by Mark Tufo
Tommy hadn’t eaten a pop-tart in nearly an hour. I knew he was upset. I was about to start a conversation with him when he beat me to the punch.
“Hey Mr. T, I don’t think going to get Mrs. T’s mom is such a good idea.”
It felt like ice cubes were being dragged down my spine. Alex looked over to gauge my response, a small surge of hope flared in his eyes.
“Mike just come with us, you know the odds of one old woman surviving.”
The remnants of the chill still dripped down my back. I struck back with a punch I knew would close the door on this conversation. “What if it was Marta asking you to get her mother?” Yeah I knew it was a low blow but if he harangued me for much longer I would have caved. Tommy’s one-liners were more than enough ammunition to realize the folly of what I was attempting.
“Not cool Mike.” Alex finished.
I nodded in ascension. “Sorry.”
“I understand.”
“Hey Uncle Alex do you want to get off at the next exit?” Tommy asked.
The phrase was asked as a question but the intent was not. Alex got off at the next exit. Within a half mile of our exit, my horror mounted to near epic proportions. Tommy was smiling ear to ear as Alex pulled into a used mini-van car lot.
“No!” I cried. “There has got to be something else.”
Alex was nearly full on laughing. “Oh bandero, you have a growing family now, you’re going to need something big enough to accommodate them all.”
“Oh this sucks!” I yelled. My worst nightmare in life was coming to fruition. “You did this shit on purpose.” I said pointing to Tommy. He paid me little heed as he unwrapped a smores pop-tart.
Tracy was first out of the truck at the sounds of my dismay. Her concern quickly melted away to merriment as she looked around at her surroundings. “Ah so the beast has finally been tamed.”
I would have dropped to my knees and cried to the heavens if I thought I could get back up. Within 20 minutes we had two mini-vans loaded with our meager supplies and passengers. Mine was a brilliant teal color with faux wood paneling, the mere sight of which brought the scant contents of my stomach churning. Brendon didn’t seem nearly as distressed as he got behind the wheel of his gray-greenish piece of…minivan. Is there anything more emasculating than driving a mini-van? Maybe riding bitch on a Harley while your wife drives, but that’s really about it. I had thought that BT would have wanted to drive one of the vans, but he mumbled something about having lost his license. I really couldn’t see him being all that concerned about getting a ticket for that infraction, no I got the distinct impression from the way he reacted when I asked him if he wanted to drive, that he didn’t know how to. I could potentially see why, probably wasn’t a car made that would accommodate his frame between the seat and the steering wheel.
Saying our goodbyes had me rethinking my strategy all over again.
“Goodbye Alex.” I said, holding onto a stiff upper lip.
Alex had no such compunction as he openly wept and moved in for a giant hug. This is fully appropriate behavior according to the man-code. I looked it up. “Good luck Mike.” He said as he sniffed his nose, wiped his eyes and quickly climbed up into the cab of the truck.
It was all I could do to get out. “You too.” Before he shut the door.
Erin was next, she was crying more than Alex, but she wasn’t under the constraints of the man-code. “Mike, thank you for everything. Without you and your family we would have never made it.” I wanted to answer with ‘It was nothing.’ But my boys had risked everything to save them and I was unsure still if Justin was coming back. She openly wept as Paul came up to me.
He gave me the ‘secret’ handshake we had developed long ago in our days at college, the classic handshake followed by the forearm grasp and then the finger curl clasp immediately culminating in a hug. “It was a great ride Mike.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. “The best Paul.” And that was it, I never found out what happened to any of them as I watched them depart. I will always hold fast in my heart that they safely made it to their respective destinations and lived out the rest of their days in as much happiness as could be afforded them. Tommy cried as the big rig pulled away. His look was one of regret. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was staying with me or because of what would befall the departing group. I would never ask for an answer. I didn’t want to know, any answer he gave me would be nothing I wanted to hear. We all stayed an extra minute longer, way past when the last remnants of the truck vanished over a small rise. Maybe we expected they would have a change of heart and come with us. It didn’t happen.
CHAPTER 14
“Alright.” I said looking at a little map I had got off the salesman’s desk. “I do not want to go into the city itself, but according to the yellow pages there’s a sporting goods store a few miles up the road. I want to try and bolster up our arsenal, get some rounds and hopefully some dehydrated food stores or whatever we can muster.”
Brendon was getting antsy. Being around this many buildings with so many hiding spots had us all a little on edge. Without the comfort of the rolling tank, that unease was even more magnified. “Do you think they’re going to have anything left? I mean everyone must have had the same idea.”
“How much of a chance did we have to get to the store?” I asked.
“I see your point.”
The plague had hit so hard and so fast, most were caught ill-prepared to deal with it. Only the truly paranoid had received even the slightest chance of survival. I laughed a little internally, even if we as a species somehow eked out a niche of survival we would be hard pressed to flourish, so mistrustful would be the survivors we would never go out and seek others. In the end we would all still die, suspicious and alone.
Myself, Tracy, Tommy, Henry, Travis and Jen, climbed into my Terrible Teal machine. Brendon, Nicole, Justin, and BT hopped into the second.
