Zombie Fallout 8_An Old Beginning

by Mark Tufo

  Nancy laughed. “Yup, that sounds like your brother. Sorry,” she said when she realized her husband wasn’t sharing in her amusement.

  “This is serious.” His eyebrows furrowed.

  “I know.” She had to place her hand up by her mouth to hide her smile.

  “I knew the day would come when Mike was faced with prison. It was an inevitability. Civilization is not a fan of wildcards. I’m happy the judge gave him the opportunity to join the Marines. I figured it would do him some good, you know? A good ass kicking or three might be exactly what he needed. Not Mike, though. The Marine Corps just gave him new venues to perform in. Then, somehow, he gets this beautiful, intelligent woman to marry him. If she wasn’t from the U.S., I would have said it was merely for a green card, but I don’t think there were even any immigrants that were quite that desperate. A wife, kids, a job, same Mike.”

  “So what’s the problem, dear?” Nancy asked, wrapping her arm around her husband’s waist.

  “The entire time Mike is fucking up, I keep my nose to the grindstone, working sixty, sometimes seventy hour weeks. I’m away from our children for work almost two weeks out of every month, and the goal was for this!” His hand goes out to the expanse of the water and trees before them. “I finally get us here, in this place, and this shit happens. And now that the entire world has been flipped upside down, it’s Mike that’s the better for it.”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Ron. Mike is better off because there’s a zombie apocalypse?”

  “No, sorry. No one is better off. What I’m trying to say through my frustration is that someone who walked so precariously and carefree through the previous world is now the one most suited to lead us through this one. The majority of his life has been a fuck up and…and…”

  “And it’s prepared him completely for all of this.”

  “Yes.” Ron sighed. “Somehow he’s kept his entire family safe, and I failed our daughter.”

  “You did no such thing! There’s nothing you could have done. I miss Melanie as much as you do, but I in no way hold you responsible for her demise. She was an adult, she was out on her own, and she got bit. I don’t think even your brother could have done anything to prevent that. It’s okay, hon. I know you’re also still in pain over the loss of your father, we all are, and seeing that you’re the oldest, you consider yourself the patriarch of this family now. It’s alright to have help, though. You don’t need to do this alone. Just because he’s your baby brother doesn’t mean he’s a kid.”

  “I know, I get it, maybe I’m just tired. This just isn’t the way I thought things would happen.”

  Nancy let go a small laugh. “Sorry,” she told her husband. “I don’t think anyone had this in their future plans.”

  “Probably right.”

  “Get some sleep, I’ll stay out here.” Nancy watched as her husband headed inside. His shoulders, which had been slumped when she came out, were now at least a little more upright. She was just finishing her cup of coffee and was about to head in to refill it when she heard the cracking of a branch not more than twenty feet into the woods on her left.

  They hadn’t seen a zombie in nearly a week, and she just couldn’t imagine there were any left in the entire state. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to keep looking for them. She knew it was those who lost vigilance who were often the ones that died before their time. As the cracking got louder, her eyes grew wider. The first signs of alarm began to track through her body—adrenaline, sweat, and quickening heart rate. She was even unconsciously holding her breath. She nearly screamed out loud when the fawn stepped from the trees. A heavy gust of pent-up air expelled from her lungs.

  “Whoo, where’s your momma, little guy?” she asked. The fawn seemingly heard her as he looked up at the deck. His head swiveled to the rear and then he bounded off. “Like I need another cup of coffee,” she said, looking at her shaking cup-laden hand.

  She went in anyway. As the French door slid shut a zombie, that had been following the fawn, came out of the woods. She’d finally caught up to the mother and son pair this morning after chasing them for two days. Last night, her big break had come when the mother stepped into a gopher hole and fractured one of her front legs. She’d kept on for a few miles more before finally collapsing from the pain and exhaustion. The baby had bleated at her to move. He had stayed long enough to watch his mother die. When the life within her left, so did he.

  The zombie was halfway across the lawn when she heard a sound to her right. She looked up to the big house and was drawn to it. A baser instinct told her that this was a habitat that her preferred food lived in.

  Even as she approached the structure, her eyes looked around for a way into the dwelling. The sounds pulled her to the other side of the house. If she had been capable of a grin, one would have beamed across her face. She saw a gaping hole in the side of the house. The zombie had also found a small opening in the fence that Ron had on his list of repairs. It had been low on the list of priorities because the zombies before it had not made any sort of attempt to seek it out; if they happened to stumble upon it, the thought of making themselves diminutive enough to fit through it seemed beyond their grasp of comprehension. Not this one. She wouldn’t be winning any spelling bees soon, but this one had a predatory gaze to its eyes. There was higher brain function than merely to eat—she had rudimentary strategies on how to get food, not just consume it.

  She walked in and sampled the air with five quick sniffs. Food. It was here and in abundance. Quiet, she thought. She knew enough to be quiet. This food was dangerous. This food fought back, not like earlier today’s food. She walked through the entire basement, stopping to sniff every few steps. The food was tantalizingly close, but not here. She heard the thumping of footsteps above her head. She looked up to follow it.

