by Mark Tufo
BT was moving the furniture away from the door, as it was our only egress. Smoke was beginning to billow.
“Who authorized the fire?” Knox was shouting. “I’ll string them up for sedition!”
“Why would anyone follow that man?” I asked as I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose in a vain attempt to filter out the worst of it. “Everyone get on your hands and knees,” I instructed, the air was somewhat better down there, but our options were becoming limited. We were in a very real danger of succumbing to a smoky end, in a few more seconds we wouldn’t be able to find the door either. I reached up and twisted the handle. The rats were almost as surprised as I was. I was staring at hundreds of greedy, beady, hungry eyes. They desperately wanted to reduce me into kibble-sized snacks but they couldn’t get at me. Fear of fire is a primal instinct–one not easily trained out. As smoke poured forth from that door, they began to vacate in droves. Those that didn’t, I was swinging my rifle at and sometimes I would connect with a satisfying crunch of delicate bones. The problem was they weren’t skittering like the ship was sinking, they were only backing up as far as the smoke reached, which was going to make our hasty departure anything but. Tommy tossed his flare down the hallway and again, they scattered.
“Won’t they already have this place surrounded?” BT asked as we made it to the stairwell.
That was a safe assumption. “We need to break into another apartment on this floor, and go out another fire escape. It’ll give us a couple of seconds; they have to be expecting us to come out on the ground floor,” I said.
“You sure about that?”
“No.”
“Just checking,” he said. As we came back out of the stairwell, he easily shouldered an apartment door open. The stench was unmistakable; we were in zombie-controlled territory. We had our first piece of luck in the fact that the three zombies residing in this apartment were from the beginning–that is, they were slow, mostly uncoordinated, and emaciated. I noticed the carcass of at least one dog and a couple of cats and, I swallowed hard, maybe a baby, though it had been reduced to gnawed-up bones, so it was difficult to identify it definitively. Was going to be hard to dismiss my suspicion, though, as I couldn’t pull my eyes from the toy rattle the unidentifiable hand bones had been holding. It was BT that smashed in the skull of the zombie shuffling my way. Cast iron pan, of all things. I think that was a new one for him, but once again, the old ways saved us. The spray of blood on my face got me in motion.
“Thanks,” I told him.
He made quick work of the remaining two, spun the pan around as if he were considering keeping this new weapon, but he ended up putting it back on the counter top he’d grabbed it from.
“There’s someone on the roof across the street.” Tommy was pointing through the slats of the window shade. “I don’t see anyone else watching this side.”
It was a doable shot, not an easy one, but doable. He was on a terrace with a knee wall, exposing his upper chest and head. Now that I thought about it, there was most likely nothing in that short wall that would stop my round.
“Dumbass,” I said, as I rested the barrel of my rifle on the middle of the window frame. Even through the shades, I had him. I was about to shoot when he turned to the side and was looking into the apartment he was outside of. “Fuck.”
“What’s the matter?” BT asked.
“There’s someone with him.”
“You sure? I don’t see anyone,” BT replied.
“Well, unless he’s related to Trip and has audible conversations with the people in his head, I’m going to say yeah, I’m sure.”
“You could have just said yes, you were sure.”
“What fun is that,” I told him.
“What part of this is fun to you?”
“Well, none of it, really. BT, you comfortable with that shot?” I asked.
He looked through the window. “I am, but I’m more comfortable with you doing it.”
“I’m going to shoot the second one.”
How do you know he’s going to show?”
“Tommy is going to flush him out,” I said, looking over at the boy. We were running out of time. Even with the towel under the door, smoke was beginning to find its way into the apartment. Our avenue of escape was beginning to dwindle.
Tommy went a few feet over to another window and threw it open. BT’s mark saw him, yelled something into the apartment, and sighted in. Tommy moved before he could shoot.
“Come on, motherfucker…show yourself. No time for you to be shy.” We waited. The sniper kept his rifle up; he was going to shoot the next time anything walked past that window. “Have a zombie peek out the window,” I said. “Just make sure you don’t expose yourself.” Travis was dragging a body over.
“This is so gross,” he said as he tried to get a grip on a corpse whose parts were only loosely attached. Meredith grabbed the zombie’s other arm and they managed to get it over by the window, leaving a slime trail nearly two feet across in their wake.
“I’ve got it,” Tommy said, getting low to the ground. He hoisted it up. Its head no sooner passed the sill before it was drilled a new hole.
“Guy’s a crack shot,” I said as Tommy let the zombie fall to the ground. I had thought maybe we could just rush the fire escape; it’s amazing how many people are just horrible in a firefight. Adrenaline can make getting off the simplest of shots difficult, but not for this one. Had to think he had some military training in his background, somewhere. The sniper kept looking through his scope, trying to confirm his kill.
“Dad, the door is hot,” Travis said. He’d gone back to try and re-stuff the towel to keep more smoke from pouring in. A hot door meant the fire was right outside. If the other guy didn’t show soon we were going to have to take the sniper out and hope his partner was less qualified with a firearm. I looked over, the door handle was beginning to glow. We had minutes. Once that fire ate through the wall or the door we were on borrowed time. I snorted. That was rich–as if we weren’t merely scrounging on borrowed time from the moment the zombies showed.
