by Tufo, Mark
“Thought you’d be here sooner.” He took his readers off and placed the book down on the empty gurney next to him. “Glad I brought the book; wasn’t expecting to nearly finish it, though. Can I help you with something, Lieutenant Talbot?”
“Strange place to be when the base is about to come crashing down all around your head, sir.”
“Perfect place to be. It seems the biggest thorn in my paw might also be exactly what’s needed.”
“Not following, sir,” I told him, hoping to maybe gain a glimpse of some hidden room I could storm where Dewey was hiding out. But I knew it was a good bet that the monster was nowhere on the premises.
“He’s saying, graciously, that you’re a pain in his ass, but you’re the only friend he has.” Trip had come in and grabbed the colonel’s book. He had a lollipop in his mouth, smelled a lot like lemon pledge, had a feeling if I found the wrapper that was precisely what it would say. “That about the gist of it?” His legs were rocking back and forth as he dangled them from the gurney he had perched upon.
“Your friend is very astute.”
“Astute. That’s a new adverb for him.”
“Adjective,” Tommy coughed.
I gave him the finger. I knew my grasp on the English language was rudimentary; I didn’t need anyone to point that out for me.
“I’ve had my suspicions regarding Lieutenant Colonel Gadsen for a little while now; I’ve had Major Overland watching him. He’s always been ambitious, however, I’d not known the lengths he’d go to attain his goals.”
“Where’s Dewey?”
“Is that all you care about?”
“Care about? Not at all. I care about what those thousands of zombies plan on doing when they get in here. That I care about. I just want to shoot Dewey.”
“He’s safe.”
“That’s great. What about the rest of us?”
“Do you seriously believe that a mindless mob will be able to breach our defenses?”
“Oh, I’d personally guarantee it. Maybe even make a wager with you, if I thought I could collect once it happened.”
“How does Captain Talbot sound?”
“You trying to bribe my loyalty?”
“Do I need to?”
“No. Wouldn’t work anyway,” I told him.
“I suppose the real question should be: do I have your loyalty?”
“Funny thing, loyalty. Takes a lot of time, effort and circumstances to cultivate something like that, yet it can be blown away in an instant.”
“Is dancing around the subject your way of not answering?”
“It’s my way of letting you know that what you and I have is rapidly slipping through my fingers, and no matter how hard I’d like to hold on to it, the damn thing keeps draining away.”
“What do you propose we do about that?”
“A bullet in Dewey’s head would go a long way to improving it, and I think letting PFC Springer die would be another.”
He didn’t deny the fact that Springer was some sort of alive; maybe mildly surprised I knew, but nothing other than that, considering this was ground already covered.
“We’re making great headway into understanding what’s going on in their minds,” the colonel said.
“With all due respect…naw, fuck it. Dewey’s merely letting you know what he wants you to know. You keep underestimating what he can do.”
“Goddamnit, he’s a zombie!” Bennington was angry.
“He is that, but so much more. There’s a human brain in that zombie housing, something that the virus seems to be able to tap into, to use in ways we’re ill-equipped to deal with.”
“You give them too much credit.”
“And you not enough,” flew out of my mouth, one of the first times something I’d said without thinking first and did not immediately regret.
Bennington’s head sagged some, but he pushed on. “I can’t say I always like being at a crossroads with you, Talbot, but on some level you’re right. I need someone who will question the things I do. I’m not saying I’ll not do them, but pausing to think on the wider ramifications of my actions could be beneficial.”
“Not sure what good that will do. If you’re a raging alcoholic and I tell you that you’re a raging alcoholic and you admit that yeah, you drink way too much, but you still drink…” I left it there, figuring my point had been made.
“Admitting is the first step,” Trip said. “What? I don’t have a problem,” he said when he saw me looking at him.
“Later today, I’m sending three attack helicopters to blast holes into the horde. I’m going to show them that massing at our gates here is futile,” Bennington said.
I didn’t disagree with the plan; I could only hope it wasn’t like a slow running kid swirling a short stick in a massive hornets’ nest.
“If you kill Dewey, you minimize the chance of a coordinated attack.”
He wasn’t going to believe me. It was like a flat-earther and a round-glober going head to head. Neither side, no matter how persuasive, was ever going to get the other to change their stance. It was an odd phenomenon: confrontation with a valid argument only made the other side entrench themselves further into their beliefs. To yield, at that point, would mean everything you knew or thought you knew was a lie, and face it, most of us can’t accept that and will deliberately force doubts to stay hidden. Better to die mistaken than live converted…or so most of humankind thought. It was time to change tactics.
“Springer, he’s one of your own. No matter what you think of Dewey and his importance, what you’re doing to Springer is morally and fundamentally wrong. If some part of him does exist in that zombie shell, you owe it to him to put him out of his misery.”
It didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped. “I’m going to have to find the leak that sprang that secret. And yes, you’re right; he is one of mine. I don’t mean to be callous, Michael, but every time I send teams out on missions, there is going to be danger and, ultimately, loss. Private Springer, in his great sacrifice, can help us understand this new threat. We have a person spying on the zombies; he’s on the inside now.”
