by Mark Tufo
The ladder was bowing something fierce. I looked up to watch as the top skids were a good fifteen or sixteen millimeters from losing contact with the roof. See how I did that, I changed from U.S. measurements to the Metric system. Maybe if we had just switched back in the seventies like they said we were going to, I would be able to feel much better about my predicament. Because fifteen or sixteen millimeters sounds WAY better than half a n inch!
Another zombie joined us, or a particularly heady wind hit, or a damn butterfly landed on a palm frond somewhere on an island in the Pacific, didn’t matter, the rear of the ladder came off the ladder truck. What had previously seemed like a good idea now truly sucked as I death gripped the rung I was on as we swung with velocity towards the wall. Memories flooded through my senses, I guess the mind feels the necessity to show events that are not life threatening when one is faced with a most certain demise. For the briefest of moments I was once again a fifteen-year-old enjoying a burgeoning beer buzz with my two best friends on the planet, Paul and Dennis, as we discovered a place called Indian Hills. My parents had left me alone for the weekend and I did what any respectable teenager would do if they wanted to hold on to their cool card, I had a raging party. The next morning as my two buddies and I cleaned up, we decided to hightail it from the premises before my mother came home. During the best of times she could give Deneaux a run for her money. With the hangover I was suffering from, I did not want to add her to the mix.
Paul, Dennis and I had grabbed a few beers and were reinvigorating the buzz we had so much enjoyed the previous evening. Our goal was an area that we had seen from a perch atop our local grocery store. We would come to find out that the area was known as Indian Hills. It was an Indian burial ground (no, really!). The place had become a sort of oasis for us as we had grown over the next three years. That it was mystical was beyond reproach. We had more than our fair share of adventures on that land, but that’s a story for another journal.
The fingers of my right hand smashed against the wall as I had readjusted my grip from rung to rail. I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed. I’m pretty sure it was a good throaty man scream but I can’t be sure, it might have been as intimidating as an eleven-year-old girl’s. My immediate thought was better the right, I shoot lefty. And then all thought was washed away by the mind-blistering pain that ripped through my neurons. The pain peeled back quicker than I expected. I would learn later that the left side of the ladder had struck first, absorbing the majority of the strike. I would most likely lose all four fingernails on my right hand but that was a small price to pay for my life. I might have had some small micro-fractures in the tips of my fingers as well, but I’d left my Blue Cross Blue Shield card back in Colorado , and I figured that I was out of network anyway.
The haze in my mind burned off the moment I felt that hand wrap around my foot. So there we were, me and my new buddy, suspended thirty feet above the ground by a small rope attached to a ladder I wouldn’t tie anything bigger than a Chihuahua to. The ladder swayed back and forth against the wall, I’m sure doing its best to cut through the nylon holding us in place just like in every movie I’d ever seen. Sure, I had a safety rope on, but it looked like it had seen better days.
My new buddy was really trying to climb up the ladder. His hand was wrapped like a vise and I could feel his full weight as he either was trying to pull me down or pull himself up to greet me properly. But he would bite me long before we could exchange banalities.
“Cut the rope!” I shouted. ‘Did I just say that?’ “For the ladder!!” I clarified quickly.
“We figured that much,” BT said, looking over the rim of the wall.
“Just making sure, hurry, my buddy here is pretty hungry and he thinks I’m on the menu.”
“What do you mean nobody has a knife?” I could hear Tracy ask irately.
I tried to shake my new buddy’s hands free, but he was having none of it. His right hand gripped my calf. As soon as he pulled up and got his mouth into position, I was about to become his lunch. My arms strained as I supported the both of us.
“Not that one!” BT shouted.
‘Are you kidding me?’ I thought as I hung on, still grimly trying to shake my ‘friend’ loose.
“Let go of the ladder!” BT said, “Don’t worry, bud, the rope will hold.”
“The both of us?” I asked him.
“Probably,” the one called Mad Jack said.
