Those Left Behind

by Mark Tufo

  Fate sent us a nice big “well how do you do?” just as the first of the zombies was straddling that midway point. My head was turning to yell at Meredith to haul ass when I got a stove-piped round, basically, that’s when the expended brass gets stuck in between the chamber and the bolt. I screwed with it long enough that Gary jerked my shoulder to get out of his way as he took up my spot. Now I had to think of how long I wanted to mess with the jam or just start reloading.

  “Shit.” By the time I cleared my weapon and got Gary back to fill duty they’d be at least three quarters over, if not more. I slung my new paper weight over my shoulder and got down to grab the magazines. Had to be down to about a hundred rounds. I wondered when Gary was going to tell me that pretty important fact. I was having a hard time steadying my fingers and hands as I put rounds in. It was entirely less nerve racking to shoot than it was to load. Shooting, you’re active; you have that control. With loading, your fat fingers are playing pegs-in-holes against time...who is eventually always going to win.

  “Going to need some rounds, Uncle,” Meredith said impatiently.

  “Working on it,” I answered, not daring to look up.

  “Pretty much now,” she reiterated.

  I decided to do the unthinkable and look. I handed her what I had. I didn’t have four rounds in Gary’s when he asked for it back.

  “You’re better at this than I am,” I told him honestly.

  “Not as easy as it looks, is it?”

  “Not so much.” I shoved another six or seven in to at least make it worthwhile. We fought on like this, layering zombie on top of zombie. I was hoping to make an impenetrable wall. There had to be a pile of fifteen or so zombies not more than fifty feet away. At first, the speeders had been climbing over and adding themselves and their genetic material to the coagulating puddle of decayed mass, and then it just stopped. It took us a few seconds to notice, as it was so out of the ordinary.

  “Gary, you load up the rest. I’m going to get this jam removed. Meredith, keep an eye on that pile.” We were all working frantically, Meredith even grabbing some rounds to load. None of us took more than a second or two from what we were doing to take a look at the pile. When zombie bodies started splashing into the water below, Meredith figured out what they were doing. I was apparently too dumb-founded to figure it out.

  “They’re clearing the bridge,” she said.

  “Yeah, but why?” I asked as I finally popped that stupid piece of brass free. We got the answer less than half a minute later as the ground we were on began to tremble. The bridge itself groaned in protest of the onslaught it was receiving.

  “Bulkers,” Gary said with reverence and a healthy dose of fear. “Last magazines.” He handed them to us. “Twenty-five rounds each.”

  “You two first. When you’re done you make a run for it. I will hold them off until my magazine is gone. You guys ready for this?”

  “Of course I am. I’m a woman,” Meredith said.

  “Yeah...what she said,” Gary replied.

  I let it alone. A bulker hit that zombie wall so hard he splintered bodies as he sent them hurtling in all directions. I mean, some of them literally shattered like a Mack truck driving into a table loaded with fine China. True to form, Meredith immediately starting sending rounds down range. Gary and I were a little too stunned maybe to do much more than catch flies with our mouths wide open. Five rounds in and my niece had done little to slow the behemoth down. He was thundering along like a runaway train and here we were, trying to stop him with bicycle chains tied to fishing poles pulled taut across the tracks. Gary used Meredith’s tactic and aimed for the knees; it seemed the only vulnerable part of the beast.

  I lost count of how many rounds it was until he fell over; his giant head and face scraped against the path as he slid even farther along. He wasn’t dead, but unless food came to him and stepped into his ugly maw, he was going to have a difficult time getting something to eat. The next bulker through finished the job we’d started. When its left foot came down upon the fallen beast’s head, it exploded outwards like an egg under a hydraulic press. If I live to be two hundred, I don’t think I’ll ever get the imagery of that exploding brain out of my head. Gray material spurted everywhere—all over the bridge supports and cables where it hung there in thick wet slabs of glop, occasionally dripping down to pollute the waterway.

  Like the first, the knees were the key, but it wasn’t going to matter that we knew their weakness. They were making too much advancement and we didn’t have the means to keep them at bay. A line of bulkers were in position to overrun our perfunctory defense.

  “Go Meredith—GO!”

  “I’m not out!” she shouted back.

  “GO!” I moved in front of her. She may or may not have given me a look that could turn steel to slag, I don’t know—I wasn’t paying her that much attention. I just needed her to be safe.

  I fired five more rounds. “Gary.”

  “Kiss my grits,” was his exact response. “I run when you run and we’ll see who’s faster.”

  I had a couple of more rounds and I wanted to give Meredith as much of a head start as possible; that didn’t mean I wanted to watch my brother die, though. Even if he did tell me to kiss his grits...who the hell actually says that? It was time to go, that was the material point. There was a line of lumbering giants coming and odds were good Gary could stay ahead of them, but the speeders behind were fast and deadly.

  “Let’s go.” I smacked his shoulder and was turning to make a go at it. Bumped right into Meredith. “Mad” didn’t approach how I felt. She’d lost her chance to run, and now Gary and I would have to stay longer to give her another shot. Before I could release some choice expletives, she spoke.