Meredith pointed to the wall as it began to blacken, the paint blistering and falling away. Looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
“He’s out,” BT said.
At first, there was so little of the person showing I couldn’t pick him up. Well, the problem might have been that he was a she. Might have let her go if she hadn’t been holding a rifle that was nearly as long as she was. Had a feeling she might be the better shot of the two.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Say the word.”
“Now.” I fired. Almost immediately, BT did as well. My mark had turned slightly just as I’d fired, sending my round into the stock of her rifle. It exploded outward; I don’t know how much of my bullet pierced her chest, but she was able to pull herself back into the apartment and out of my view. BT had hit his in a definitive kill shot–somewhere right below the neckline, bursting through the top of the chest plate. The man had at first been pushed backward, but then because of the way he’d been sitting, he’d fallen forward and was draped over the railing.
“She dead?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” I told him, trying to pick her up in my sights. “We need to go now. If she’s still alive she’s going to be calling for help.”
“I’ll go first.” Tommy volunteered. He shouldered past us, opening the now broken window. He pulled the shades straight off the wall in his haste to be free. Had a feeling the boy, like the rats, had a deep-seated fear of fire, as is right. In fairness, who amongst us wants to be burned alive? Tommy had no sooner gone through the window and onto the landing when a bullet pinged off the metal to his left.
“I think she’s still alive,” BT said as we both tried to find her.
“Window,” Meredith said as she sent a couple of rounds of covering fire. Our shooter disappeared. The apartment we were in was getting choking thick with smoke and now the temperature was increasing. Fire wa
s licking the inside walls as it seeped through the openings it was creating. Travis was keeping an eye on the fire–transfixed was more like it.
“Come on!” I yelled at him. “You and Meredith, out!” Tommy had gone down a floor and was scanning for targets; as of yet, the only one that was aware of us was a wounded female with a less than serviceable rifle. She stuck the barrel of her weapon out the window and shot a couple of wildly misfired shots that were still entirely too close. Although, if we’re being honest, any shot in your general direction is entirely too close.
“Rats!” Tommy said. At first, I thought he was using a less cuss-worthy swear, then I realized he was talking about our four-legged pursuers. Maybe Knox and his men hadn’t found us, but his miniature bloodhounds had. The fire was inside our domicile in earnest, when BT and I made our way out the window. The woman I’d shot had either succumbed to her injuries or her weapon had. Either way, she no longer fired at us. Tommy slid the rest of the way down, his feet straddling either side of the ladder. The rodents that had found us converged. He was stomping them out of existence in the grossest game of Whac-A-Mole I’d ever had the displeasure of witnessing. Fire was blowing through most of the windows by the time my feet touched the ground. We were all on the move, the rats included. They were wary, keeping a respectable distance, but not retreating.
BT looked over his shoulder more times than an NFL running back making a break for the goal line with the entire opposing team in hot pursuit. We were heading toward a gas station. I took a hard right away from it; had no desire to be stuck in something that could be made into a mile-high mushroom cloud. Headed toward a strip mall and a Sub Station sandwich shop. Clearly this place was attempting to lure customers from its much larger, more successful competitor, Subway–even had the same color scheme and font for the sign. If you were more than a hundred feet away from it you’d swear it was the National Chain. The window was kicked out; I immediately ran past it. Tommy was pulling open a heavy-looking door to the Chinese food restaurant next to it.
Crystal Ginger, it was called, or something along those lines. The beauty was it had boarded up windows facing the roadway. Not really sure why this is done at most Chinese food restaurants. I mean, is it because they don’t want you to know what they’re cooking? Honestly, I don’t care because it’s all delicious, but it should have been something I gave more thought to when I used to frequent these establishments. The smell inside was bad–not zombie bad–old fermented cabbage and long gone chicken bad.
“Tommy, BT, check the kitchen and the back door. Me and the kids will check out the rest.” I threw the lock on the door, hoping we wouldn’t need to make a hasty exit. For once there was no one and nothing after us. BT came out of the kitchen with a box that looked as if it could be used to ship fifty-gallon drums.
“Fortune cookies,” he said happily. “I’m starving.”
I wasn’t a big fan of the edible message holders that tasted suspiciously like they were made from the same material as the aforementioned message. But even through all my worry, I was hungry as well. I grabbed a fistful; should have known we were playing a game with fate when the first message I cracked open said: “Be wary of those who gnaw at your confidence,” and yes, it sure did have a picture of a rat. I put the rest of the cookies down. I’d suddenly lost my appetite. I was listening as Meredith was trying to raise Justin on the radio. What came through was garbled and we missed every third word.
“Mom…Knox…everywhere,” was about the gist of it. No matter how much we tried to ask for more information, we were met by radio silence. Now I was about to lose my shit. We were holed up, and being pursued, the worst of it was not knowing how bad of trouble our family was in.
“We have to go,” I said.
