by Mark Tufo
“Everyone get up,” I said shaking those who didn’t stir. If I had been that close to perpetual sleep than so were the rest. I kept shaking them. “Get up, it’s Christmas.”
I don’t know why I felt so jubilant, the last Christmas miracle I had heard of happened two thousand and ten years ago. Everyone had finally stirred and was looking at me with mixed results. Some irked that I had awoken them, others thankful, but all were wondering why I wore that idiotic grin. Tommy was still mourning Bear but apparently my grin was infectious because he began to don one himself.
“What’s going on here Talbot?” Paul asked.
“Yeah,” Erin piped in. “Do you know something we don’t?” she asked as she breathed warm air into her cold hands. Her movements were restricted from the bear hug she was enclosed in from Paul.
“Nothing’s going on,” I intoned, much to the chagrin of the crowd. “It’s just that it’s Christmas, we’re alive.”
“For how long?” Tracy threw in. I ignored the comment.
“I could go for some bacon,” Travis said.
“Oh yeah, and some of those cream cheese stuffed rolls Mom makes,” Nicole added.
“I could go for a beer,” Justin said, pulling his head off the floor. I looked at him sternly but secretly that sounded good. Lord knows that we were living in a refrigerator. We should get the benefit of its contents.
We passed a good portion of the day relating some of our fondest Christmas stories, even some of the worst, which elicited a lot of laughs. Tommy heard the noise first and pointed over to the eaves. I was about to ask him what he was pointing at and then the rest of us started picking it up, faint at first.
“Does that sound like bells to anyone?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah it’s Santa,” Tracy said sarcastically. She was having the toughest time throwing off her cloak of pessimism.
“That’s not bells,” Brendon said, “I lived long enough up in the mountains to tell that sound. It’s chains, tire chains,” he clarified excitedly.
The tire chain sound was immediately followed by the incessantly strong thrum of a large diesel engine and then a blaring horn. Whoever it was, wasn’t trying to hide their presence.
“Everyone, cover your ears,” I said as I grabbed the Benelli. It took three ear-blasting shots, from which I would lose a fair measure of hearing, before sunlight streamed in from above.
The hole was big enough for me to fit my head through, even with my inflated ego. I could see the giant semi heading up here from the direction of the clubhouse. It was slow going as it pushed zombies away with its giant plow. The truck body herked and jerked, whether from the contact with the zombies or an inexperienced driver I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care how Santa got here, just as long as he was on the way.
“What is it?” came the consensus questions from the attic.
“It’s Alex’ beautiful modified truck,” I shouted down triumphantly.
“Is it coming here?” Tracy asked hopefully.
I had just assumed it was, but there was no real reason to believe that. It was time to give it one.
“All right everyone, cover your ears again.” Two more blasts later and I had managed to get half my body through the hole. I felt like a cork in a wine bottle.
Paul had come up behind me. “Ever hear of Atkins, fat boy?” he asked sarcastically.
“Wonderful, everyone needs a smart ass, now push me through,” I said sourly.
Paul and Brendon each grabbed one of my legs and pushed. I popped out like a Mentos in Diet Coke. For one fateful second I thought I was going to tumble off the roof and into the gaggle of zombies below. Paul poked his head through just in time to see me come to a stop a mere foot away from the edge of the roof. The six inches of snow more than likely saved my life. If I had hit a clean roof, I would have bounced once and gone over the edge.
“Whoo, that was close,” Paul said, color coming back to his features.
I gingerly crawled back up to the hole. “You’re telling me.”
The horn blared again and the lights flashed on. No need to worry about being seen. The truck ambled up on to the lawn and stopped directly in front of our house. The window rolled down a few inches. Because of the way the light reflected off the glass, I still couldn’t make out who it was.
“Hey Gringo!” Alex shouted. “I knew your white ass was too tough for the zombies to eat.”
“Good to see you, my friend,” I said in vast relief. I felt like I had been holding it together fairly well, but the safety of my kids had my stress meter pegged. I finally felt like I could let the meter drop a notch or two. Although we were still far from safety at least now we had an option. “What are you doing here, I heard you pulling out when this thing started.”