  Up, she thought, looking at the stairs. At the top landing, she stared at the door. She had been tempted to hammer away at it. An angry, red color kept flashing in her head every time she thought this, and she knew that red meant danger. She stared at the door handle. Without even consciously thinking about it, her hand was moving toward the handle. She could not understand why. Even as her hand grasped the cool metal, she could only stare with a sort of fascination, as it seemed to perform this function of its own volition. Possibly muscle memory. A crack of light formed when the door opened slightly. The heavenly scent of food wafted out to her. She let go of the handle and blissfully walked in and past the door.

  She heard sounds to her side; there was more than one food. Too dangerous. She had to find one alone, a small one, a hurt one. Her instincts were solely in charge as she moved.

  So hungry.

  The constant gnawing pain tore at her stomach, her relentless pursuit of food propelling her. Even as she ate, she was thinking about where and when she would do so again. She found herself in a darkened hallway. Most of the doors were closed, but not all of them, and there was food in there. She moved silently over the carpeted floor, her calloused dirt and blood caked feet made not a sound as she walked.

  Quiet, eat soon.

  She saw a bed that dominated the room, but it was what was atop that grabbed her attention and would not let go. A small thing stood up and looked at her. The word cat flashed in her mind, but it meant little to her. She’d eat it when she was done with the bigger one.

  The small animal made a loud noise and jumped off the bed, its claws sinking deeply into the sallow flesh of her face. Pain erupted along every puncture wound and was quickly calmed by her internal machinations. A claw raked across her eyeball, tearing all the way through her cornea and into the iris and pupil. Her vision began to blacken on one side as the animal dragged deeper, shredding the lens. She wrapped her hands around the middle of the cat and wrenched it free from her face. If she were capable, she would have been surprised to note that her eye was now attached to the claw of the little beast. She thought about taking a few bites from the spitting, snarling beast, but
the noise was causing the bigger prey to stir.

  All that mattered was eating. She dropped the smaller food on the floor and quickly moved across the room. The small animal jumped on her leg. Bites and scratches, which should have caused some distress, did little as she descended on the food, the food that was now attempting to sit up even as the zombie tore into its neck, rending pieces of it into her mouth. A scream issued forth from the food even as it attempted to push her away. She just kept biting, the food’s struggles becoming weaker and weaker until finally they stopped. She tore large chunks of food free, barely taking the time to chew as she swallowed hunks whole down her gullet and into the bottomless pit of her stomach. She could never be full, but she would never stop trying. Another small animal came in making noise and was now savagely ripping into her leg that still rested on the floor.

  She could hear the approaching sounds of more food. She knew they represented danger, yet she could not pull away from the food, not until it was gone. Her last thought as the bullet entered her brain was, Hungry.

  “Oh God, no!” Ron said as he looked past the smoldering barrel of his rifle. The zombie was dead as was the girl it had attacked. Blood pooled on the neck of the victim. Ron let out an anguished cry as he raced forward in an attempt to save what was already lost.

  Chapter Fifteen – Mike Journal Entry 7

  The sounds in the next room began to abate as the ape had either cleaned house, moved on, or had succumbed. My hope was that pieces of it now resided in a few dozen regular zombies. The beast was without precedent, and it was my sincerest hope that the thing didn’t live out the day. I had no desire to ever meet up with it again.

  “Trapped again,” I said sourly as the lights flickered.

  “What was that thing?” Tommy asked.

  “Fucking man, experimenting with shit again that they should have just left alone. What could possibly compel them to make zombie animals? Is not this current fuck-fest enough? Mankind is in such a dire rush to rid itself of mankind they don’t stop to think of the repercussions of their actions. I’m sometimes amazed we’ve made it this long.”

  “Oh, shut up your drabbling, will you? I have a splitting headache.” Deneaux sat up, one bony hand caressing the side of her head while the other was fishing in her pocket for a pack of smokes or an emery board to file her hooves.

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” I told her.

  “For what? Allowing me to nearly have my head split open by a relative of yours?”

  “Tommy, remind me again why I saved her?”

  Tommy shrugged.

  “Where are we?” Deneaux was now puffing away on a cigarette. Must have had aspirin shoved in it, because she seemed to have forgotten about her aching head as she looked around.

  “The other half of the lab. For animal testing would be my guess,” Tommy told her as he looked around at the rows of cages full of all various sorts of animals.

  It was mostly mice and rats; there were a couple of smaller monkeys, rhesus maybe. They didn’t look good, and I truly felt bad for them. I had to assume though that they’d been infected with whatever the ape had and could not be released. I was extremely happy to not see any dogs; I think I would have had to let them out just on principle.

  “How are you planning on getting us out of here?” She shakily pushed herself up off the floor and sat quickly in a chair. It was nice to see that the crone actually had a little humanity in her and was bound to the same chances of injury as the rest of us.

  “I was thinking teleportation device. Of course we’d have to test it with you first, just to make sure there are no kinks in it and that your atoms wouldn’t reappear all disfigured and stuff. That would be a shame.”