It was approaching dusk as we rolled up into the sporting goods store parking lot. No one had left a light on for us. The black was as pitch as it could get. As human beings we are inherently built to fear the dark. That is why our ancestors harnessed the use of fire to chase away ‘the demons’. The night was scary enough when we just ‘thought’ that there were monsters roaming around. Now that the abnormal was the normal, well you can imagine that our imaginations were in overdrive. But really how vivid did ones visualization need to be, every magnificent horror was now a reality. There was nothing left to the imagination. All of this ran through my mind as I tried in utter vain to peer into the near inky obsidian that was the interior of the store.
“I’m going to get out and see if I can scope out the inside of the store.” I said, hoping that someone would say we should wait until the morning. Nobody fucking did. Fuckers. I opened the door to the minivan, still pissed that this was my new ride. I would have slammed the door closed in frustration but I didn’t want to give anything nearby an excuse to come investigate. Well mostly that, but partly I thought the piece of shit door might fall off too. I’d be damned if I drove around in a zombie infested world without a door. That would be like peeling back the lid on a can of spam in Hawaii. Except for the silent purring engines on two minivans (sarcasm – it sounded more like some cats and a large bag of batteries had been placed in a dryer) the night was still. Deathly still. (Well you knew that was coming). I got as far away from the vans as I felt was prudently wise, straining my ears to hear any errant sound. But that really is a misnomer though, how the hell does one ‘strain’ their ears? It’s not like you can flex them, you can’t ‘listen’ any harder. I guess what I was doing was concentrating harder on listening. My wife would have been so proud.
Nothing, I heard nothing. Yet I wasn’t relieved. The quiet was somehow more disturbing. With sound, there would be something to focus on. Without the benefit of a séance I was wildly free to speculate on any number of things. I placed my face up against the cool plate glass window, cupping my hands on the side of my eyes
and straining my best to see something. See previous section on ‘straining’, I had about the same results. Nothing. So this is where in a low budget movie something slams into the glass on the other side, startling the shit out of the hero/heroine and the audience. Don’t be fooled, being there in real life, I FULLY expected that to be the case. I was pleasantly surprised to not have to suffer that little truism.
BT and Travis had both exited the minivan. I jumped a little when they opened their doors. I hoped that it wasn’t too obvious that I might have released my bladder at that moment. I tried to hang on to my dignity.
“Anything?” BT shouted.
His booming voice reverberated off the glass. “Well there wasn’t but there might be now.” I answered.
“What!” He yelled back.
“Grab the tire iron!” I yelled back.
Travis was coming towards me as BT was rummaging in the back of the van looking for the tire iron.
“Got it!” BT yelled back triumphantly.
“Dude stop yelling!” I screeched. ‘Lead by example, breathe’.
“Oh right!” He yelled as he came towards me. The giant man silhouetted in the headlights, approaching me with a pistol in one hand and a tire iron in the other was the stuff of most horror novels. I lamented, that this most pedestrian theme was NOT the cause of all our desolation.
“What are you planning on doing with this?” BT asked as he handed me the tool.
I tapped the glass, in response.
“Oh.” BT said as he backed away a pace or two.
I was lining up my shot, doing my best to shield my eyes from flying glass, and my ears from the fulminating noise. But again you can’t really do much there. God didn’t deign that we should have ear lids, although how cool would that be. However, the boon might also be a curse. Can you imagine that as guys we could ACTUALLY turn off our significant others diatribes? The problem though, would be not only would they suspect that we weren’t listening, but with our ear flaps closed, they would also have visual proof. Okay not one of my better ideas.
“Dad.” Travis said matter of factly. I stopped in mid-swing. Although if this was baseball, my check swing would have been called a strike as my forward momentum brought the tire iron to a gentle tapping on the window. “Door’s open.”
“Yup, I knew that.” I said handing the tire iron back to BT. “Tracy.” I yelled over my shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.” She said as she slid out of her bucket seat and into mine. After a few seconds of adjusting the seat and the steering wheel to her liking she gave me the universal sign for a-ok, two thumbs up.
“Aren’t you going to adjust the mirrors?” I asked her. She gave me another universal sign, this one not quite so pleasant.
I took a deep breath. I was pulling on all of my reserves of intestinal fortitude to go through that door. BT was behind me and Travis was bringing up the rear. I took one more long pull of the piercing air. Tommy brushed past me and in.
“Where the hell did he come from?” BT asked incredulously.
“I guess it’s safe.” I said as I followed him into the black midst.
I stopped less than two steps in from the doorway, not for fear or some innate prescience. I just couldn’t see a damn thing. I had no desire to be skewered by a ski pole, or walk nuts first into a dumbbell display. I could hear Tommy walking around like he had a floor plan. I was tempted to follow in his assured sounding footfalls.
BT nearly sent me sprawling as he walked into my back. “Sorry my man. Where’s the kid?”