“Are you listening to yourself? What Springer was doing was voluntary, this is not. Can you imagine how scared he must be? Trapped inside of a body he no longer has control of? Forced to…to do unimaginable things.”
“It is the sacrifice of the few…”
“Spare me, Colonel. I know the argument. He was my charge and therefore yours. The best thing you could do for the man would be to end his suffering. I saw you consoling his girlfriend, Karen. Why don’t you let her see him now? Get her opinion on what’s going on.”
“Did you tell her?” He looked over to me with a questioning stare.
“Why would I do that? I’m not a monster.”
“So, you believe me to be then?”
I didn’t respond; nothing good was going to come from me, and I didn’t want his anger at my words to cloud his judgment on what I had to figure he was thinking on. He’d tucked my targets somewhere else, somewhere more secure than this location, and soon, my attention was going to be elsewhere and, unfortunately, Springer would be taking a distant back seat.
“To understand the enemy is to defeat them.”
“Are you just spewing words now? I was under the impression you thought zombies were mindless killing machines.”
“Candor is a sharp blade.” He stood.
“People say they want to hear the truth until confronted with it.”
“You’re a philosopher now, Talbot?” he asked.
“Breatines are not a well-liked creature throughout the cosmos.” Trip was lying down on a gurney, tossing peeps into the air and doing his best to catch them in his mouth. When he invariably missed, he would immediately hop up off the bed and shout: “Fourteen-second rule!” before squishing the treat with his sock-clad foot, picking it up and popping it into his mouth. I shivered thinking about the bacteria and whatever other super-bugs lurked on that surface
and now clung to his food.
“What?” I was mad at Trip for distracting me.
“Not relevant,” Tommy said. Very softly he added, “Yet.”
I let that part of the conversation slip over the top of my mind and out the other side.
“Far from it,” I said, referring to Bennington’s philosopher question, “but I do have a penchant for doing what I think is right.”
“What you think is right isn’t necessarily the correct answer.”
“You can twist words and avoid direct answers all day long, Colonel, but at the end of the day, you have a kid who trusted you and me implicitly and is now being used in an unfathomably cruel way. I would hope that if I were in a similar situation, someone I knew or respected would not leave me like that. I’d hope that they would do everything in their power to make sure I didn’t stay that way.”
“I won’t promise anything, Talbot, but I will think about it. Is that fair?”
“As long as you understand, I’m going to keep trying to find him.”
“Didn’t expect otherwise. And what about the promotion?”
“Fine.”
“Most are a little more excited when they get that kind of news.”
“Is a raise involved?”
“None of us are getting paid,” Bennington replied.
“So, what’s the reason for excitement? Who are you planning on naming as your new XO?”
“Interested?”
“Hell no. I already told you I have no interest in running this place. The only reason I’m taking this promotion is it gives me more clout when I’m representing my squad. And XOs are generally seen as the ‘bad cop’ in this dynamic. Plus, I am deeply anti-authority.”
“You don’t say. As for my XO, I was planning on talking to Major Dylan, know her?”
“I’ve run into her from time to time.” When push comes to shove, I can lie fairly decently, and he wasn’t my wife, so he wasn’t nearly as adept at picking up on my bullshit. “Works here, right?” Wasn’t sure if I should have kept pushing it, but I wasn’t known for my boundary restrictions. “What about Eastman or Overland? Or…what was that dick’s name who tried to have me court-martialed?”
“You mean Major Randing? Would you prefer I made him XO?”
“On second thought, scratch that.”
“It’s true the three you mentioned have more time in service than Major Dylan, but none of them would give up their command to take over the executive duties.”
“And a major at a hospital will? I would think she’d be pretty concerned about her patients.”
“That’s the beauty of it; she won’t need to leave here. The other three would not be able to leave base anymore.”
I wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to be a problem.
“Do you approve of my choice?”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine as long as I don’t run afoul of you or her.”
“Pfft,” Trip said. “What are the chances of that?”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” I told him.
“He wasn’t talking to you, Captain.” Tommy was smiling as he pointed to the ceiling, a peep was sitting halfway atop a ceiling fan blade.
The colonel walked over to me, took off the butter bars I had been wearing and pinned on the captain bars.
“Umm, probably should have mentioned this earlier, and I hope you don’t immediately take this brass off, but I left a trail of guards that are going to have some serious headaches upon waking.”
“I would have expected no less.”
“And if I may, sir, if you’re going to lay a false trap, maybe don’t have a man with a machine gun pointing it at me with his finger upon the trigger.”
“Blanks.”
“Excuse me?”
“It had blanks.”
“And if he started shooting those at me, what would have prevented me from pulling my sidearm and killing him with a live round?”
“You wouldn’t have.” He turned away; Tommy and I shared a glance. I wasn’t quite so sure about that. “You’re dismissed. Please take your colorful friend with you.” He clasped his hands behind his back and was staring out the window.
“Any chance you could give me a clue as to the whereabouts of Dewey?”