“Damnedest thing!” Alex shouted. “I got this piercing pain in my head and then a message. I figured it was an angel telling me to save your Gringo ass. I just want you to know when you get down here and into the truck don’t expect a welcome wagon from my wife. She hasn’t spoken to me since I turned this thing around.”
Tommy had stuck his head through the makeshift exit hole, smiling, strawberry Pop-Tart smeared across his face.
“How, Tommy?” I said too softly for even my own ears to pick up. He was still smiling. I don’t know if I was asking how he summoned help or how he found a Pop-Tart.
“Happy Christmas, Mr. T,” Tommy waved. He was chagrined as a piece of his prized possession flung off his hand and into the snow. Again I had enough questions to flood Wikipedia for a month, but Alex’s next words brought my attention back around.
“How many of you are there?” Alex asked as tactfully as he could.
“Nine, my friend. Nine,” I said jubilantly. “And you?” I asked hopefully.
I received the universal thumbs up sign. “And thirteen more. I have handholds on the top, can you jump down?” Alex asked.
The truck trailer came up to just about the level of the second floor. Hanging down from the gutters, provided they held, would make the drop about two feet from shoe to roof. I couldn’t get the image of bouncing off the truck like rice on a drum out of my head. Vertigo had set in. I plopped on my butt. It seemed a safer bet than pitching over headfirst. The ladders would have been perfect right about now; unfortunately they were safely stowed away in the master bedroom.
“I’ll go first,” Paul said.
He inched down to the edge of the roof and then placed his right foot on the gutter and planted it. This allowed him to turn his body over. He slid feet first on his stomach, ever closer to the edge. I had a momentary irrational fear that I would never see him again. He was now just hands and a face, Kilroy with a beard. Then came the solid thud of contact.
“I’m good, bud. Start sending everyone else, and have them bring the rope,” Paul shouted.
My vertigo had eased but I was not yet ready to stand. Justin came through first, swaying to a beat almost matching my dizziness. Brendon passed Henry to him, nearly toppling him over. I scrambled to help Justin sit down on the roof in a controlled manner. Brendon apologized for his lack of foresight. Travis was next bringing some rope, followed by Tommy.
“Okay that’s enough for now,” I said through my circling haze, my fear being that if everyone was on the roof and someone lost their balance it would look like a bowling alley, and a strike would not be good right now.
“Justin, get yourself onto the truck. I’ll hand the rope down, you two get secured, and then I’ll send Tommy and then Henry.” I wanted Justin tied to something. His ashen features were not inspiring comfort.
Alex was watching over our egress off the roof and onto the truck with apprehension. Zombies had encircled the truck and were making a concerted effort to get into the rear where the survivors were. His wife Marta was sitting next to him and was gazing up at the roof, impatience radiating from her. It was when she spotted someone familiar that all other feelings were erased.
“Tommy?” she shouted.
“Hi Aunt Marta,” Tommy waved enthusiastically. “Want a Pop-Tart?”
I don’t know whose jaw dropped more, mine, Marta’s or Alex’. I just wished I had five full minutes to think this out, but our zombie hosts were not being overly gracious. If we didn’t leave now we might never get out. Within fifteen minutes we were all secured onto the top of the semi, the only close call coming when I tossed Henry down. He did not appreciate the gesture whatsoever and was squirming like a five-year-old in a dentist’s chair when Paul and Brendon caught him. Paul’s left foot briefly hovered in midair. The only thing keeping him from becoming Gravy Train for the zombies was the ½ inch mountaineer rope around his waist.
“See, Talbot!” Paul yelled. “This is just one more reason I hate dogs!”
I looked longingly back at the house I knew without a shadow of a doubt I would never see again. It wasn’t my dream home but it was home. We had shared a lot of laughter and love here. The past was laid to rest, good memories tucked in with bad. From the known to the unknown we would travel. Only God knew the outcome and He was on hiatus.
So ends the first Journal in the Zombie Fallout Trilogy. Look soon for excerpts from the second Journal and the further alternate realities of Michael Talbot.
Epilogue
The Canadian Incident
Just a moment’s preface on this, I’m going to include the actual story as reported in the Denver Post, page 23. (By the way, who reads that far into the newspaper?) I’m going to follow it up with what REALLY happened.
