by Mark Tufo
“I could not take the chance that I would be thrust out from your group, Michael. My chances of survival were greatly improved under your umbrella.”
“Why didn’t you just kill him? The way he went out—” I swallowed hard. “No one should have to die like that. Why take the chance that he somehow makes it back to us and now you have two strikes against you? I can almost see the point with Brian. In a twisted sort of way, I get it. With your back pressed against the wall, you did what you thought was necessary to survive. But kicking Paul out? That’s tantamount to murder.”
“I suppose, I did not believe Paul to have the skills necessary to survive on his own.”
“No part of me thinks that you would have a problem with getting your hands dirty—unless you just didn’t want to have a crime scene. If you’d shot Paul, it would have been difficult to hide the evidence of that crime.”
“I let this brutal new nature take its course. Survivors survive, all others don’t. Where does that leave us?” She was looking at me intently.
“Well, I’m going to be brutally honest. You are indeed under my umbrella and I will keep you safe as long as that is in line with keeping everyone else safe. Should you stray, I will not make any extraordinary measures to save you. My days of risking my life for yours are over. If I have to choose between any other person in this group and you, you’re on your own. And I want you to listen very carefully Vivian, hear this. If I feel like you are a threat to anyone here or are somehow seeking to harm anyone here—if I even suspect you of harmful intent, I will kill you. No questions asked. Do you believe me?” I did not waver as we looked at each other.
“I do,” she said, finally breaking eye contact and snuffing out her cigarette. “It’s exciting to see this new Michael Talbot.”
“Whatever floats your boat. Oh, and another thing, no guns for you,” I said as I got up.
“How will I defend myself?”
“I really don’t give a fuck, Vivian.” And I left her there.
“How’d that go?” BT asked when I walked back in the house.
“I’m sure she’s figuring out how to kill us all in our sleep right now.”
“About how you expected then?”
“Pretty much.”
“You should see what MJ pulled up.”
“It’s not a sex robot is it?” I asked.
“This is me pretending I didn’t just hear you say that.”
“Come on, you know it could be true.”
“Follow me and try your best to keep your mouth shut.” BT led me to the garage and MJ’s makeshift laboratory slash sex robot assembly line.
Mad Jack was clacking away at his keyboard as if he was penning the sequel to War and Peace. Three monitors of varying size had been hastily set up on his desk. Didn’t need to get abundantly close to realize I was looking at a high aerial picture of Cain’s pond. He clacked away some more and the camera started panning in.
“How old is that?” I asked, moving closer.
“It’s right now!” Mad Jack said excitedly. “There are some holes in the viewing windows—not all of the satellites are operational. Their trajectories haven’t been corrected in too long or they missed scheduled maintenance...that kind of thing. But I think I can get us fifteen minutes every hour in our general area.”
“Fuck me. Is that Deneaux sitting on the deck?”
MJ did some more keyboard wizardry; I jumped back as her face took up the entire monitor. She was as clear as if I were still sitting across the table from her.
“Where the hell was this tech when I was a horny fifteen-year-old?” I asked.
“Really, Talbot? We have game changing abilities here and the first place you go is your dick?”
“Oh, like you aren’t thinking the same thing. You’re fifteen, okay? Now think of the hottest girl in your neighborhood out in her backyard, tanning...topless.”
“Oh…I see your point.”
“What point is that?” Tracy asked coming down with some soda for MJ.
I played it off smoothly but BT looked about as guilty as if he had cookie crumbs rolling down the front of his shirt before dinner.
“We can see the enemy coming,” I said to Tracy. She seemed dubious only because BT looked like he was choking on that fucking cookie he stole.
It was not lost on me that Deneaux looked up at the satellite flying high overhead. She definitely wasn’t praying to the heavens; her spidey sense must have been going off that she was being watched.
“Pull back out. I’ve seen as much of her for the day as I can stomach.”
“This thing is amazing. It even has infra-red.”
“Let’s see that,” I told him. The Maine woods were thick enough to hide an army.
“Going to have to wait,” he said as the image got static-laced and then cut out.
“Deneaux said something about a password key every twenty-four hours. Is that something you can hack?” I asked.
“I could try, but this government stuff will have fail-safes. I start tinkering around there’s a chance that I shut it down completely instead of open it up. Why would you want me to do that?” he asked.
“Just to be safe. You never know what could happen to her. She dies, splits, or I just kill her, and we lose this advantage.”
“Makes sense,” Mad Jack said as he started scanning around the States.
“Send for me when we come back up,” I told him.
“What are you thinking, Mike?” Tracy asked when we three walked away from Mad Jack’s station.
“I’m thinking we need MJ to hack that thing and get rid of Deneaux. I feel like we held a crazy Ouija session and let in all manner of demon. She needs to go.” I didn’t tell them about Paul because I figured their verdict would be swift and I couldn’t take the thought of having to argue in favor of Deneaux staying, even for a short time. The satellite imagery was far too important to let slip through our fingers.
An hour later MJ came and got me. We both watched as he changed over to infra-red, and I almost had a heart attack. The woods lit up like the army I feared was hiding there had suddenly been exposed.
