by Mark Tufo
I went to the fridge and poured a glass of milk. I wanted to go through the perishables before they went bad. “Want some?” I asked Travis before I put it away.
He shook his head no, that was of course until he saw my secret stash of white fudge covered Oreos. We sat in silence for a few moments, relishing in the moment. Cold milk and Oreos, father and son, it could have been a commercial except for maybe the darkness and the threat of being eaten alive. Yeah, Nabisco probably wouldn’t be knocking on our door anytime soon. I sat back, my stomach content, hands on my belly. Travis looked over at me in alarm.
“You’re not gonna rip again are you?” he asked genuine concern across his face.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The last time I had been that busted, my mother had walked in on me just after the newest National Geographic had arrived. There was no such thing as the Internet back then! I was 13. Stop being judgmental.
“No, I’m good now,” I said patting my belly. “I’d been working on that one for a while. Should be good to go now, although I think I blew a hole in the back of my pants.” Travis laughed. It was good to see him do that.
“Dad.”
I stopped smiling. I knew there was something on his mind but I was going to let him get to it when he was good and ready.
He continued. “I miss school. Stop giving me that look, I don’t miss geometry, I miss my friends. I might even miss a teacher or two.”
I knew how he felt. He missed the routine of a normal life, something that I didn’t think we would ever find again. I couldn’t assure him that his friends would be all right or that things would eventually return to normal. Those would be empty promises, and he’d know it for what it was. I could promise him that we’d be okay. I would pass on the hope that Tommy had given to me. I reached over and hugged my youngest son for all I was worth. As I released him I spoke in his ear.
“If you tell your mother what I did down here, I will disown you.”
“Yeah if I’d known you were going to do that I wouldn’t have helped you make the house airtight,” he said as he pointed to the plastic covering the kitchen window.
Some early morning light was diffused through the opaque bag, but most of the ambient lighting came through the upper right hand corner where the bag had become detached. It was something about that little patch of light that warmed my heart, the dawning of a new day, it just felt good, new hope and all that. Believe me when I say Tommy was the only one blessed in this house with the gift of foresight. If I had known how the rest of this day was going to turn out I wouldn’t have gotten up to take that damn leak.
“Hey Bear!” I heard Travis say behind me.
Sometime while I was zoning out the giant dog had made its way downstairs. Travis was busy giving the big guy an ear scratch as Bear happily finished off an Oreo that he had given him. No sooner had Bear finished the Oreo than he pivoted his head towards me. The train-like rumbling that emanated from his throat would have evacuated my bladder had I not taken care of that earlier.
“Whoa, Bear,” I said as I put my hands up. If he had turned, I was screwed. I hadn’t even thought to take a gun with me and my son was right next to him. “Take it easy, boy.” The hair on Bear’s back was standing straight up. His posture changed as he went from happy-go-lucky, to on the verge of attack, and he was looking at me. Trying to erase any signs of fear from my voice, not wanting to give the dog any ammunition, so to speak, I spoke to Travis. “Get up and out of here as slowly as you can. When you get to the stairs, haul ass and get help and guns.” I wasn’t thrilled about alerting the zombies to our presence with gunfire but that couldn’t be helped at the moment. That prospect was a whole lot more appealing than having to fight off a miniature grizzly bear. Who was going to win the fight was a foregone conclusion. How long I was going to last was open to debate.
“Bear’s not going to hurt you, Dad,” Travis said without much conviction in his voice.
‘Yeah, he’s gonna kill me.’ I thought sourly.
“Get out of here Trav,” I said through gritted teeth. I wanted my son out of harm’s way and I didn’t want him to see me get ripped apart either. Bear didn’t so much as blink when Travis loudly squealed his chair as he pushed away from the table. “That’s a good boy, Bear.”