  “Brought some help.” She was smiling; I swallowed my words.

  “This shit is like babysitting. If I don’t keep my eyes on you at all times you’re bound to stick a fork in the electrical outlet.” BT strode past and started firing the much heavier 7.62 round. The bulkers didn’t seem overly happy about that, as body parts flew off with each hit.

  “Mike.”

  “Steve,” I replied to his nod and acknowledgment that he was here to help. Known the guy for like, twenty years. I’m not sure if I’d heard more than five complete sentences from him. Tommy was bringing up the rear, hefting more ammunition.

  “Let’s get this party started,” I said as I helped open up the ammo boxes. I think I sighed when I saw the plentiful rounds.

  “Only you would call this a party,” BT said as he looked over at me.

  Within five minutes we had a bulker logjam. It wouldn’t hold, but right now the mangled, twisted, and disfigured dead were doing an admirable job of keeping us safe.

  “Everybody else?” I asked Tommy when we started loading magazines again.

  “There’s a small hill about a half mile away. Good sized house sitting about midway up. They’re getting it defendable right now.”

  “How defendable is it?” I asked the question because Ron’s had been a damn fortress and it wouldn’t have stood up to this assault. Not sure how the expression, all things being equal, works here, but I was using it. I figured this spot was a much better place to keep the enemy at bay. Couldn’t march on Athens if you couldn’t get there. I had fully adopted the Spartan theme for myself.

  “It would be better if they never found us,” BT answered when Tommy gave me a look like he’d just eaten a whole block of habanero pepper jack then realized he was lactose intolerant and hated spicy food.

  I almost told Tommy to spill it, but I wasn’t sure which end it might come from.

  “There’s more,” Tommy said.

  “Yeah, no shit. We need to play poker some day.”

  “A large group of zombies is circling around.”

  “Around where?” I spun.

  “There’s a bridge a couple of miles back; we have maybe another ten minutes. We’re just here to bring you guys to the house.”

  “How a
re they damn doing this?” I asked, more to myself. No one really had a clue. “Let’s get out of here, then. King Leonidus wouldn’t have left, though.”

  “He was betrayed by one of his countrymen, surrounded, and slain. Do you really want to give Deneaux the opportunity to be Ephialtes of Trachis?” BT asked. “Let it go, man.”

  “I really hate talking to people who are smarter than me,” I replied. Realized just how far I’d stepped into it right after I uttered the words.

  “Surprised you’re not a hermit then,” rolled instantly off his tongue.

  If you’re going to serve them up on a silver platter someone might as well hit a home run. I was stewing with how bad the day had started off and for how bad it was likely to end when we came up on the house.

  “Real logs?” I asked. Steve nodded. It looked stout.

  Justin waved from a second story window and poked his head out.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  He yelled down like he was listing off his Christmas presents. “You’re going to have to come in from the other side. We have a rope ladder set up. The bulkhead has been chained shut from the inside. Travis and I ripped down the small porch and deck for the front door—just tore it right off! The weakest part is going to be the back... French sliding doors.”

  “Dammit.” I was thinking back to Little Turtle and how little they’d done to keep the zombies out; hell, they barely kept mosquitoes at bay.

  “There were cement stairs there; we were able to pry them a little ways away with BT’s help.”

  BT and I checked out the perimeter of the house as Gary, Tommy, Meredith, and Steve went up the ladder.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I told BT as we looked at the toppled over steps. They weren’t much more than three feet from the entrance; a speeder would have absolutely no problem using that as a launching point and crashing through the glass. Or trying to—it looked like those inside were trying to piece together enough boarding to cover the entrance.

  “Do you want to roll them farther away?” BT asked.

  “Nothing about them says ‘roll’ to me, but yeah.”

  I may have popped a goiter helping BT get that thing away from the house and I’m not even sure what a goiter is. The zombie would have to be a world-class Olympian now to span that distance, but those doors were still a weak point. When I walked up to them I was nearly waist high with the bottom of the door.

  “If we had more time, I’d love to dig a huge trench.”

  “Yeah, well, unless you have a backhoe I don’t know about, we can’t. Let’s go.” BT was heading for the ladder.

  “That thing going to hold you?”

  “Gonna suck for you when I get to the top and pull the thing up behind me.”

  “Not funny.”

  “Didn’t mean it to be.”

  I made sure to grab the bottom and pull myself up before he could make good his threat. Like so many places in Maine, this residence looked to be used primarily during the summer months, maybe as a rental or maybe when the owners came back up from Florida. Snowbirds, they were called in this part of the country. Usually took off for warmer climates around late October and came back at the beginning of May. Not a bad deal I suppose; avoid the mind numbing cold up here then avoid the body blistering heat down there.

  I wanted to do a quick once over of the house—get an idea of the weak spots, where the zombies were likely to get in, and inevitably, where we would make our stand. I hoped it didn’t come to that, but that was looking less and less likely. I took a glance at MJ’s display and noticed the zombies were making a straight line for the bridge we’d been defending.

  “I’m going to be out of battery life soon.”

