer force of the contact brought her to her knees, and her brain ruptured around the intrusive object.
“Any time you want to join in is fine with me,” BT growled through heavy breaths.
“Right,” I said, bringing my gun up. There was just something so visceral, so raw, so fluid in BT’s motions as he killed the zombies. It was like he was doing a Tai Chi demonstration.
“Mike, my bat cracked. You should probably start doing something,” BT’s arms rippled as he cracked another head like an eggshell.
He had taken out six zombies before I fired my first shot. I wasn’t thinking about it then, but on some level, I realized that I had about a five-foot, zombie-free bubble around me. I just wasn’t under attack. I started picking off zombies, four out of five fell from my cartridge. Now the fun would really begin as I had to reload the magazine. The barrel of BT’s bat whistled past my head.
“Ooh! Sorry about that,” he said as he thrust the wooden-sharded handle into a zombie’s eye socket.
I was three rounds into my reloading procedure when shots began to ring out.
“Been waiting for the damn cavalry!” BT yelled as he roundhouse-punched a zombie in the temple. It hadn’t died, but it did drop to the ground, dazed. The rest of BT’s bat was lodged in the neck of a zombie that was desperately trying to pull the foreign object out.
Now that BT had stopped using the bat, I got closer to him so that we could defend each other better. I popped the clip into the rifle and got ready to acquire a target.
“What the hell?” I asked.
“They stopped attacking,” BT said.
Eight of the ugliest zombies walking the planet were just staring at us. They saw food, but something was holding them at bay. I more than half expected to see Eliza or Tomas walk out from one of the nearby houses.
“What are they doing?” Gary yelled from across two front yards.
A zombie looked to the new sound and immediately began chasing Gary down.
“Oh shit,” he said, not wanting to shoot because of his angle to the zombies and then us beyond. “I’ll see you in the house!” Gary yelled as he retreated back to safety.
“I do not want to die, Talbot,” a heaving chested BT said to me as we watched the zombies chase after Gary.
“You just took on eighteen zombies with a wooden stick, I’d say your actions speak differently.”
“No, just because I’m pissed off shouldn’t be construed as a suicidal gesture.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, let’s see if Mary can do anything for you.”
I know BT wanted to tell me we were wasting everyone’s time thinking a nurse in a North Carolina suburb had the only known cure for the virus that was systematically taking out mankind. But when you are thrown a lifeline, it matters not that it is made from smoke. We are hard-wired for hope, plain and simple.
“What was up with the zombies?” BT asked as we walked back to Mary’s.
“Damned if I know,” I said as I took two shots. Two more zombies went down, but that still left half a dozen. The remaining zombies did not even look in our direction as we approached. They were too busy sniffing around the front door. Probably picking up on the stink of Gary’s grievous injury.
“Is your brother alright? I saw a bandage around his head.”
“I shot him. I was saving his life!” I added when BT stopped to look at me.
“How much time you think I have left?” BT asked as we walked into Mary’s front yard. The zombies still didn’t care about us, but they were exactly where we needed to be.
BT doubled over as painful spasms racked through his abdomen. Less than I hoped, I answered him, but only in my thoughts. I rubbed the man’s back as he bent over, I noted that my hand was almost level with my ear as I did so. I didn’t know what to do. I was exposing everyone to a zombie if I brought him into Mary’s home and there wasn’t anything I could do for him anyway. It was a pipedream to think that Mary could either. I’m sure one of the topics she might have brought up while we were in her house was how she had developed this incredible cure for the zombie disease and had been waiting for some nice men to come and help her disseminate the medicine. Yeah, you would think that would be the conversation starter.
I could not shoot my friend. The alternative was to leave him out here to fully become what was already happening. My hand immediately fell away as BT dropped to his knees and blood flowed freely from his nose while his head sagged down. His chest was covered in snot and blood from the discharge.
“Oh my dear God,” I said as I placed the barrel of my rifle against the side of his head.
“Please do it,” he begged. “I’d do it for you.”
Chapter Thirteen – Paul
Paul had found two emergency candles in a kitchen drawer next to the oven. The drawer was too close to the heat source as they had semi melted out of shape. Paul had to cut the bottoms off to enable the misshapen candles the ability to stand on their own. Even then, he had to let some wax drip onto the tabletop to make them stick.
Paul decided that he did not have eight hours left like the wrapper on the candle bragged about, and he lit both of them. The small room was nearly entirely lit up. Paul popped one more pain killer. The wound in his foot was completely forgotten as he gazed deeply into the fire of the two light sources. He was certain he had discovered the meaning of life in those flames. It was a pity he did not have a notepad to write down his findings.
“I wonder what it will feel like?” Paul had turned around and was having a conversation with his cast shadow.
“I bet it hurts,” he said, as his shadow mate nodded in agreement or
it could have been the flicker of the flame.
Paul was mesmerized as his companion picked up a gun and held it to its own head.
“I know that’s what I have to do,” Paul said as he scratched behind his ear with the long-necked lighter he had used to light the candles. “But I’m afraid.” The shadow man put down the gun at the same time Paul’s itch was sated.
“I’m not really religious, but I’ve always heard that suicide is instant damnation. Would God make an exception, you think?”
The shadow shrugged its shoulders in indecision just as Paul shivered.
“You sure don’t talk much,” Paul said, turning back towards the light.
“I should leave Erin a note. Yeah, and how am I going to get it to her? Well, that’s not really the point, is it?”
“Man, I am messed up. I would swear there were two candles on that table.” Paul snorted as he realized there were. “My mouth is so dry, I sure could go for a beer.” Paul took a swig of the diet Sprite and almost threw it up when he realized it wasn’t the beer he had been hoping for.
“Hey that’s pretty good,” he decided.
***
“Mike, I could sure use your help right about now!” A much younger and somewhat skinnier version of Paul echoed his older self. Paul was pinned tight in his smoldering car, the steering column nearly crushing his sternum. The thickening smoke was making vision difficult, but it was not so dense that he could not tell what happened to his missing shotgun seat passenger. That and the hole in the windshield left little doubt.
I need to check on him, Paul thought. Where’s Dennis? Paul’s mind raced, trying to locate their third friend who had also gone to the Cheech and Chong Drive-In festival. Paul could not turn his neck far enough to look into the back seat of his 1970 Buick Century and determine the fate of his friend.