“It’s okay Mike,” he informed me. “It’s just the cameras finding their balance. Just a couple of deer, maybe. These look small.” He was pointing at the screen. “Fox maybe...could be a fisher.”
“Will the zombies be warm enough to show?” I asked. The zombies weren’t dead in the traditional way. They were undead, if that makes sense.
“They do have a heat signature, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s considerably cooler than a human’s, but it will show. Instead of the whites and the red,” he pointed to his animal registers, “they’ll show as blues and purples.”
I scanned those three monitors repeatedly looking for any sign of the enemy. There appeared to be about a half-dozen some five miles away at the grocery store and little else.
“This is fucking amazing. We can map out runs and know exactly where they are.”
“I think you need to think on a grander scale, Mike,” Mad Jack said.
“You got the fission bomb to work?” That was my first guess.
“Humanity, Michael. A settlement, I mean. There has to be a place out there where people are regrouping—making a stand, a community.”
“We went down that route once. It didn’t work out so well.” He really couldn’t argue that things were different now. In fact, they were probably worse. We had maybe two vampires chasing us, and the zombies were far more intelligent than they had been. We held some responsibility for what had happened at Camp Custer, sure. But how could I have ever fucking known Eliza was going to lose her shit and destroy the entire place? How could I? If not for our presence, she would not have had any reason to show. Knowing what I knew now I could not run that risk again. When we lost the feed, he started scanning around the country again. Apparently, MJ wasn’t a huge fan of my stance. I had the egg of an idea, but who knew what horrors were going to be conceived in that yolk, or what
monster would hatch.
“That thing pick up vamps?” I asked before leaving the room.
“Have Tommy stand on the deck, I’ll look for him next hour.”
Chapter 5
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 4
“Having fun with your new toy?” Deneaux asked. She was sitting in the living room on the couch. Uncharacteristically, she was without a lit cigarette.
She’d startled me. I was not accustomed to having a sworn enemy this close without action being taken. “I think the less we talk to each other the better we’re going to be able to deal with this proximity.”
“Oh Michael! I do not mind this at all. By the way, has your sweet Mad Jack had any luck with the encryption key?” She cackled as I walked out of the room. “Wait!” she called to me. I slowed but did not stop nor turn around. “I once read that smoking cigarettes can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. Could you be a dear and get my pack? I would hate to forget such a lengthy string of numbers, letters, and symbols.”
“I’m going to be hearing that cackle in my sleep,” I said as I got out onto the deck.
“Why did you want me out here, Mr. T?” Tommy asked.
“Just making sure you don’t do the old mirror routine on me. Don’t move—I’ll be right back.” I hustled down to MJ’s lab; the satellite was just coming into view. Tommy was still looking at the doorway I’d vacated, probably trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about. “Infrared,” I said, letting my hand rest on MJ’s shoulder. I could feel his body tense up from the contact. I could not help myself from smiling. I wonder what women thought when he did this in bed. Then it saddened me to think that this had most likely never happened in bed.
“Oh you poor bastard,” I said aloud. I then brought my other hand up and rubbed his shoulders, digging my thumbs into the tense muscles.
“I’m not really comfortable with you touching me,” he said, slightly turning, trying to wriggle free of my hands. “Well, with anyone touching me, really.”
“I know,” I told him as I continued anyway. “Switch to infrared.”
“The moment you stop manhandling me, good sir.”
“Good sir? Okay, okay.” I was smiling as I put my hands up. We could see Tommy as clear as day, I think I could have read the embossment on his buttons if I’d a mind to...then nothing. Well not nothing, exactly, but rather a black hole. One moment he was a normal looking kid and the next he was a faceless black blob, an infinity of darkness upon the screen. I thought maybe it was a mistake with the satellite software or something. I had MJ cycle back and forth a half dozen times, to make sure. The people around him showed as reds and whites; he did not. I didn’t even want to know how I would show up. At least now we knew what we were looking for when and if the vampires came back. Just had to keep out a gander for a soul-sucking darkness among the heart-eating shades of purple. Perfect. Just perfect.
“I found something, Michael,” MJ said.
“An open Denny’s? Because I could really go for a Grand Slam Breakfast.”
“There’s something up in the Seattle area. I found a few smaller ones dotted around the country, but this one is nestled in the mountains. Seems to have a natural barrier against zombies.”
He knew how I felt about settlements, but this was something more, and I had an inkling of what it was. “Mad Jack you’re not a prisoner here. You’re free to go whenever you choose. I would hate to see you go, but if you want to try and get there then, by all means, I won’t stand in your way.”
He said nothing, but he was thinking about it. Couldn’t blame him; he might not be super comfortable around people, but up there he was likely to meet more like-minded folks and even the ability to garner a much larger facility with more access to resources for his experiments.
“Do you think anyone else would want to come?”
Sure, I’d said he could go, but a cross-country excursion on his own was not a savory thought. He was generally oblivious to the dangers around him but that didn’t mean he was suicidal. Had to figure he was doing the odds of a successful run in his head and wasn’t liking the numbers that kept popping up.