  I didn’t even need to ask him. I knew the spare batteries were in the cargo hold or on the bus somewhere.

  “Don’t worry about it. Pretty sure we’ll know where they are soon enough,” I told him.

  “How are we going to do that without the satellite feed…oh,” he said when he got it.

  The basement looked strong, though it wasn’t without weak points. I wondered if bulkers jumping up and down could cave in the thin steel bulkhead doors. And the windows were the traditional small ones, but little zombies could sneak in. Besides some boxes labeled “Halloween,” there wasn’t much down here. A couple of old work benches with a smattering of basic tools and a couple of long forgotten tennis rackets.

  “Get rid of the staircase,” I told Travis and Justin. “Just make sure you’re on the first floor when you do.”

  “What’s with you and staircases, dad?” Justin asked.

  “I’m thinking a lot of tripping. Mom told me Dad was real clumsy when he was younger,” Travis replied.

  Justin made a mock bottle with his thumb pouring into his mouth.

  “Dude, can I get a hit of that? My mouth is parched,” Trip asked.

  “Just get it done. I’m out of here before this goes to where I can see it’s going,” I told them.

  The dismantling started before I could even get up the stairs. When the zombies came I knew where they were going to make entry through the path of least resistance. We knew they could climb, and those French doors just screamed “Free Lunch!” with a flashing neon sign.

  “Let’s stack everything we can against them.” Wasn’t much: a half filled hutch, a couch, a love seat. “Could possibly keep a wayward vacuum salesman away, but not if his quota was down. Certainly not then. Have you ever listened to their pitch? They’re some pretty pushy people. When your livelihood depends on selling somebody something they most likely already have, you’ve gotta be.”

  “How many have you bought?”

  “What are you talking about?” I acted aghast.

  He arched an eyebrow at me.

  “Two—but one of them was because of Tracy.”

  “Don’t you dare blame that Kirby on me!” she yelled down from upstairs.

  “How the hell did she hear me?”

  “Don’t change the subject. What the hell are you doing buying two vacuums?”

  “Tell him the damn truth!” Tracy reminded me.

  “One salesperson was a woman, and the other had been a former minor league pitcher for the Pawtucket Red Sox. I couldn’t help myself. I got a signed baseball from him.”

  “Yeah? How much that baseball cost?”

  “That’s beside the point. Come on we’ve got to shore this house up.”

  “Uh-huh,” BT said following me into the kitchen.

  “I hate to say this, but I think the stairs to the top floor are going to have to go too.”

  “Hate to say it, my ass. You think that’s the best idea you’ve ever had. I’m surprised you didn’t take them out of your brother’s house.”

  “You’re right, I am pretty proud of that one. But honestly, man, I don’t know how we’re going to defend this place for any length of time. They will get inside.”

  “You know Alex isn’t going to ride in for the rescue this time, right?” he reminded me.

  “I know man. But these are the cards dealt to us. Can’t play somebody else’s. Hey, Tracy, we need all hands on deck. We need to grab anything even remotely useful or that can potentially be used as a weapon. We’re going to make the upstairs our base.”

  “It’s the damn stairs thing all over again isn’t it?” she asked, coming down.

  “You didn’t hear that one?” I asked.

  “Busy with Nicole and the baby. You ever think you should patent your idea?” She smiled.

  When the breeze shifted just the right way, we could catch the stench of zombies in the vicinity. As of yet, none had stumbled across our hideout. We kept the noise down to a minimum and even did our best to pry those stairs up quietly, using as few hammer whacks as possible to get the crowbar in position. We moved the rope ladder to the staircase, though I hoped I would not find myself hunkered upstairs anytime soon. It was pretty big up there as far as homes go. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a study, but we wer
e still thirty strong and that was a lot of folks on one floor. We put those that absolutely had to stay upstairs there—the kids, Carol, and the animals. The rest of us took turns keeping an eye on things on the main level. Travis sat at the top of the basement stairs to make sure nothing tried to sneak in that way.

  Chapter 12

  MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 9

  Day folded into night and the night was about as quiet as it could get. Remember how much fun you used to have playing hide and go seek when you were a kid? Yeah, this was nothing like that. Hiding for hours on end, afraid for your life, just plain sucks. Conversation was kept to a minimum. We had no lights on when it got dark; really, the only thing to do if you weren’t on guard duty was sleep. We had little food and even less water; we would not be able to stay in siege-mode for too long. I’d stopped staring through the window a while back. Really no point to it now. The night was so dark that unless the zombies were bio-luminescent, I’d never see them until their faces were plastered on the glass, and, um, yeah. I didn’t want to see that.

  “This sucks,” BT said as he came over. We were using flashlights with red lenses, other than that, inside the house might as well have been like a black box in a cave.

  “It ain’t fun,” I replied.

  The heavy, oak farmhouse table I was on creaked when he sat down next to me. “Want a digestive?” he asked, I could just barely make out a thin, wafer-like cracker.

  “This like ex-lax or something? Because the thought of having the torrential shits while I’m locked in a house doesn’t sound very grand.”