Local Man Accused of Smuggling Booze – Feb 23, 2000
As Reported by Aria Manuel
In what can only be described as an international incident harkening back to the days of moonshine runners and gun toting mobsters, local man Michael Talbot was arrested early Sunday morning on the Canadian – Vermont border. Michael, who was traveling with his wife and three small children, apparently used as cover, was pulled over by the border patrol on the Canadian side for a routine inspection before entering back into the United States.
Eyewitness Captain MacIntosh of the Royal Mounted Police had this to say. “So I motioned the accused to pull over so we could check his vehicle for any undeclared and illegal substances. We periodically choose cars at random to look for contraband. I noticed straight away the accused was extremely agitated and was becoming more hostile by the moment. When Mr. Talbot refused to get out of the car I had two of my deputies assist him. At this point Mr. Talbot became belligerent and punched one of the deputies in the nose, next thing I know he has PM Leonard in a choke hold.”
The Captain is referring to Prime Minister Charles C. Leonard the Third who was returning from New York City after attending a conference to improve trade relations between our two proud nations. The Prime Minister had stopped into the barracks on the Canadian side to see how his troops were holding up in the harsh weather the region had been experiencing recently.
“Somehow in the confusion, Mr. Talbot had obtained one of my deputy’s tasers and repeatedly pressed it into the PM’s side, I guess to keep him from getting away. Eventually some concerned citizens tackled Mr. Talbot from the back. The PM only suffered some minor injuries including a broken nose. Mr. Talbot was detained and his car searched. We found a trailer full of beer and a bag of marijuana. Mr. Talbot is being charged with smuggling, possession of drugs, kidnapping, resisting arrest, and assault. All of these penalties combined could mean a term of 25 years to life in our prison colonies.”
This incident sparked anger and outrage all across Canada as residents wanted to shut all borders to their rude and hostile southern neighbors. After further questioning and removal of the ‘evidence,’ Michael Talbot’s family was free to return to Colorado where they will await a trial date for their head of household who will remain in Canadian custody indefinitely.
Now for the ‘true’ version. Oh and by the way the retraction the Denver Post said they were going to print got bumped for a JC Penney ad, women’s shoes I think, way more important than my exoneration. (They lost my subscription FOREVER, and the Internet is much more up-to-date than that aging newspaper)
Okay, calm down Talbot. I’ll start from the beginning. Ever been in the car with three small children? If so, enough said. If not, just wait your turn, it’s coming. So the ride from Montreal to the border is somewhere in the hour and a half range and the kids in the backseat are going at it like there’s a championship trophy on the line. We’re still a couple of hours drive away from this awesome little bed and breakfast in Vermont where I had made reservations. We were on a family vacation that included stops in North Dakota (don’t ask, relatives on her side. I wouldn’t have stopped there if the car was on fire), Montreal, Vermont and then on to New Orleans before heading home. Tracy and I thought it would be a great experience to have the kids see the country by car ride, dumb asses that we were. So we were approaching the Canadian Border and there is a line easily a quarter mile long. The CRMP weren’t ‘randomly’ checking cars like their illustrious Captain said. They were checking every last one of them. I swear to this day it was a ploy for us to spend our money at their crappy little gift store before we hit the good old US of A. Yeah, couldn’t wait to buy a stupid stuffed moose that cost $22 and is made in China to put on my knick-knack shelf. So we’re sitting in the car for another hour and a half, easy. The kids have ratcheted up their squabbling to new and unusual heights. I’m a half-inch, or if you use the Canadian conversion, 1.25 centimeters away from blowing my stack. I had turned over my right shoulder to tell the kids for the four hundredth and seventy sixth time to SHUT UP. Okay, ‘be quiet’ for you non-capital punishment types. Suddenly Captain Custard comes knocking on my window with a flashlight. It was 10:00 in the morning. The sun was out for Fuck’s sake.
“What!” I yelled at him as I rolled the window down.
“Farkin Yankees, think they own the world! Step out of the car!” he shouted back.
Being from Boston I take serious offense to anyone accusing me of being a Yankee. Now deep down I know he didn’t mean it in the sports sense, but I was already irked to my limit and I let my mouth slip.
