by Mark Tufo
“What was that?” BT asked.
“Shh,” I said quietly. I powered up my goggles and waited an interminable amount of time while they booted up. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds–seemed like a fucking eon. And in that time frame, I heard two more pops and squeals. Then I recognized the sound. It was car doors being opened, and too far away to be our people doing it.
“That what I think it is?” BT asked.
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
“Car doors opening.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”
“How are the zombies opening their doors just now after all the time they’ve been trapped?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s zombies opening the doors,” I said when I caught a black flash of something moving quickly through the vehicles.
“I hate her.”
“Nice to see that anger directed at someone else besides me.”
“Don’t worry,” BT said, “I have enough to go around.”
“Crap,” I said as I peered through the goggles.
“What is it, Mike? You usually don’t give two shits when I utter my dislike for you.”
“She’s opened the zoo, man. Zombies are coming.”
“Contact,” Winters said from his side. “Zombies, couple dozen.”
“Same,” I told him.
“She’s going to know we’re playing possum the moment we start firing on those zombies, Mike. She’s testing us,” BT said.
“Winters, pull back to me. Get everyone in with you,” I said. I reached around and tapped those nearby and guided them to my spot. “Payne is here,” I told them. “She’s letting loose the zombies to see if we will betray our location and plan. Right now, we have to hope it’s because she doesn’t know if we’re alive or not.”
“Yeah, but dad, there are zombies coming and none of us can see anything.” This from Travis; he was putting on a brave face but there was a noticeable tremor in his voice. Could not fault him that. Being in a battle was stressful enough; being in a battle where you couldn’t see your enemy? Far, far worse.
“How close you planning on letting them get?” Tracy asked.
“Too fucking close,” I told her.
“I don’t like what that implies, Mike. What the exact-fuck does that mean?” BT asked, looking for clarification.
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Payne is going to want to confirm our deaths, that I know. The question is, will she wait until the zombies finish eating us to come and take a gander.”
“That’s too close,” BT said.
“Yeah, I’m getting that. I’m just hoping Payne brings her happy ass in with the zees.”
“If she doesn’t?” Tracy asked.
“Then we kill the zombies and get the hell out of here.”
“She won’t fall for another trap,” my wife said.
“Doesn’t really seem like she fell for this one,” BT said.
“Not so sure about that. She’s here, isn’t she?” I replied.
“Yeah, with her own army,” BT replied.
“Twenty-five yards.” Winters was keeping an eye on the northern side of the tunnel.
“Fifty yards.” I was doing my best to judge the distance. Depth perception was difficult at best with the goggles.
“Any sign of Payne?” Tommy asked.
“No,” I said, tight-lipped. I had another shitty idea and I was wondering if I should play it. “I think we should go out to meet her.”
“You can’t do that! How will you get by the zombies?” Tracy asked.
“We stay up against the wall; there are no zombies there,” I said.
“Who would go?” BT asked.
“Tommy and myself.”
“So, you’re going to leave us all alone back here with one set of NVGs and zombies coming in from both sides? You realize we’ll be firing straight past you, I mean, hopefully, and not into you.”
“We’ll stay pinned to the wall while we can, but this is a chance we have to take. She’s close. We have to strike while we can. Maybe it would be for the best if you all got back in the cars. Winters, do we have enough time for you to get them all back in a car?”
“Just.”
“Alright, let’s do this, then. Deneaux, I need the goggles.” She handed them over reluctantly. “You ready, Tommy?”
“I’d rather be eating a Pop-Tart,” he replied.
“I’ve seen some of the flavors you dig up; this is safer.”
“If you say so, but that eggplant filled, hollandaise sauce-glazed one was out of this world.”
“If you say so,” I said, repeating his words.
No matter how slowly and cautiously the group moved to get into the cars, I could still hear the groan of metal as the doors were being opened; I could only hope that the sound of the moaning and shuffling zombies was sufficiently loud enough to drown it out. My back was getting damp from the wet weeping through the cracks in the concrete wall. I’m sure it didn’t help that I was sweating from the stress of what we were attempting to do. Tommy was leading the way, moving a lot quicker than I was comfortable with. The zombies, for the most part, were like thrown arrows, meaning they were only going in the direction Payne threw them, or in this case, shown. Though now and again, some would turn our way as we approached, like a particularly delicious-smelling hamburger being paraded around a bunch of poor college students. Tommy put his hand out and hit me in the shoulder, halting my progress. He pointed to a place up ahead of us; zombies were coming straight our way, being funneled by a camper that had collided with a small pickup.
