by Mark Tufo
“Yeah that was me. I had to bring it downstairs so I could pop the lock.”
“I was grounded for nearly a month, Mike! Lee broke up with me because he didn’t want to wait until I got out again.”
“Lee Brandle?”
“Yes!” She was nearly shrieking over the roar of the storm.
“You should be thanking me! He turned out to be a huge ass wipe. Last I heard he was still living in his parents’ basement.”
“People have to move back all the time,” she tried to defend him.
“He never left.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the ass kept in touch with me—always trying to catch up on what you were up to.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Well, first off because you were married and raising a kid. I didn’t figure you were all that interested in an unemployed man that seldom left the sanctuary of his parents’ cellar. And plus, you know what? Your number was listed, which I told him. If he was so fucking inclined, he could have called you himself and left me out of it completely.”
“I guess that’s one in the win column for you.”
“Just one?” Without saying a word, we both climbed the last wrung afforded us. Our heads were scant inches below the grate. Not sure if it was wishful thinking, but the water pouring on our heads seemed to have let up just the smallest bit. With the water rising past our hips, my sister began to shake uncontrollably; I had no body heat to share. She was having a difficult time holding on to the steps. I pressed in tighter, hoping to use myself as a human clamp.
“I d...don’t want to d..die down here,” she said. I was worried she was going to bite her tongue off as her teeth clamped down hard between words.
I don’t know if it was a moment of weakness or of strength when I told her there were worse ways to go. I looked up. Thunder sounded off in the distance—no idea which direction. By the time it made it to us it was filtered through a hole and muffled by the running water. The only thing decent about the loud crashing was it gave the zombies something to hone in on. At least a few were moving away, but from what I could tell from our limited vantage point, not enough to make it worthwhile. I forced my sister higher when the water reached our necks; she was slack in my arms. I could feel her breaths against my chest; they were shallow and too far apart.
“Stay with me sis—stay with me.” I peeked around to look at her face. Her lips were a deep, goth-girl shade of purple. Her face had a bluish tinge, her eyes were half open and threatening to roll up into her skull. “You remember that time when I was seven and Jamie Hollister was picking on me? When I saw you running to tackle him I felt like you were a Warrior Goddess; I’ll never forget it. I don’t think I ever thanked you for that; I mean, now I guess I realize you were just protecting me from someone else getting the satisfaction of beating me up.”
She grunted a laugh.
“But back then it meant the world,” I told her truthfully. The thunderous noises picked up. I was now pressing up against her hard enough that her lips were on the cold steel. The water was above my chin and sluicing into my mouth.
“P…pe…pen,” she managed.
For a sec, I thought we were going back to the diary.
“P…pocket,” she stammered.
“Pen in your pocket. Okay, so what? Unless it can pump water not sure what it's going to do.” I had to cough out that last part after swallowing too much water.
“Bre…breathe.”
I’m going to blame my slow faculties on the stress. It took a minute, but I put the pieces together. I fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a cheap plastic pen. Nearly lost it when I couldn’t grip it quite right. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a pen with a cap on it. Didn’t trust my fingers enough to attempt to pull the cap off so I gripped it between my teeth and yanked it free. Got the fucking cap lodged in my throat. The thing I was trying to use to save us was looking more and more like it was going to be the source of my demise. I coughed hard three times before it dislodged and struck my sister in the back of the head. She didn’t seem to take notice; compared to the Chinese water torture beating us around the head and shoulders this was nothing. I then gripped the tip of the ink tube tightly in my teeth, blocking it from going farther with my tongue. Odds were slim that I’d get something else stuck in my throat, but how far could this comedy of errors go?
Just a little further, I suppose, as my teeth slipped off and I chipped at least two of them and drew an inky line down my chin. I used my molars the next go around and pulled it out. I then handed it to Lyndsey, who was nearly underwater. I could feel her chest rise and fall heavily as she pulled in as much air as she could through the small tube, like she was hiding in a swamp and using a reed. I’d gone up as high as I could and made a duck face, my lips puckering up in between two grates waiting for a kiss but getting only a sliver of oxygen mixed with raindrops. I felt a tap on my shoulder. She was trying to hand the pen back. I shook my head; for at least the next few moments I had a place to breathe. I wouldn’t be able to hold it long, though. I was straining and in an unnatural position.
Even with my ears underwater I could hear the rapid concussions of what I at first thought was thunder—the zombies were on the move. My sister slumped against me. I frantically searched for the pen but I couldn’t see it, couldn’t see much of anything with the white water cascading over my eyes. It was now or never. I climbed one more step and put my shoulder against the grate. It was frozen stuck as if it had been welded. I was not going to let my sister die in a fucking storm drain. I roared—water rushed into my mouth and down my lungs as I strained. Toppled two zombies that had been standing on it. The horde’s attention was somewhere north of us where they were moving out toward. Except for the two that I had uprooted.
I was coughing out leaf and litter strewn water as I reached down and dragged my big sister free. I’d like to say I laid her gently down in the gutter; let’s just say the least of her problems was going to be the few contusions she’d just suffered. I was trying to catch my breath—the zombies were trying to catch a meal. We hadn’t been noticed yet by the rest, and our survival depended on it staying that way. Thankfully, the storm noise raged, now that I was outside, it sounded more like artillery, maybe mortars. Weather and some unknown force were my heroes right now. The first zombie to recover was a young boy, maybe around ten. Good thing too; anyone bigger and I would have been screwed since I was nearly choking as he came in. I wrapped my left hand around the back of his head and with my right, I grabbed his shoulder. I used his own forward momentum and collapsed my legs, forcing his head into the cobblestone gutter berm.