“Go Fark yourself!” I said back, borrowing his accent. He wasn’t amused. He motioned over to two deputies who came over and pulled me out through the window. They mashed my shoulder and then more importantly my ‘junk’ into the car door, and then unceremoniously deposited me on the ground. They laughed as they saw the damage the frozen dirty slush water did to my expensive jacket. I was indignant. Without even thinking I grabbed two handfuls of this dirty slush water and heaved it into the face of the unsuspecting deputy on the left; he also was not amused. I scrambled to get up as I saw him reaching for his Taser. I had been hit with one of those once, on a dare in college, and I was not going to let it happen again. I had regained my feet and was heading for the only cover I could think of, the crappy little gift store.
I could hear the deputy behind me wrestling with his Taser and ordering me to halt. I had just passed some man who, I was able to notice even in this awkward moment, had on a more expensive jacket than I did. I would have liked to ask him where he had gotten it but it didn’t seem prudent, given the circumstances. I had no sooner passed by this man, when out of the corner of my eye he started to collapse. I could see the two Taser leads hanging out from the front of his jacket. Maybe just a little higher than his stomach. I knew that shot was meant for me and felt guilty this man had ‘taken one’ for me. I stopped and got behind him, holding him up before he had fully dropped. His body was spasming from the current being forced into him from the bad aiming, forgetful deputy. The idiot was still holding down the discharge button even though he had the wrong person. By the time he had finally registered his error, the man in my arms was near to passing out.
In the meantime his partner, Deputy Dumber, had let fly his Taser prongs. They caught the man I would later learn was the prime minister in the cheek, and not the round curvy kind but the one on the side of his face. His teeth chattered fr
om the shock. Before he fully slipped out of my arms and onto the ground, I smelled the telltale sign of a man who had unwillingly lost consciousness. His bowels released like a torrent. I almost threw up over his expensive cashmere jacket. As I gently laid the man down, realizing there was nothing more I could do for him, I stumbled over a small child exiting the bathroom and fell over. Deputy Dipshit and his partner were on me in a heartbeat. Even while I was being wrestled into handcuffs, I noticed the leggy blond administering to the man on the ground. I would have had to be in his condition not to notice her. She was smoking hot and half his age. As for the ‘trailer full of beer,’ well that would have been some neat trick considering I didn’t have a trailer; it was three cases of Molson Canadian. So you’re saying to yourself, why bother, you can get that in the States. Well, the answer to that is yes and no. You can get Molson Canadian, but number one it’s not as fresh, and number two, Canada brews its beers under different regulations. It has a stronger alcohol content and it just tastes better. If you’ve never had beer in Canada then that is something you should put on your ‘bucket list,’ that is if they are still making beer since the zombpocalypse. As for the ‘bag of weed,’ their version of CSI or The Anal Retentive Squad as I like to call them, had to use tweezers and a magnifying glass to pull out this minuscule piece of a roach embedded in my carpet from who knows when. If there were two shreds of marijuana leaf in that thing I would have been amazed. So the deputies couldn’t back down; the idiots had twice tased their leader and that wasn’t going to look good on their permanent records. Better to fry an innocent than lose your pension. I sat in jail for over forty-eight hours before all charges against me were dropped. The reason? Well you know how I had been telling you that my kids were fighting? Well it seems they were fighting over using the video camera. Who knew? Justin caught the whole thing on tape: First the cops overreacting and pulling me out of the car, the whole taser fiasco and the coup de grace, the leggy blonde (who by the way was not the Prime Minister’s wife). Everyone felt it was in everyone else’s best interest if the whole case was dismissed. I, however, was still pissed about losing the three cases of beer. The trip was over when I got released from jail. Tracy was furious that I had put on that kind of display in front of the kids. They, on the other hand, thought it was cool. The ride back to Colorado was monotonous. The kids didn’t even fight. They were too scared. Tracy was melting the car seats with the anger that exuded from her. I broke a ton of land speed records getting back home, the quicker to be out of arms length and harm’s way. It all worked out in the end, and Tracy eventually forgave me, but she never did forget. I bought Justin a Nintendo GameCube for his excellent film work.