I pulled my hands back just as the ladder zipped by. The rope tied around my waist bit deep into my flesh as it absorbed all of our weight. I felt like I was being severed, and the added pressure as the group on top of the roof began to hoist me up only contributed to the strain. My biting buddy was still firmly entrenched like a fat deer tick, but without his feet planted on the ladder he was merely hanging on for his dearly departed life. I wasn’t in any immediate danger of being bitten but rather torn in two like a convicted felon, drawn and quartered or, in this case, halved. To-MAY-toe, to-MAH-to, what’s the difference?
“The rope is breaking!” April shouted.
“Shut up, fool!” Mrs. Deneaux snapped. I would like to think that perhaps it was to save me from the bad news of my upcoming demise, but more than likely it was to hide the surprise so she could relish the look of shock on my face as I plummeted earthward, the old bitch. There was a lurch in my stomach as I free fell a few feet. I quickly looked up.
BT was leaning as far over the wall as he could, fat droplets of sweat cascading down upon my face. Normally this would have grossed me out to no end, but since he was single-handedly pulling the rope up hand over fist, I would forgive him this transgression. The veins in his neck stood out thicker than the rope I was tied to. His teeth clenched together in a pressure I think could snap through a steel cable, his eyes squeezed shut in concentration and pain.
I wouldn’t find out until I was safely on the roof, but the rope had snapped. BT had dived after it and just barely gripped the edge of the trailing rope. He and he alone had my lifeline in his hands. He hadn’t even had enough cord to wrap it around his hands, he was just pulling two full grown men up the side of the building. Well, to be fair, the zombie looked a little on the underfed side and had decayed a substantial amount, but still!
As more of the rope became available, Paul and Alex gripped some and the pain in BT’s features eased. But he never let go, even as the blood ran from his hands in droplets to rival those from his sweat.
I had never before been so willing to be embraced fully within a man hug. BT grabbed me under my armpits and basically manhandled me up. Travis got his rifle into position and blew my buddy’s head in two. I looked over my shoulder as the zombie fell towards the ground. His friends greeted him gaily at first, hoping for a meal from the heavens. He was quickly trampled underfoot once as they realized he was tainted. Of all the things zombies were, it was a damn shame they weren’t cannibals.
BT picked me up and placed me firmly on the roof. It took me a little longer to regain my wits.
“You can let go now, people are starting to stare,” BT whispered in my ear.
I pulled back slowly. “Thanks, man.” Those two words meant much, much more but the true sentiment was conveyed in my tone.
“You’re welcome and we’re even now,” BT said with a smile.
I watched as he walked away looking for something to wrap his hands up in. Tracy came over to me and pointed out the blood that covered my armpits; his hands must have been flayed. He might think we’re even, but the save-o-meter clearly pointed in his favor. Would it be against the rules if I staged a fake disaster and ‘saved’ him from a perilous fate? Just to swing the meter back in my favor, something minor, maybe a skateboard on the stairs or I could kill a malaria carrying mosquito before it bit him, something small. Just a scale tipper, that’s all I’m looking for. Well, no real worries with the state of the world as it is, I’m sure an opportunity would present itself soon enough. But what if he saves my ass again? Then I’ll be down by two. T
hat could be a pretty big deficit to come back from. Maybe if I just up and chucked Deneaux off the side of the building, he would consider that a leveling of our score.
“You alright Talbot?” Tracy asked. She looked more nervous than I’d seen her in a long time.
I nodded slightly. The shock of the event still hadn’t completely registered. I was betting there would be nights to come where I would dream BT hadn’t made it to that rope and I had plunged backwards into a sea of sharp teethed zombies. Maybe even staying asleep long enough to feel them rend the flesh from my bones, elastic skin snapping as it was pulled free from my body. Veins and arteries popping as the sealed blood within arced out in red rainbows of death. Rein it in Talbot! I know my imagination can be like a three-year-old on Red Bull and still I feed it.
“How’s your hand, buddy?” Paul said as he gripped it for a handshake.
“Hurts like hell,” I said, ripping it from his grip.
“Dude, I am so sorry. I thought it was the other one,” Paul said, moving in for a hug.
Erin smacked him on the shoulder. “We really are so glad to see you and your family Mike,” Erin said, moving Paul aside so that she could get her own hug in. “Do you have a way to get us out of here?” she asked hopefully.