Our only option was to get up on the SUV in front of us. Once atop it, we would be like dual surfers above a sea of shit, which just barely beats being duel swimmers in the sea of shit. The hood pinged loudly as I jumped onto it, but that had nothing on the sound the roof made as Tommy climbed up. Sounded like a Tibetan monk smacking the hell out of a gong. If anything was ever going to scream “Dinner!” to the zees, that was it. As I looked up at Tommy to see what the hell he could have done to make that kind of noise, I swear I saw Payne move quickly past in the shadows behind him. No doubt she’d heard it as well; could only hope she thought it was a minivan banging into the back of a band bus. Tommy reached over and helped me up. The zombies were indeed curious about what was causing all the racket. I felt a hand smack against my calf; jagged fingernails sought purchase in the thick leather of my boots. I stood up to keep less of me in reach; it worked in that respect, but with so many zombies crowding around they were making the car rock. I was only using the surfing bit as an analogy–I didn’t think it was going to come true.
“I can smell your fear.” Payne’s voice drifted over to us like an ill wind. Tommy tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. I didn’t see much of anything, though he was emphatic. “I cannot believe you would make it quite this easy for me.” With the zombies and the acoustics of the tunnel it was difficult for me to locate her. Tommy had brought his rifle to his shoulder.
“You have a better angle,” he whispered.
I wanted to tell him: “better angle at what?” but it was all I could do to keep my feet under me as the zombies pitched our boat around like orcas tossing a seal.
“Keep me steady,” I told him as I brought my rifle up. He lowered his weapon and did as I asked. “Safe to assume she knows we’re here.”
“I’d say so,” he answered.
With my forward right hand, I pushed a button that illuminated my green laser. It cut through the fog and unsettled dust and just for the tiniest of moments, it illuminated silver off the eye of what I figured was Payne. I didn’t even bother waiting for a return message from my brain to confirm what I had seen; I pulled the trigger the exact moment the green twinkled silver. The resultant flare from my muzzle temporarily blinded me to the results of the bullet I sent outwards. I didn’t see a prone body or a blood spray on the far wall, no scream nor wail; there was nothing to give me any hint of success or failure. Well, the
re was a fair measure of failure as I had completely blown our cover. Zombies that had passed us by were coming back; that was good for our loved ones, bad for us.
“The camper!” Tommy shouted as zombies began to press in from all around.
“Sounds like a wonderful idea, it’s just that the camper’s ten feet away,” I told him. He backed up as far as the roof of the SUV would allow, took two running steps and leaped. His trailing foot caught a zombie flush in the face, busting out a row of teeth, but it didn’t slow him down as he crash-landed into the camper ladder. He quickly climbed up and on to the much higher roof.
“Now you, Mr. T!” He had got down onto his stomach and had his arms outstretched.
My jump, in comparison to Tommy’s near graceful one, was a comedy of errors. I backed up like he did, and that’s where all similarities stopped. Instead of two steps, I went for three, giving the zombies around me just enough time to grab at the bottom of my pants; one succeeded. It was not a momentum-stopping grab, and it surely cost him most of the fingernails on his right hand, but it was just enough to make my flight for life come up a tad short. I was in the air, knowing full well I was not going to make it. Didn’t keep me from stretching my arms out in a desperate attempt to fly to that chrome-plated ladder. So, when my fingers grazed against the middle rungs, I almost wanted to cry out in disbelief at my good fortune. I was finally able to grab hold of the second rung from the bottom–I pulled my body over the closest zombies and started scrambling up.
That’s when I heard POP, POP, POP in quick succession. Noises everywhere, didn’t think too much of it, until the ladder began yawing backward. It was pulling free of its moorings. My guess is it wasn’t designed to withstand the stresses of two full-grown men jumping from distance onto it. I don’t know why I always forget about Tommy’s inhuman strength; he reached out and grabbed the ladder before I could spill back into the throng. He stood and lifted the thing with me on it straight up into the air, even going so far as to let a zombie hitch a ride for part of the way. I kicked out repeatedly with my left foot until the monster’s face was a disfigured, bleeding mess of broken bone and damaged flesh. I’d crushed the right side of his face sufficiently enough that his eyeball was dislodged and hanging loose. His nose was not just lying flat but was now embedded in his face. My boot had completely ripped his top lip off, and still the thing hung in there. I figure that’s what happens when you’ve been living on a diet rich in floor-fries from a car you could not escape. If you had a meal this close you’d be reluctant to let go, as well. Tommy reached out and grabbed me while simultaneously dropping the ladder. It, along with the zombie I had chewed up with my boot, fell back into the crowd.
“Did you get her?” he asked.
“No idea. I feel like I had to have hit her, but I have no way of knowing for sure.”
The camper began to rock as the zombies started closing in on it. The back and forth was not as pronounced as it had been on the SUV, but it would only take one wrong placement of a foot or leaning the wrong way to send either of us over the edge. Four shots rang out from the direction we had come from, but no screams, which I took as a good sign. Unless the gunman had been silenced, that would be a bad sign. While I was looking back to the cars, Tommy had got down and was looking at the vent cover atop the camper, he’d ripped it clear from its hinges; it had not gone quietly into the night. It had protested loudly with a heavy cracking sound as he shattered the plastic cover and frame.
“No zombies inside,” he said after removing his head from the opening.
“You want to go through there? Will we even fit?”
“If this engine starts, we can drive it back, grab everyone, and get out of here.”
“What about Payne?” I asked.