“Goodbye, Captain. And a word of advice, if you should come across that knowledge, I want you to be aware that next time, the guards will not be carrying blanks.”
“Come on, Trip.”
“We can’t just leave him behind.”
I knew he was talking about the peep and not the colonel.
“He’s safer up there than down here.”
“Bye, little guy.” He blew it a kiss.
There was a bunch of groaning coming from the corridor; luckily, they were in a hospital, help had been summoned, and the ones I’d interacted with were receiving medical attention for their injuries. Tommy’s were merely getting smelling salts.
“I bet you used to fix everything with a hammer.” BT was at the end of the hallway.
“Well, it was either fixed or beyond repair; either way, my job was done,” I told him.
“Subtle. You get the job done?”
“Wasn’t here, this was a decoy.”
“For what?”
“For these.” I flashed my new bars.
“So, you beat the shit out of five men and get a promotion? If that’s the case, I should be a four-star general. Now what?”
“We get the squad together and get up on the wall. Our fearless leader is going to add a little dynamite to the fire, and we’re going to be there to see if it explodes.”
“English, Talbot.”
“The colonel is sending the choppers in to disperse the crowd,” I told him.
“That’s not going to work.”
“Don’t I know it.”
We walked back to our home building; the whole excursion had seemed a bit surreal. I had truly thought I was going to be able to kill Dewey, maybe let Springer off the hook, and then I was figuring that I’d subsequently be standing trial for my treasonous acts. Instead, I’d made Captain. That was like getting pulled over for speeding through a red light and while the cop writes you a ticket, he discovers you’ve been drinking, but instead of arresting your delinquent ass, he gives you all the swell confiscated stuff he has stored up in his trunk. You know, bags of weed, beer taken from teenagers, maybe a bottle of opioids, yeah that kind of stuff.
When we got back, Stenzel was sitting at the table; she’d appropriated a scope from somewhere and was attaching it to her weapon. “Hey, LT,” she said without looking up.
“Ahem.”
“Huh?” She still didn’t look. “Want to get this just right.”
“Oh, hey, LT!” Rose had a brick of C4 in her hands and was heading out the door.
“Holy shit, sir! Who’d you steal those from?” Kirby asked as he saw my new insignia.
“I got promoted.”
“Really?” Stenzel turned around then. “Once we figured out where you were going…well, let’s just say we weren’t expecting that outcome.”
“Yeah, me neither. Kirby, could you round everyone up? I’d like to have a meeting here in the next fifteen.”
“Aye aye, El Capitan.” Kirby clicked his heels together and snapped off a salute.
“Get your ass out of here.” BT nearly threw him out of the room. “You do that silly shit again and I’ll make you wish you were walking the plank.”
I thought it was funny; BT, not so much.
It was Saturday, which meant absolutely nothing to me. What had arguably been my favorite day of the week for most of my life was now just like any other day. As a teen, and as a man in my early twenties, there was something magical about the day; you never really knew where it was going to go, what adventure you would be on, what people you would meet. It seemed to be a wide-open portal to endless possibilities. Then when adulthood had come crashing into the party, it had become a refuge from all those responsibi
lities, a chance to relax and unwind from the burdens, boredom and repetition of work. Sadly, now, the agenda was absolutely the same as every other day: survive. That was always the entire to-do list, the mission statement.
But Saturday did still contain a little bit of its magical qualities. It meant Tracy and the kids were here; I didn’t have to try and persuade her from going or keep her here under force, which would lead to me paying for the transgression for a good year, maybe more. Who am I kidding? It would basically be for the remainder of my natural and unnatural life. There were a couple of people, including Justin, who still weren’t here, either working or out doing errands, but I’d send people out to gather them soon enough.
“I’m glad I have you all here today,” Trip stated in an authoritative voice. “If I’m elected, I promise a gram of…”
“Trip,” I said.
“You’re right, you’re right, a gram isn’t enough. Two grams each really starts to break into my stash, though. But little kids don’t want grass, right? I mean, what are they going to do with it?”
I smiled at Stephanie as she moved past me to get her husband.
“We good?” I asked as a mumbling Trip sat down; he said something about fourscore and seven lines ago…I left it alone. “Okay, so here’s the deal, Bennington is starting the opening salvo against the zombies today.”
Wasn’t like this was a shock; with an amassing of zombies, something was bound to happen. That it hadn’t already was strange, but I figured I knew the reasons why. Still, though, there’s a difference; you can begin to get used to a status quo, even if it sucks. This invariably meant things were going to change; we were moving toward an active war zone—something we’d been able to avoid lately. When you’re living it, that’s one thing; you deal with it as it comes, but to have a reprieve and then once again be thrust into it, well, it tended to hit harder.
“I don’t know what this is going to lead to, but we need to be prepared. I’m going to the wall with a couple of people to observe firsthand. The rest will stay here.”
“And wait?” Tracy asked.
I shrugged, what else could we do? “And wait,” I echoed. Thought I might get some push back on that statement; there was a sense of relief mixed with concern when I didn’t.