I looked back over the wall at a fire truck that was barely visible due to the swarm of zombies on it. Worse yet was the now thirty foot gap between us and the ladder.
Erin was still waiting for an answer. Paul helped me out and pointed at the way we had come up.
“But there are zombies all over that thing,” she answered. “How will we get them off of there?” she asked, looking between me and Paul.
“That’s something we might have been able to do with the guns. It’s the gap that shuts that avenue down,” I told her.
“So now what?” April asked. “You bring him!” she spat, pointing to Justin, “but no way out!” “April!” Joann exclaimed. “They came to help.” She swore with a contemptuous wave of her finger .
“They’ve done nothing for us!” she screamed, “except bring us more troubles.”
“Listen April!” I yelled, “I think you were in a world of crap long before we got here. All I did was risk my family and friends’ lives so that we could help your ungrateful ass! I’ll tell you what, ” I continued, “ when I figure a way out of this, I’ll make sure to leave you here.” “Mike, she didn’t mean it,” the new guy said, trying to placate me.
“Yes I did,” she answered with fire in her eyes.
“Well, this is interesting,” the new guy interjected. “My name is Mad Jack,” he said as he extended his hand. I gripped it way tighter than I meant to, it hurt like hell.
“Nice to meet you,” I growled.
“Likewise,” MJ said, pulling his throbbing hand away.
“Hi Mike,” Joann said next, trying her best to not get sucked into the argument. Marta barely managed a weak wave. The kid… Freddy? No, Eddy, was hidden behind Joann’s legs. I didn’t see his mother or siblings anywhere. There was no reason to ask where they were, if they weren’t on this roof they were dead. Didn’t much matter how.
BT came back with a rag wrapped around each hand. I couldn’t help but ask what I did, it’s ingrained in my genes. “You get some Bacitracin on those?” I asked pointing to his hands.
Without missing a beat BT responded. “Yeah, they got a first aid station on the other side, fixed me up just right.” I almost, I said ALMOST, looked over his shoulder to see if he was telling the truth. He said it so dead pan I figured he just might be.
“Would you like a cigarette Mike?” Mrs. Deneaux asked me genially.
I might have taken it except for the murderous expression on Joann’s face. “Bitch,” she cursed before walking away.
I shook my head, damn thing was probably laced with poison. Deneaux shrugged her shoulders and lit the one that she had offered me, but she was smiling. I don’t know what got her rocks off but whatever it was, I could bet it was mean spirited. It was looking more and more like she hadn’t offered me that cigarette out of any sense of camaraderie, but rather to make a point of not giving one to Joann.
“Have you always been this way?” I asked her incredulously.
She responded by taking an extra-long drag on her smoke.
Marta had walked away to take care of her children she seemed to be warring internally with ‘glad to see us’ and ‘why are you here’. April walked off with Marta .
“She’s just under a lot of stress forget about her,” Alex said. “It really is good to see you my friend.” He clasped my hand. Did no one witness the ladder event? I pulled back sharply.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
I told him it was alright, but it was close to an hour before the crippling pain dulled. Most of that time I hid it in my coat pocket lest it be further abused.
“How did you find us?” Paul asked.
“Eliza led the way,” Justin said, coming up to us.
“She’s here,” I told them.
“Like right here?” Paul asked, not truly believing my words.
I nodded.
“I thought we were screwed, now I know we are,” Paul said, his right hand going up to massage the dull ache in his temples that my news had obviously caused him. “You got anything Mike, any sort of idea?” he asked as he began to pace.
I shook my head.
“Why in the hell did you come up here then?” he asked angrily. Not that he was being ungrateful, only that we had clearly endangered ourselves in the process.
Perla, Cindy and Brian had stayed in a tight circle amongst themselves. There had been introductions, but like cliques in high school people began to peel off into their own familiar groups. Joann and Eddy stayed close to Marta and her two kids. Mad Jack was pretty much a clique unto himself, but April would not stray more than a few inches from his side no matter how obviously he tried to lose her. Tracy sat down on the roof, her back against the retaining wall. The past few events had drained her damn near dry. Travis sat with her. Gary was off looking at the door that led down into the store. I so wished that he would stop jiggling the handle.
