Zombie Fallout | Book 14 | The Trembling Path

by Tufo, Mark

  “You hit?” I asked, we kept running.

  “I don’t think so.” We both turned to see the carnage; the bulker’s lower half was a shredded ruin. Intestines were spooling from his crotch, giant thigh muscles were curled over and hanging down to his ankles. It still tried to move, despite not having a single working muscle in its legs to use. It fell as zombies smacked into it and knocked it over. The rest of the group was heading out a door on the far side of the hallway—Except for BT. He was waiting.

  “Go!” I waved with my hand.

  “Not a fucking chance. I’m making sure you’re coming with me!”

  A few seconds later he was ushering us through; I was surprised to see Tommy there.

  “Keep going, leaving a surprise,” he said as he messed with the door.

  “Hope it’s better than the last one,” I said as we took the stairs three at a time.

  “It was an accident!” Kirby offered.

  Was just stepping out into the alleyway when we heard the explosion. We could finally see our building; Grimm was up on the roof waving us on.

  “Better hurry up,” came over my headset.

  “As opposed to our typical stroll along the beach?” Stenzel responded. She sounded pissed.

  “You can give me all the sarcasm you want, not going to bother the hundred zombies getting ready to cut you off,” he told her and all of us.

  “Screw the choke point—no time. Up the wall.” I was referring to the corrugated metal plate sheeting to our right. It was nine feet tall and reinforced with junk cars behind for added stability. In addition, some spots had razor wire; we’d not had enough to do the entirety around our building, only in the most vulnerable—this being one of them. “BT, help Tommy up. Sorry kid,” I told him.

  He was going to have fifty slices in his legs before this little detour was over. Then Gary came to the rescue; he must have been running faster than he ever had before. He climbed up the van on the other side and draped a heavy comforter over the coiled wire, just as Tommy was lifted into the air, then, Gary selflessly laid his body on top, compressing the coil down. Tommy straddled him, one foot resting on top of the wall, the other on the column it was adhered to. BT tossed Hannah so hard she almost sailed up and over Tommy. Justin was next.

  “I’d appreciate not attaining orbit,” he said as he stepped into BT’s cupped hands.

  “Get a move on.” I’d been watching the action down the street and now the action was watching us.

  “Fucking, ouch.” An errant barb had snagged Justin.

  “Kirby, you’re next!” I had my rifle up, but I didn’t have many rounds left. “I want to make sure his ass lives so I can kill him for almost blowing me up!”

  I took five shots, five zombies dropped. Didn’t matter; they were quickly trampled underfoot.

  “Mike, time to go!” BT shouted, having seen the same thing I did.

  I got close to the wall and down on all fours. BT stepped on my back, and grabbed the lip of the wall as Tommy reached down and grabbed his belt. I heard the van buckle under his weight as he got onto the other side. I jumped up, Tommy grabbing my outstretched hand and hoisting me quickly just as the zombies got there. I didn’t bother looking back, I’d seen enough of them for the day, didn’t look like they thought the same about me. I jumped down onto the roof of the van; Tommy followed. We helped Gary up.

  “Thanks, brother. Nice work with the comforter.”

  “Speaking of that, I’m going to need you to run interference.” He’d attempted to pull it free; it instead tore in a few dozen spots, goose feathers rained down like a heavy snowfall.

  “Please tell me that’s not mine.” I was looking at it. As far as comforters went, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. They were way too thick and hot to sleep under. Tracy, though, for whatever reason, loved the damn things. I had been bringing them back from raids ever since we’d started going out of the gates like some caveman offering his mate a nice bear pelt. Was the seventh or eighth one before I’d finally found one she liked.

  “I heard what you were going to do; I planned on just jumping onto the wire then I saw this on the bed as I was running past.”

  “Oh, my dearest brother, I loved you…well, like a brother. I’ll honor your memory.”

  “That was Tracy’s? Dead man walking!” BT bellowed.

  Gary, hero of the day, became a pariah as everyone that knew what was going on stayed away from him, fearful of any collateral fall-out from my wife. There was a part of me that needed to lie down, to recover from this day. I’d danced up close and personal to death for too many songs, and my body was drained. Then there was the adrenaline exhaustion from the fear of Justin being in danger. I needed a drink, a cry, and an hour-long shower followed immediately by ten hours of sleep. What I got were five full magazines and the “opportunity” to kill more zombies. There was no joy as I went through the systematic acquisition of a target and the subsequent removal of the threat. I used to find a zen-like quality in shooting targets; this was not like that. My nerves were shot. I guess, to look at me, you would have never thought it. My form was rock solid, my hands did not tremble, my barrel did not waver, even as I thought on all that could have gone wrong with the day. My mind was an electrical storm, burning ozone; where it struck, a piece of my brain would fry.