“Shit BT, I’d be lucky if I could tell where my hand is.” Both, BT and myself turned to look at the same instance. Whether we thought the same thing, I’m not sure but BT’s expression of awe left little to doubt. Tommy was lit up like the Arch Angel Michael come to seek vengeance on a wicked world. As our eyes adjusted to the radiance it became clear that Tommy was merely holding a battery powered Coleman lantern. I shook my head in consternation, I will swear to my dying days that for the briefest of seconds there was more to it than that. I wanted to ask BT but I think he’d deny it, hell I’m not even sure what I saw and I was there.
“Found some coconut roasted marshmallows!” Tommy said as he stuffed another handful into his mouth.
“Did you hear him open a bag?” BT asked.
“I’m really trying to stop wondering what the kid does BT, it gives me a headache.”
“Yeah I hear that.”
Within twenty minutes, everyone was in the store in the far left corner. We had a bunch of lanterns lit. We even had a couple of tents pitched. Tommy thought that was the coolest thing since the marshmallows. We propped (well BT did) a half-ton of weights by the front door so it couldn’t open. But the Vona sheriff’s office was still fresh in everyone’s mind. I parked one van by the front door and the second by the emergency exit in the rear. Worst case scenario we would have to cram into one van for a while. If there was a just God in the universe we would get to leave the Terrible Teal machine behind.
Thankfully we were in Missouri and not some neo-fascist state like New York. We had more guns and ammo to choose from than we would ever be able to carry. If not for the huge plate glass windows in front I would have put my two cents in on why we should hunker down here until the spring.
Food, while not of the high cuisine type, was plentiful. There was an unbelievable assortment of dried meats, including ostrich. Which as funny as it sounds did not taste like chicken, it was frikken horrible. There were dried food packets of every conceivable concoction including Thanksgiving Dinner readily available. We busted a bunch of those open and had a small feast so to speak. It wasn’t quite the Indians and the Pilgrims but we were thankful to be alive and with each other. Unfortunately there were no dried beer packets or an NFL game on to accompany our meal. The boys grabbed some bows and arrows and some of the clothing dummies and had a blast shooting at something that didn’t necessarily want to eat you. Even Justin perked up more than I had seen out of him in a few days. It was a welcome respite.
It was getting late and we were all tired. Tracy watched with curiosity as I prepared another tent a few yards away from the rest. I then made an exaggerated stretch and let everyone know I was heading off to bed. I had other things on my mind but it didn’t stop me from almost immediately falling asleep. Colors flooded my senses, I felt like I was in Candy Land, I’m not making this stuff up, there was a river of chocolate lazily flowing through a rolling landscape of what looked like whipped cream. There were cliché candy cane trees, and what appeared to be giant broccoli sprouts which seemed wholly out of place, but stranger still were the variety of pop-tart fruit, still in their leafy foil packets that hung bountifully down from their boughs. Tommy was paddling from the distant shore towards me on the world’s largest Snicker’s bar which he would occasionally pause from his paddling duties and take a generous bite from.
“Hey Mr.T!” Tommy shouted. Smatterings of chocolate nearly covered him from head to toe.
Henry came bounding up, a huge white chocolate bone in his mouth. “You know that chocolate’s not really good for dogs Tommy.”
“It’s not real chocolate!” He yelled in his best stage whisper. “It’s cacao, dogs can eat that!” Tommy had stepped off his makeshift boat and approached me, all smiles and happiness. “Didn’t think I could do it Mr. T, but I did.” He said proudly.
“Do what Tommy?” I asked, I figured he was referring to getting his chocolate bar across the river. “And what’s with the broccoli?”
“Get you here.” He answered. “And mom always said I should eat more greens.”
“Get me here? This is a dream Tommy. What’s going on?”
“Just testing a little, you’d better go, Mrs. T is coming.”
“Wait what?”
I snapped awake as Tracy came through the front flap of the tent.
“Nice place you got here.”
“Hi hon.” I said groggily, and somewhat disoriented. Something incr
edible had just happened but it would be days later before I could put it to page. Tracy proceeded to get into the sleeping bag I had set up. Within seconds, my earlier ‘dream’ forgotten I pounced on her with all the grace of a jungle cat on valium.
“What the hell are you doing?” She asked with a trace of bewilderment.
“You know.” I said softly.
“No I don’t.” She answered.
“Come on you know.” I said trying to lead her on.
“No I do not…wait are you trying to fool around?” She asked incredulously. “Are you effen crazy!” She barked. Her voice was rising exponentially. “You’ve got a better chance of shitting out gold coins!”
I didn’t think that was feasible, so apparently getting laid was out of the question. My humiliation was compounded by the riotous laughing of BT. I’m a guy, no matter how dire the situation, if we’re not quite dead yet, we’re thinking about sex. My face flamed as I fell asleep. No wonder I dreamt about a tanning bed.
Why do they put nipples on modeling dummies? I pondered the next morning as I arose out of the tent, shifting around what the good God gave me. Fucken BT, always Johnny on the spot, was there to witness my indignation.
“Got any change for a $20 Gold Eagle? I see you didn’t get that taken care of last night?” He laughed.
I was about to verbally whiplash him, when the next word out of his mouth saved the day.
“Coffee?” I started walking over to him. “Don’t get too close, we hardly know one another.” He laughed again.