“If she’s dead, we’re rid of her. If she’s not, she’ll find us.”
“What the hell, Tommy? That’s like telling your kid ‘Yep, the monster’s under your bed–might be dead or it might eat your face; we’ll see come morning.’ Should we at least wait until tomorrow, first light? Maybe we can find a body or something?”
“I suppose we could ask the zombies to move away so we could check,” he said. “If she’s out there, she’s going to be angry. I say we don’t give her enough time to regroup and strike while we’re separated.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “You should go in first,” I said.
“It’s because you’re afraid of getting stuck, isn’t it?” he asked. I could only shrug in answer. I don’t tend to keep my anxieties secret. He wriggled a little bit, but otherwise got in easily enough. I dropped in after him. I was not a fan of the dozen zombies peering in at us from the front of the camper, although, creepy as it was, odds were, they could not see us.
“Will it start?” I asked. Tommy hadn’t made it to the front console yet. He turned to look back, his expression asking if I was serious.
“We’re about to find out. You might want to take the goggles off.” The seat cushion let out a squelch of air. I heard the jingle of keys, then the wonderful, telltale dinging of a battery that still had some juice left. There was a moment where I heard nothing else, then there was the grinding of the starter as it fired off and got the engine running. The headlights were muted but only because the zombies were crowding the light out. I peered around, trying to catch any trace of Payne; I saw nothing but more zombies.
When I was confident as I could be that Payne was no longer in the building, I got up beside Tommy, not yet comfortable enough to sit in the passenger seat. I had my rifle ready and cracked the passenger side window, but I was also prepared to shoot through the windshield if the need arose. We were moving at a pace slow enough that we were pushing the zombies ahead of us out of the way. Every once in a while, one didn’t get the memo to not play in the street and we would subsequently run over it with a resounding crunchy squish, but for the most part, we were like an ice-busting barge in the Arctic, clearing a path.
“How’s the gas?”
“Three-quarters of a tank.”
Took us close to fifteen minutes to get back to our cars.
“Everyone alright?” I asked through the window.
BT gave a thumbs up. “Payne?” he asked.
“Got a shot off…but I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me if she was dead or not.”
“Just like a vampire to be a cryptic bitch.”
“Tommy is going to clear a path for us out with this behemoth. You all just stay in tight behind us,” I said.
We had to use the camper as a battering ram to get through the military blockade; it had been my hope we’d be able to confiscate the much larger and more comfortable vehicle for our own purposes, but Tommy had done some front-end damage. We were leaking coolant and from the sound of it, the fan blade was smacking up against the radiator or possibly the engine block. Either way, it was badly damaged, though it had served its purpose well enough. He got it up to twenty miles per hour for a couple of miles; it sounded like an infant with a wooden spoon beating on a variety of pots and pans from the cupboard. By the time he stopped, we had a geyser issuing forth from the front end. But we’d put distance between us and the zombies, the roadway was clear, and there was no sign of Payne. I can’t say I thought she was dead, but it sure was a beautiful day and I wanted to believe that.
“What now, Mike?” Tracy asked.
I looked over each and every one of us still standing; even the indefatigable Deneaux looked done. We were so far past being on our last legs, we were writhing around on the ground. I could not, and I would not, delay it any longer. Etna Station was our destination. History can judge if I’d made a mistake; but I was certain of my decision at the time. You cannot fault me for my actions as I looked upon my kids, my wife, my friends, and family. They were scared, tired, and I would not watch another of them die in this fucking apocalypse. I was drawing a line in the sand. Sure, it was going to be crossed many times before this was over, but right there and then the symbolism of that drawn line gave m
e hope and purpose.
Not sure what type of technology they had at Etna, but we were twenty miles south of our destination when we found ourselves staring down the barrels of a very well-coordinated ambush.
“Do not fire upon us!” came through a megaphone. “These are fifty cal cannons, you will all be dead before the repercussion of your first round is finished. All of you that can, step out of your vehicles, hands held high, no weapons of any sort!”
BT looked over at me from the car he was in. “Your call,” he said.
“We’re coming out!” I yelled, placing my empty hands out the window first. “Don’t shoot, we’re coming out!” I was the first to stand outside the car and was immediately followed by the rest.
They had all of us sitting on the curb with our hands zip-tied behind our backs except for the babies, and they let Nicole loose so she could care for them. Henry had to stay in the car because he was not digging how I was being treated. I appreciated the hell out of that, I did, but I didn’t want a soldier inadvertently hurting my dog because of his loyalty.
“My name is Gunnery Sergeant Tajima. I am part of the intercept group for Etna Station. Heard of it?”
“We have,” I said.
“And what’s your reason for coming here?” he asked.
I figured this wasn’t the time to tell him it was to take over the base and become lord of all I surveyed. “Sanctuary. We’ve been on our own for so long, I…we just want to have some sense of normalcy. A place where our kids have a chance.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Michael Talbot.”
“You the leader here?”
“More of an honorary thing,” I replied.
“You’re married?” he asked, picking up my tone quickly.