  She over-exaggerated a smile at me.

  “Did you say the animal testing half of the lab?” she asked after a moment.

  She was already standing before Tommy or I could answer. She walked directly over to one side of the room. “Here’s our way out,” she said proudly.

  Tommy and I went over to look. “Furnace?” I asked. “Seems like a one way ticket.”

  She had pushed the small door open and was looking inside. I stepped back expecting a furnace type blast of heat and fire. “Idiot,” she said when she pulled her head back in and saw me retreating. “The incinerator is two floors beneath us.”

  “How the hell was I supposed to know that?” I defended myself. “Why an incinerator? Is it for trash?”

  “It’s for the animals,” Tommy said calmly.

  I guess I knew that on some level; I just didn’t want to admit it. Any failed experiment, all the scientists had to do was send the animal’s carcass down into the blaze below. The poor thing would be forgotten the moment it passed through the steel opening. Talk about eradicating one’s mistakes.

  I stuck my head through and was looking down a large shaft. It had a slight angle to it, but there wasn’t anything to hold onto once inside. It would be an express trip down.

  “This is our way out?” I asked, pulling my head out. I’d swear Deneaux had gotten closer; she also had a very strange expression on her face, like maybe she had just missed an opportunity to push me in. I cautiously stepped away. Who knows what kind of strength a demon possesses. “Seems like a death trap. Maybe you should check it out first.”

  “I will.” Deneaux was on the move. Tommy and I looked at each other.

  “Did she really just volunteer?” I asked him.

  “Sheets!” she said triumphantly. She was pulling theses strange, gray woolen pieces of material out of a cabinet. “They wrap the animals in these before they send them down. They’re specially treated for an even burn.

  “So wait, you want us to lower you down a two story shaft with a makeshift flammable rope into an incinerator designed specifically for burning at temperatures hot enough to melt bone?”

  She nodded.

  “Fine by me,” I said as I grabbed one of the oily sheets.

  Tommy and I tied, and tested the ten sheets we knotted up. “Just one needs to fail,” I whispered to him.

  “I heard that,” Deneaux said from across the room. I don’t know how the hell she heard us as her head was all the way in the incinerator opening, and she was looking down the shaft.

  “Why now?” I asked her as we tightly tied a sheet around her waist and up and underneath her arms.

  “Whatever do you mean?” she asked me coyly.

  “Come on, this isn’t your style and you know it. Putting yourself out in front. Taking one for the team. Exposing yourself to danger. Whatever. Pick your cliché, it’s not you.”

  “Maybe it’s time.”

  “Yeah, I believe that like I believe Tommy would forgo a Pop-tart.”

  “Hey, I’m right here,” he said, his words slightly muffled.

  “Sorry, wait, what the hell do you have there?” I asked, walking over to him. He tried to angle his body away from me to hide whatever it was. “Oh, what is that smell?” I asked, pulling back and covering my nose.

  “It’s an onion-and-liver pâté-glazed Pop-tart.” His smile was waxen.

  “Oh, come on, you’re just doing that on purpose now.” I made sure I was far enough away before I removed my hand from in front of my nostrils.

  I waited until Tommy was done before I let him come anywhere near to where we were putting Deneaux through.

  “Well, I guess this is goodbye,” Deneaux said tenderly as we began to lower her down.

  My expression probably made it look like I was trying to pass gas in church silently. My features were all contorted from trying to figure it out. We had her about halfway down when I damn near pulled her back up to ask her what the hell she meant. Tender was not a word one used at all around Deneaux and she sure as hell wasn’t sacrificing herself. No, the biddy had something else up her sleeve.

  “I’d hate to see it all go up in smoke.” I laughed at my own pun.

  “What was that?” she asked, looking up.

  “Nothing, nothing.�
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  “Go slow you idiots. There’s a pressure sensor down here that triggers the flames, if I can get by that I can shut it down.” She knew the switch could be activated by a scientist up top or it could be manually overridden, down below, to always stay on. Something she planned on doing as soon as she was on the ground.

  “You know, you could have told us about that earlier and we could have done it instead,” I told her.

  “It’s time I contributed. Don’t you think?”

  “It’s been time for a good long while. Why now, though, you snake?” I mumbled to Tommy. He nodded his head agreeing with me.

  “The acoustics are amazing inside this pipe. I’m almost there. Do you think you could pay more attention to what is going on rather than talking amongst yourselves?”

  “We could just let go.” I was looking Tommy in the eye, part of me was kidding, but a part wasn’t.

  “We’d lose the sheets,” he answered seriously.

  He was right. That was the only part worth saving.

  “Careful!” Deneaux shouted up. It was the first time I’d heard something like alarm.

  “How big is it?”

  “Normal male question,” I heard her hiss.

  It was slow going from there as we lowered her an inch at a time. After ten more minutes or so, we finally got the ‘all clear’ from her. The sheet-rope became slack as she undid herself.

  “Give me a minute to disable the incinerator and then you can come on down!” she shouted. She could not be seen due to the angle of the shaft, but we heard her just fine. We pulled the rope up.