“Of course, man! But where?” BT asked.
“We’ll head out back and hope our furry friends haven’t hemmed us in yet.”
“Can I bring the cookies?”
“You’ve been hanging around Trip too much.”
He tossed the box across the room. I opened the back door cautiously before poking my head out. I did not see anything that led me to believe we were under surveillance. I had not a clue as to where I needed to go; one way was just as good or bad as another. I needed to get closer to Justin, as we were apparently at the edge of effective communications range, but how could I tell which way that was? All was quiet out on the street. I heard no car engines revving, no squealing tires, and no shots being fired. There were birds and crickets chirping all around us; just another normal day as far as the animal kingdom was concerned.
“Hear anything?” I asked Tommy. He shook his head. I was going to move roughly towards our original rendezvous point, making sure to stay a few streets over. We’d traveled for close to an hour. The sun was beginning its downward journey; Meredith had produced a noticeable limp.
“You alright, kiddo?” I asked, slowing up to let her get astride.
“I found new boots at that outlet mall we checked out a few weeks ago. Don’t know why I decided that today was a good day to break them in. I guess I didn’t figure we were going to do much running.”
I wanted to tell her that you should always expect to do a lot of running at any given moment. But I figured that lesson had been learned on the back of a dozen or so busted blisters. Worry was beginning to weigh on us all, the darkening sky mirrored our moods.
“You think your sister is alright?” BT asked.
I thought it slightly strange that he singled her out above all others, yet I said nothing.
“I hope so,” I told him honestly.
“What do you think about that for the night?” Tommy asked, pointing to an auto parts store across the street.
A good part of me wanted to push on, we’d still heard nothing from anyone else and now I was worried I had picked the wrong direction. Did I keep senselessly plodding in the same wrong direction or did I reverse course and backtrack?
“Works for me,” I said as I looked up at the flat roof line of the store.
The auto parts store was, thankfully, devoid of all things living and undead and for the most part, it had been left alone. The cash register was a broken mess on the floor and the oil section had been cleaned out, but after that, it was mostly clean. I think had I raided this place I would have taken all the air fresheners, and would probably grab a handful before we left. I went into the back, the mystical land of auto parts where they seemingly had enough pieces to re-build every car known to man, at a markup. I once owned a Hyundai; decent car, but obviously bargain brand. It was ninety-four hundred to buy one, brand new. At some point, I had needed a special doohickey for the engine and had gone to an auto parts store to get it and was pissed about the price of the thing. How the man behind the counter knew this, I don’t know, but he told me that if I were to build that exact car with the parts I could get there, it would cost a hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars. Talk about getting bent over the counter and being taken advantage of. Oh, screw the political correct shit–that’s just getting fucked up the ass without any lube in sight. In hindsight, buying three Hyundais and selling them for parts, running your own scrap yard, so to speak, would pay for you to get a better automobile, or just use them to repair the first car, much cheaper. Wow, I don’t even think there’s a point there, but not the first time, I suppose. Anyway, I got what I was looking for in the form of tailpipes, exhaust pipes, and even a few mufflers.
“What are you doing, Talbot?” BT asked.
“Making a bong. Come on, grab some.”
“Don’t go all Trip on me,” though he did as I asked. “Talk to me, man,” he said as I headed outside with my payload. “Please don’t tell me you had some bizarre childhood trauma involving engine piping and now can’t stand to be in the same place with it.”
“Hey!” I said, much too loudly. “Hameatingaphobia is a real thing!”
“Did you just make that shit up? And don’t even get me started on all the things wrong with a per
son who doesn’t love the delicious smell and taste of ham.”
I could feel my gag reflex about to work overtime as I listened to him go on and on about the different types of ham and what you could do with it. Part of me felt like we were filming a scene from Forrest Gump 2. At least he was tossing the pipes up to me on the roof. There was a small access ladder that led there. He carried the last few up with him as he was finally finishing up his narrative.
“Oh, now I get it,” he said as he saw that I had made a message with the pipes.
In theory, MJ should be scanning the surrounding neighborhoods, attempting to locate us. If he wasn’t, it meant he couldn’t. I was unsure as of what our next play might be, if that was the case.
“Wait…does that say ‘suck it?’ Dude, why?”
“I was running out of pipes.”
“You’ve got enough up here to write the Gettysburg address.”
“I was shooting for succinct.”
“I guess that’ll work. Nobody else would have left that message except for you. Now?”
“Now we see if they have any disgusting auto parts store snacks. Like, almost a requirement that they have old, off-brand things you can’t get anywhere else.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Watch. I didn’t look when we came in, but I bet they have one of those old gumball machines, hasn’t been cleaned since the moon landing. It will be full of peanuts, cheerios or some such shit, and they expected people to put a quarter in it so it would dispense like, seven pieces of old, dirty, germ-infested, stale food. Who does that? Who gets food from a gumball dispenser? You ever see those things? The tray you place your hand on to get your goodies usually has layers of grease from all the grease monkeys that have gone before. I’m surprised the tidbits don’t get stuck in that gel.”