I sort of liked the idea of him taking Deneaux along as a bodyguard, just to get her out of this house, but I felt as if I’d be sealing MJ’s fate, like hiring Gacy to do your kid’s birthday party. The rest of the house was all Talbots for the most part. Getting the fuck out of here held sway but for the above-mentioned reasons we couldn’t go. Ron wouldn’t. Really the only people without any true tethers were Trip and Stephanie and a bunch of kids. If I could be a hundred percent sure they’d make it, I’d feel good about them going. They’d be missed for sure, but they’d be safer upon arrival. Maybe that was the play. Maybe I could deliver them to safety. There were some serious logistics to figure out, though. Like who was staying to guard the fort and where was Deneaux going to be during all of this. There was no way I could leave her behind to be someone else’s burden.
“Are there any significant population centers closer to here?” I queried.
“I have the satellites programmed to search for them; haven’t completely mapped out the country, but it’s not looking good for any other place.”
“How do we even know they’re on the right side of the good-slash-evil divide? What if you got all the way out there and found out they were all assholes? He punched something into the keyboard.
“I recorded these snippets over the last couple of hours.” He played them back letting the video speak for itself. There were people walking dogs, couples kissing. Parents playing with their children. Sure, there was a heavy military presence, but they were manning the walls or patrolling the streets. I didn’t see one thing in there that would lead me to believe those people were under duress.
“Absolutely not!” BT said when I brought my idea up to him. “We stay together. No splitting up.”
“We’re just holding on here, BT. I’ve come to terms with that, but what about the kids? They deserve better.”
“I realize you’re talking about Sty, Ryan, Angel, Porkchop, and Zach, but what about your own kids? We’re going to risk everything to travel across the states so these kids can have a life and then you’re going to leave yours behind? How the hell are you going to reconcile that in that thick melon of yours? Sounds to me like you want to dump your problems off. And speaking of which, if we’re planning on ridding ourselves of pests, you’d better make sure Trip goes.”
“I didn’t make up the shit about Mad Jack. He’s ready to go. How about I ask the kids and see what they say?”
“Mike, don’t ask Trip; just tell him that’s what’s best for him. My world would be just about perfect if that crazy stoner headed to parts unknown.”
“That? That above all things would make your world perfect?”
“I’m not like you, Mike. I’m low maintenance.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. I seem to recall just two days ago you lost your shit when Gary poured too much syrup on your pancakes and it bled over and God forbid touched your bacon.”
“That’s different! Bacon is savory, pancakes are sweet, and never the two should meet.”
“Sounds like a poem from the third grade. Everybody knows bacon dipped in maple is one of the best things ever.”
BT did his best to hide it, but I could see the reflexive gag in his throat. He tried to disguise it, but I’d been witness to that little throat spasm enough times with my brother. “We live in a world overrun with zombies, and maple bacon grosses you out?”
“Be careful man, I was bigger than you when I was in the third grade.”
“Maple bacon, maple bacon, maple bacon.”
I was chasing him around the room.
“Shut up!” He’d placed his hands over his ears and kept going. It got real interesting when Trip came in and mimicked BT’s actions. He was a step behind the giant, screaming maple bacon as if this were some sort of game. Long after I stopped, Trip kept it up. “This is the shit I’m talking
about!” BT picked Trip up and placed him out of the room.
“Hey man, can I take my hands off my ears now?” he questioned loudly. “Wait, I can’t hear anything! Stephanie, I’m deaf again!”
Stephanie came from down the hallway and gently moved his hands away.
“Oh, I can hear again.” He started to sob. “It was horrible, I was imagining never being able to hear the Grateful Dead again.”
BT could do little except shake his head. “He has to go,” he whisper-shouted.
“I’m not forcing anyone.”
“What are you going to do if the kids refuse?” he asked.
What would I do? That was a dilemma. Odds were they weren’t going to want to go. They’d made attachments here; they loved us. We loved them. That didn’t even take into account Zach, Ben-Ben, Patches, and Riley. Henry and Riley went everywhere, but would Riley leave Zach? How could I justify risking everything to get one person across the entire country?
“Just driving, with no problems, I could make it there in four days and then the same coming back. Hardly over a week.”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
“What?”
“In what world do you live in that you think you could make it across the country ‘with no problems’?”
“We could carry enough gas, food, guns, and ammo that we won’t need to stop. We get one of those RV’s you were talking about. There’s a dealership out in Bangor has rows and rows of them—saw it when we got the fireworks.”
“Don’t make me slap you back into reality.”
“Fuck no man. You slap me and the last thing I’m going to see is reality. Listen, BT, maybe we can get out of here. Maybe there is a better life for all of us. We get the family to safety. Then me, you, and Tommy, we hunt Payne into extinction. We kill the last threat—shove a stake right through her.”
“You’re bordering on fairy tale, Mike.”
“What the hell else do I have, BT? This is a waiting game here— a stalling tactic, nothing more. Listen, we both know I’m not a big fan of people.”