  12

  Mike Journal Entry 10

  It was another eight hours until the zombie invasion was quelled; our location had never been truly tested. Not to say we hadn’t killed five hundred or so of the smelly bastards, but there had been no concerted effort to break through. Obviously, in one aspect, that was great, but a more difficult test would have shown where we were weakest. Having a stress test performed during a live-fire was not the optimal way. As brutal as this attack had been, it was an opening salvo, a way to test our defenses, it was a probe. Those zombies had been sent in knowing they weren’t coming out; good to see their command thought as little of foot soldiers as most commands do. We had that in common. No one had come up with how the zombies had gotten in, that was troubling, something to figure out tomorrow. Did a once around; everyone was here, accounted for and undamaged, physically. That was all I could ask for. As I went back upstairs, didn’t even bother stripping down. I fell on to the bed and slept.

  It was early morning when I awoke; I’d been pushed to the edge of the bed, Chloe and Holly had somehow got in with me without my knowing. Riley, Henry, and Ben-Ben were on the floor atop an oversized dog bed, which was a considerable foam mattress. Chloe was watching me as I rolled out of bed.

  “Holy shit, I stink.” I could hear a few people moving about, but like me, they were attempting to be quiet so as not to disturb others. I decided to head for the roof, soak up some sun, see if the day could start out decent and stay that way. I opened the door and was surprised to see Tracy sitting on a lawn chair, facing the rising sun.

  “Hey,” I said as I came up behind her. She didn’t say anything at first; I was worried I might have awakened her.

  “How close was it yesterday?” she asked without looking.

  My squad and I had an unspoken agreement, we didn’t discuss the close calls. There was no sense to it; all it did was worry our loved ones at home. We generally spoke in vagaries and glossed over the lowlights. “What are you talking about? Had it under control the entire time, well most of the time.”

  She turned to look at me, even lowered her sunglasses so she could see me better, kind of reminded me of being in trouble at school. “BT told me.”

  “Bullshit.” BT would have never crossed this line; it was completely off-limits.

  “Just because you were sleeping that of the dead, doesn’t mean we all were. He was crying out in his sleep. Night terrors. Very specific night terrors.”

  “You can’t hold dreams…”

  “Stop, Mike. Don’t try and mislead or distract me from the truth. We’ve been married too long for that.”

  I sought a different tactic. “I was saving our son.
” Should have been a get out of jail free card, and it appeared to be working.

  “Want to know how I know when it’s been bad?”

  I sat down next to her as she was ruminating.

  “The dogs.”

  “Huh?”

  “They crowd around you. I had to fight for a spot on the bed last night; they wouldn’t leave your side. I even tried to bribe Ben-Ben with bacon.”

  “He didn’t move for bacon? I find that hard to believe.”

  “It’s Ben-Ben; eventually he did, but you could see he was definitely torn.”

  “Even I can’t beat bacon.” I wanted to smile; my lips made the motion, but my eyes didn’t respond in kind.

  “Mike.” There was a defeated flatness to it, something I wasn’t used to, and it was setting a strange tone to the beautiful blue-sky morning.

  “Do you want to know? What’s that going to accomplish?”

  “I need to know what’s going on in that head of yours, I do. They don’t see the man breaking down like I do. The slow circling of despair.”

  My mouth opened to protest, but this was the same person that had seen me on the ground, sobbing into the fur of my dogs.

  “This affects you, it affects me.” She didn’t say anything else, her gaze never wavering as she looked at me. I wanted to turn away, to make a joke, something. The hard truth is not normally my go-to.

  I didn’t blink, I steadied my psyche. “I should be dead.”

  She gasped as if she’d been holding a breath and had just resurfaced from being underwater.

  “Please don’t ask me how or why. I lived it and I don’t want to relive it.” I most definitely didn’t want to rehash it; didn’t mean my mind wasn’t going to put this on a continuous loop like a Billboard number one hit in the middle of summer.

  “We should have left when you offered.” She turned back to the sun and lowered her glasses; I think I saw the beginning of a tear in the corner of her eye before she did so.

  “I don’t think it would have mattered; this is the world now.”

  “I can’t lose you,” she said. “And I’m afraid…I can see the changes in you. The smile that slides off your face when you think no one is watching. The way you clench your fists under the table like you’re doing everything you can to hold it together, to stay in control. You’re not as careful with your tells as you would like to believe.”

  “Obviously.”

  “You’re here, but some of you isn’t. Not any more.”

  It was horrible to think my body was that much stronger than my mind. She was right, of course; physically, I was tough to kill. The lasting damage was going to come from within. At this point, I didn’t know what would help. More fighting would mean less time to think, but an extended reprieve, while resting my body would give me time to reflect. I couldn’t imagine the latter would happen any time soon or even work out that well. Chances are, if I had any real time away from it, I wouldn't be in a rush to ever go back. What could I tell her that she wanted to hear and wouldn’t think was absolute bullshit? Nothing. So that was what I did. I pulled up a chair, sat down next to her and grabbed her hand. We sat in a comfortable silence. I had to think she knew the spot she'd put me in and that there was no easy way out. It was getting later in the morning; a few people came up to either say hi or drink some coffee, sometimes both. Had to have been around ten when BT showed up. Tracy and I hadn’t moved much; she’d fallen asleep, most likely making up for the sleep she’d lost last night. BT made sure to pull a total eclipse by stepping in front of me. He motioned for me to follow. I made sure to position Tracy’s sun hat so she didn’t burn before I left.