Paul, BT, Alex, Justin and I stayed together. We were the planning committee, so far without a plan. Mrs. Deneaux merely watched every group, a few moments spent studying each one.
“Anything yet?” Gary asked, thankfully coming away from his door handle turning expedition.
“Still locked?” I asked him.
“Yup,” he said straight faced. “And it’s a good thing too.”
“You think?” I asked him.
*
Gary hadn’t been away from the door for more than a few minutes when it looked like it was beginning to bulge out. I thought I was seeing things at first, but it was tough not to hear the groan as the metal of the door began to stretch and pop.
“Incoming!” Brian shouted.
What were individual groups moments previously now became one discombobulated mass.
“Joann, you and Eddy might want to get behind the first line,” I told her, motioning back. She looked terrified but she did it.
For all the pressure the door was under, it was kind of anti-climactic as it swung open gently. But what flooded through more than made up for the lackluster revealing. At first we could keep up with the zombies coming through the choke point. Zombies staggered in by ones and twos, then threes and fours, and like always they began to overrun our suppressive fire. So many zombies and so few bullets. It took me back for a moment to my time in the service when we were in class studying tactics .
When Iran and Iraq had been were having their Holy War (I always wondered if God truly approved of those that died in his name, whether you called him God, Allah, or Buddha, I doubt it. I can’t imagine an omnipotent being creating his children in his image so that they could murder, rape and pillage each other in his name. To me it sounds like a bunch of spoiled brats that were in need of some heavy slapping upside the head. Once upon a time he release
d the flood waters to purge man, the zombies were the modern version of a scouring. Lord knows we needed it, no pun intended.) Back to my original tangent; if I go off on too many branches, I’ll never find my path home. Iran was losing the war badly, so they did what any civilized country would do, they rounded up one million children, armed them only with the knowledge that Allah awaited them and then sent them in huge waves against the Iraqi machine gun nests.
So a million unarmed children running at full speed across the desert did what the entire Iranian army could not. They overtook the Iraqi positions. Oh, it wasn’t that the Iraqis couldn’t fire upon and kill children, it’s just that they couldn’t fire enough rounds to stop them, and that was what was happening to us. Although I could say I was eternally grateful I was shooting flesh eating zombies rather than innocent children who believed death by machine gun fire was a viable alternative to living in Iran .
We were yielding inches of precious footing on that roof and the zombies were taking feet.
“Hold tight!” I yelled, watching April. She looked like she was going to bolt followed by Joann. Where did the hell they think they were going to go?
Brass flew. I was burned more than a few times as the hot ejecta passed me by. We were so tightly grouped one hand grenade could have taken us all out. My drill sergeant would have kicked my ass if he could see me now. I wondered what happened to him. He was entirely too mean to die, probably scared the shit out of the Reaper when he came to collect him.
I dry fired my rifle, quickly feeling around for a replacement magazine that wasn’t there.
“This sucks!” I shouted to the wind.
Gary looked over. He was placing well aimed shots center mass in the foreheads of our opponents. “What?” he yelled over the din.
“I’m pretty much out of ammo.” I uttered the two words in battle I swore I would avoid at all costs. “Fix bayonets!” “What the hell are you talking about?” BT asked, raising his cheek off of his stock.
I grabbed the Bowie knife I had strapped to my side. I didn’t actually attach it to my rifle; it was just a play on words. Our position was tenuous to say the least. Our backs were against the wall (no, literally, they were). Zombies had completely taken over the roof. Some of the speeders were actually so close that my weapon could be of use. I’d never stabbed anyone in the head, until now that is. I figured a direct thrust into the forehead most likely wasn’t the best idea. I was afraid that if my blade did penetrate, that it would get stuck and then I’d be down to hand-to-mouth combat. Or possibly, if I didn’t get a straight enough push, the blade would glance harmlessly off the thing’s skull. Sure, it would open up a wicked wound and rip the flesh clean off exposing the white bone beneath, but the zombie sure wouldn’t care. I came in sideways striking home through the temple. I’d had a harder time cutting off pats of butter back in the day than I did driving that knife home. If anything, I went too deep scrambling that thing ’s blackened brain matter. It couldn’t drop fast enough as I pulled my knife free.