His uncropped tail didn’t move, it was pointed straight back, the slight curve gave it the appearance of a furry sword. Everything about this dog pointed to menace. Its lips pulled back to reveal inch long canines, drool flowed from its maw. Hair bristled, its haunches coiled low, ready to pounce. I needed my son to get out of here before my legs gave way. They were shaking that much. Travis had made it to the entryway in the kitchen and glanced back once to look at me. I hoped it wasn’t the last time he saw me alive. As Travis rounded the corner, I heard him run up the stairs, I was guesstimating that help was ten or fifteen seconds away, Bear was positioned to strike, now. I moved slightly to my left hoping to get within range of the knife stand. Either the damn dog had extrasensory powers and knew what I was about to do or my number had finally come up. He lunged. I pushed over all the way to the left, my hand grasping wildly for anything that could be used for defense, my hand gripped tightly on a dishtowel. My brain had no true higher function. I was on the lowest plain of thought, SURVIVAL. I whipped that towel out in front of me, ready to deliver one hell of a bullwhip crack. I braced for an impact that never came. Bear had jumped up and put his large fore paws on the counter by the kitchen sink. His gaze riveted to the kitchen window. I was praising any deity that would listen for sparing my life. Help was bounding down the stairs. I looked to my hands and my ineffectual weapon and dropped it lest I got caught with it. Justin was first around the corner, .357 waving wildly, his fever-racked body barely able to hold the weapon.
“Hold on!” I said putting my hands up as I stood up and stepped in front of Bear.
I was as much in danger from that wildly swinging muzzle as Bear was. Justin looked confused. He had been sleeping soundly when the call for help had come. He wasn’t even clear about where the help was to be directed. He was moving quickly from the sleeping world into the waking one but not at a speed quick enough to avert a potential disaster.
“Justin!” I yelled, “It’s all right, put the gun down!”
He wasn’t convinced. “You sure?”
“No,” I answered. “I mean, in the immediate yes, but something is going on.”
I moved slowly away from my blocking position of Bear’s back. He still had not moved, his gaze fixated on the window, his muzzle pulled back in a wicked snarl. I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t want to look through that window. It was an omen of bad things to come, a window into the unfathomable, a gaping wound in the fabric of humanity. Use whatever adjectives you want, it was all of those things. I climbed onto the kitchen counter. Bear managed a sidelong glance at me as I brushed past his enormously large teeth. The big bad wolf had nothing on this dog. I took a deep breath as I began to move closer to the gap caused by the bad tape job. I became enraged for a moment at who had put this bag up and their shoddy workmanship. I wanted to get down off this counter and ‘give it’ to whoever had not been able to tape a bag up correctly, as if this was the cause of all our ills, as if this small hole had manifested whatever demons were lying in wait outside. But I knew that was ridiculous, it was just a stalling tactic. I didn’t want to see what had to be out there. It was Fritzy and he was going to exact his own revenge. I moved closer to the triangular shaped opening, convinced that a cold flat black eye would be staring back at me.
Or it could be even worse than Fritzy. The zombie girl was standing alone in my backyard signaling me to open the back door, and she wanted me to one by one send out my family and friends. She wanted me to watch as each person I loved and cherished in this world was torn asunder. She would laugh as she tore each of their throats open, drinking greedily of their lives. I shook, and Bear whined.
“What is it Mike?” Tracy asked as she came up to the counter and began abs
ently stroking Bear’s raised mane.
I shook my head trying to clear away the malignant thoughts. “Uh, I don’t know.” I didn’t want to tell her what I imagined was out there or that I hadn’t built up enough courage to look.
And in her typical pragmatic way she said. “Well don’t you think you should find out?”
I wanted to yell, ‘Why don’t you fucken climb up here and find out for yourself! Because I think it’s either the fucken crazy guy I murdered yesterday coming back to take me with him into the seventh circle of hell or it’s my zombie girlfriend come to give everyone I love the kiss of death!’ But instead of the histrionics I merely answered with “Yes dear.” It seemed more appropriate.