  “What’s up?” I asked when we got to the far side of the roof.

  “I don’t give a fuck who sees this,” he prefaced his next action.

  “What?” Then I found myself buried in the man’s chest as he hugged me tightly. He let go after a few moments. “The Marines don’t allow fraternization between enlisted and officers.”

  “And that’s what I get for showing emotion. Should have known.”

  “Sorry—you know my modus operandi. Bad dreams?”

  He looked at me funny. “Yeah, bad day, bad dreams.”

  “Yesterday happened. It’s done. Let’s do our best to leave it behind.” That was as much for him as it was me. Love how easily the words rolled off my tongue when help was offered for others; when the hell was I going to take my own advice?

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “Isn’t it? What can we change about it? What in the fuck good is it going to do, constantly going over the ‘what-ifs’ or ‘could have happeneds’? I’m so sick of my mind finding a way to undermine me. Not bad enough ninety-nine percent of the world is trying to kill us, I’ve got to pound in the final nail myself for good measure.”

  “Sore spot?”

  “Little bit. Thanks for the hug, man. I want to give you shit about it, almost need to, but it helped. Sometimes it's just the human contact, keeps you grounded.”

  “You know if you tell anyone, I’ll deny it and then I’ll punch you.”

  “I know. Come on, let’s see if Trip has any pills we could borrow.”

  “The fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Shorter list would be what’s right? We should get the squad together, get a list made of what we need and what we need to fix.”

  “Most are eating breakfast; say about a half-hour?”

  “Works for me. I love you, brother,” I told him. He looked at me for a few moments, he answered with a nod, his lips pressed tight before he walked away. The day had started off better than could be expected and took a hard nosedive almost immediately. I was walking around the perimeter of the roof, enjoying the sun, working off some nervous energy when I heard trucks coming, two of them.

  “This better be my street sweeper.” They pulled up to the beginning of the funnel trap. Grimm was operating the gate, Kirby off to the side. I saw Master Sergeant Wassau step out. The only reason I could figure he needed two trucks was for him, Sorrens and Sorrens’ collection.

  Stenzel came out onto the roof, almost immediately. “You’re going to want these, sir.” She said as she handed me a headset.

  “Need to talk to the captain,” Grimm had stated to whatever question Wassau had posed.

  “I’m here. What’s he want, Grimm?”

  “Can I let Kirby tell you? He’s always the one in trouble anyway.”

  “Fuck you, Grimm,” Kirby said.

  “Grimm, you want to keep that new stripe I just gave you?” I asked.

  “Might lose it no matter what I say or don’t.”

  “Grimm.”

  “The master sergeant is ready to take you up on your offer and stay here.”

  “Okay.”

  “He brought his prisoners with him.”

  My stomach felt like it was being flushed with Drano. “No, Grimm. Not only no, but fuck no.” I was on my way down to the checkpoint. “You shoot him. Blow the fucking truck up if you need to.”

  “Seems a little excessive, sir,” he stated.

  “Then tell Kirby to—he’ll do it.”

  “Fucking-A I will,” Kirby said.

  “Captain says no,” Grimm told Wassau. I could hear the man getting agitated in the background; not many in the Corps told a Master Sergeant no, not even officers. and especially not some grunt gate guard.

  I got there before Kirby had a chance to put an RPG round through the side of the truck, so that’s on me. I should have taken longer.

  “Captain,” Wassau managed to say the word, though his lips were so tightly pressed together he only got one syllable. I was surprised that the sound could get past at all. “You promised me a spot.”

  “That I did. You and Sorrens, the entire force. It was not a plus fifteen.”

  “These men and women are under my care.”

  “Okay,” I told him.

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “Who do you have in there?”
<
br />   “You know who I have in there.”

  “I know about one of them, and, really, that’s enough. But the others?”

  “Okay, we’ll play. I have a Sergeant Grell…”

  “Nope, don’t give a shit about names. Let’s go with: why do you have them in your custody for six-hundred, Alex?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Captain, it’s unprofessional.”

  “Serious as I can be, Master Sergeant. Why do you have these people in your custody? I would think anyone, with, say, a public intoxication or minor vandalism would have been set free the moment hostilities started, so that means whoever you have in those trucks are above your average mailbox destruction types.”

  “It’s only one truck—ten prisoners. The other is supplies so that we don’t drain your resources.”

  “I’m entirely too familiar with one of your prisoners. How about the other nine?”

  Wassau said nothing.

  “Murderers?”

  Nothing.

  “Rapists?”

  A whole bunch of crickets in the distance.

  “Murdering rapists? Obviously, you’re not going to tell me. But if that’s the case, Wassau, fuck em. They deserve whatever fate they have coming to them. If you think I’m allowing those deviants into our place, where our kids, our families, live, you’ve lost your fucking mind. In my eyes, they deserved a bullet the moment they committed those crimes, they will find no safe harbor here.”