For the fourth, fifth…tenth time I took a calming deep breath. Whoever tells you that works wonders is full of crap. It did nothing but more fully oxygenate my overactive imagination, like putting gasoline on a tire fire. By now the entire population of the house was in the kitchen, armed to the gills, and all eyes were on me. I put my right eye to the hole. What I saw perplexed the hell out of me. I saw…nothing. Well I mean not exactly nothing, there was the grill, the bench swing, Henry’s sunbathing couch, a snow shovel leaning up against the garage. I guess what I meant to say was there was nothing out of the ordinary. I pulled more of the bag down so I could survey the ground. The snow was as fresh as when it had fallen. There were no foreboding footsteps leading up to the backdoor, no drops of blood from a vengeful specter.
The gate had not been opened or it would have left the telltale signs in the snow. There was no valid reason as to why Bear had behaved the way he had. I was about to re-adhere the bag when I noticed a bit of snow falling. That doesn’t mean too much in the middle of winter in Colorado, but the day was sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. The snow had fallen off the fence that separated my yard from Techno Neighbor’s. Something had bumped up against it and in turn had knocked off some of the snow that had accumulated on the pickets and supports. I still had no reason to be overly alarmed, but Bear had already set the precedent. No sooner had the unsettled snow landed softly in my yard than the fence came crashing down into my grill, knocking it over. The noise was phenomenally loud. I hopped off the counter, not taking my eyes off the developing scene in the backyard.
“Mike, what the hell is going on?” Tracy asked. She couldn’t see what was happening from her vantage point.
“Uh, zombies,” I said flatly.
Zombies were pouring into my yard through the busted fence. I was half tempted to go out there and yell at them for messing up my grill. I loved that thing, the Char-Broil Master Smoker. I had paid good money for that when I was still earning a decent paycheck and to see it just get trampled like that pissed me off.
“Uh, Mike are the back doors locked?” Paul asked.
My eyes went to the back door. That was the weak link in all of this. I swore at myself for having not gotten around to fixing that. I just always assumed the gate would hold, and technically it did. It was the freaken fence that had let me down.
“Mike?” Paul asked again.
“Yeah they’re locked, but they wouldn’t hold back a determined woodchuck if he wanted to get in,” I answered. It was time for action, not reflection. “All right everybody, grab whatever you can out of the fridge and under the cupboards and head upstairs.”
Luckily not everyone gets as lost in their thoughts like I do. The kitchen was bustling with activity. Nobody stopped for more than a second or two to realize just how close the zombies were. Bear and I went into the living area to keep an eye on the back door and to also get out of the way while the kitchen was quickly emptied of food. Everyone stopped when the first body impacted with the door, their heads jerking up, their backs ramrod stiff. It looked like a pack of meercats when a threat is detected. I flipped off my safety; Bear got into his pouncing pose that I had just recently learned. “No, Bear,” I admonished him. “You go with the boys.” I was happy when he didn’t abandon his post, but I still didn’t want him here.
“Tommy!” I yelled without pulling my eyes away from the creaking door.
“Yeaf?” he asked, standing up from under the cupboards. I had to look, his arms were full of boxes of Pop-Tarts and to lighten his load he was halfway through one.
“Take Bear and yourself and go upstairs,” I told him.
His face fell a little as he began to put down the Pop-Tart boxes.
“And the Pop-Tarts too,” I told him.
His strawberry-laced teeth smiled brightly. “Come onf Bearf,” he said.
Bear looked once at me, back at the door and headed upstairs with Tommy.
The whole doorframe shook from the next hit.
“Tracy, how much longer?” I asked, backing a step or two away from the doors.
“Couple of minutes at the most, I’m boxing up the rest of it and waiting for some help to get it upstairs.”
“Don’t have a couple of minutes, carry what you can now and get going.”
“But...” she started.
“Hon, we won’t live or die if the ramen doesn’t make it up. On the other hand...” I motioned towards the door.
I received a withering look worthy of a much larger offense. I took it in stride. Zombies at the door trumped pissed off wife. Tracy had left the kitchen and I was planning on being right behind her. I had no sooner entered the kitchen when the French doors gave, typical French, must have been the same makers as the Maginot Line, ‘strategically ineffective.’ The doors crashed into the wall with enough force to break the drywall. Honest to God, my first thought was how much drywall repair mud did I have in the basement, again with the resale value. Zombies were coming through like Holiday shoppers on Black Friday at a Best Buy with 50 inch plasma televisions on sale. It was pandemonium. More were getting crushed than making any forward progress. I didn’t help matters as the world’s worst doorman. I opened fire. The .357 that I had snagged from Justin earlier was deafening in the crowded space. Four out of my five shots were kills. The fifth did more drywall damage, dammit. No bullets, no time, I was out of the kitchen, down the hallway and making the turn to go upstairs when I caught a glimpse of light brown. I halted in my tracks, one foot on the landing, one on the back hallway. Tracy was looking down from the top of the stairs.
“What are you doing Talbot?” she screamed.
“It’s Henry!” I shouted back up.
Tracy loved Henry, no doubt about it. She loved him like any good dog owner should, but that’s the difference between us. To her, Henry is a warm lovable, cuter than all get out, DOG. To me though, Henry was my fourth kid, well fifth now, I’m counting Tommy too. I couldn’t leave him behind. No bullets, check. Zombies coming down the hallway, check. Henry under the coffee table, check. Crappy checklist, all in all. I tucked the gun in my waistband, thankful there were no more rounds in it. I’m not the smallest endowed man in the world but I still didn’t feel like I had enough to spare. I ran to the coffee table and dove down. The first of the zombies had made it to the end of the hallway and was now turning into my living room. I know up to this point I have labeled Henry as this big fat mush bag. To be honest he is lazy and he does have a lot of extra skin, which makes him look fat. But he is 65 pounds of pure stubborn muscle. If he doesn’t want to do something, that’s pretty much the end of the discussion. I tried to pull him out from under the table. He dug his paws in. Wonderful! I had lost enough battles with him trying to trim his nails or give him a bath. It was time the home team won. I booted over the coffee table; Henry was momentarily surprised as his cover was exposed. I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder like a sack of flour. I was going to need a good chiropractor after this. Too late, three zombies were closing in, the room was only 12 by 15 and it had furniture. There weren’t a lot of options for evasion. I’d like to say there was a ‘face off’ but the zombies take that stuff way too literally. I had to try to get out while there was still the possibility of success. I stiff armed the first one, and was about to duck un
der the second one’s outstretched arms when the Benelli shot gun made its triumphant roar. It was the ‘whoomp’ and thud afterwards that had me confused. The zombie I had previously stiff-armed was crumpled in a corner. It was still moving but having a difficult time standing back up with a ruined spine, which I could see because the 12 gauge had ripped a hole through its side.
More zombies were making their way into the living room and I was only halfway across. I was waiting for the Benelli to speak up again. I looked over to the landing and saw Nicole in the process of getting back up. The shotgun had literally put her on her ass. ‘Really!?’was all I could think to myself. Nicole with a shotgun was akin to a 6-year old with a lighter and gasoline, no good could come from it. I watched in fascinated horror as Nicole this time propped her back up against the wall, I wanted to shout ‘don’t do it’ to her but it was too late. The shotgun reverberated and the only noise that could possibly be louder was Nicole’s screams of pain as she dropped the shotgun with her now battered shoulder. It was over, I had five or six zombies between me and the stairs and a few were now peeling off towards Nicole. I had barred windows to my right and a knee-high wall to my left, but that room was now home to at least twenty of the foul creatures. Henry was panting like he had walked one hundred yards, which for him was a lot of exercise. I thought at one point I was bleeding but it was Henry’s drool running down my back. Not a pleasant sensation. Through the crowd I saw Nicole get physically wrenched from her spot, pretty sure it was Paul or maybe Brendon, didn’t matter, the only thing that registered was that my baby girl was safe. Then out of the gloom from the stairs came the familiar sound of the M-16, rounds were flying wildly. More than once I felt the heat of a shot pass by my head. I dropped down to a crouch, duck walking my way towards freedom. Justin with the M-16 was almost as scary as Nicole with the shotgun. The noise did have one bonus, the zombies forgot about me and were converging on Justin. The problem, however, was that they were going exactly where I needed to be.