He struck mouth first. The sound of most of his teeth smashing was drowned out by the rain. His bottom jaw hung by a single hinge. I lifted his head and pulled him closer to the stones where I slammed his skull three more times until he was still. Hair, blood, and brain coated both of my hands. The next zombie looked as if it could have been the boy’s grandmother. In terms of the feeding chain, these two ranked low—probably why they were at the back. Granny might have been old, but she still had all her teeth and she looked all business as she eyed me warily. Warily, I didn’t need. If she felt threatened there was a good chance she would ask for some help. I didn’t have time for that shit. I’d yet to hear my sister take that first, gasping breath. I needed to clear her lungs immediately.
“Naw...you ain’t calling for no one, are you?” I was standing, knees bent, hands out in front of me in a traditional fighting slash wrestling pose. “You’re hungry, Granny. You could have two squares right now...when’s the last time that happened for you? I’m guessing it’s been a while.”
She growled. If I didn’t know better I’d think she knew what the hell I was saying.
“Do it,” I urged.
I had eighty pounds on the small woman, yet I had not been ready for the speed and ferocity of her attack. Well, that and I was pretty low on the reserves. That’s what
I’m going with. My journal—I’ll write it any fucking way I want. Not going to come out and say Granny Smith was kicking my ass, that looks undignified. Bitch was, though. I was able to shift enough that the back of my head didn’t come down on the very same stone I’d killed her grandson on, but I still scraped the side of my face enough that I was going to have a hell of a raspberry. For one horrifying moment, my hand had gone into her mouth. She chomped down just as I was pulling free, her top teeth scraping against my index fingernail. She slammed down; there was some satisfaction as one of her teeth cracked in half.
My hand slipped as I tried to force her away; instead she fell in closer, her mouth landing on my shoulder. I wanted to cry out as she bit me through the material. Felt like a snapping turtle had latched on. I could not get any stability or traction on the rain-slicked roadway; she was using her mouth to pull up to my more vulnerable neck. I tangled one hand around in her mop of blue hair and wrenched her up. Okay—let me clarify. I tried to wrench her up. The hair came away in great clumps; looked like I was auditioning for a part as a Muppet operator. I expected her next bite to be lethal.
Trust me, I was happy with the next series of events, but there was going to be a need for serious damage control. Blood and gravel pelted my face as Granny was knocked sideways and off me. My sister’s chest was heaving; she had a broken piece of asphalt in her hands and had just caved in the side of Granny’s head, sending her skidding off. Granny had watched her last episode of The Golden Girls.
“You’re alright?” I was getting up.
“I’m a Talbot. I’m realizing we’re exceedingly difficult to kill.”
“We’re not going to talk about this…her…to anyone, right?”
“Not right away. It’s always nice to have something to hold over your head, though.” She reached out to help me up, but she was barely standing herself.
“We have to find shelter; get our clothes dry. Warm up.”
She let the chunk of road drop and we headed in the opposite direction of the zombies who were cresting a small hill not too far away.
“Wish the zombies had come a few months later. Would have been nice to take a rest in a house listed in the low one point twos.”
“There’s my sister.” She was fighting back against the sadness that threatened to stop her in her tracks. A time would come when she could fully immerse herself in her loss; now was not that time. Pure survival mode has a way of crowding out all extraneous thought, which is any that does not revolve around: “How am I going to survive?”
Farther down the road there were some large excavation machines, a potential hiding spot if the zombies came back. I climbed up onto the large tank tracks and poked my head into the cab, opened the glove box, and pulled out a bunch of papers. A green lighter fell to the floor. I flicked the top and a bright steady flame lit.
“Fantastic.” The problem now was if I stuck it in my pants pocket I would soak the flint and it wouldn’t light again until it dried. By that time my sister would have succumbed to hypothermia. A brown paper bag was on the floor as well; that would do for the immediate, but the paper would soon soak through, too. “Unless...” I said. I opened the sack; there was indeed a plastic Ziplock bag inside; unfortunately it housed something that had once been food. Now it resembled a previously undiscovered alien life form.
“You have got to be kidding me.” I was going to forsake the baggie until I looked over to my sister, she was standing in the roadway, her lips trembling in tune to the rest of her body. “You owe me!” I yelled out to her as I opened the bag. Of course the thing stuck to the sides; I had to grab it and pull it out. My dad used to like to watch those country veterinarian shows and for some god-awful reason those vets were always sticking their entire arms up the ass of a cow. I felt a lot like that as I pulled that golden-green nugget free, only cow shit is like French perfume compared to what I’d just touched. I placed the lighter in the waterproof package and sealed the top.
“Come on.” I grabbed my sister’s shoulder. “I saw the beginnings of a house when I was in the cab.” It had no windows, but it had to be dryer than where we were now.
“I’m not sure I like what they did with the place,” my sister said. We were now staring at it from the dirt driveway. I was rubbing her shoulders vigorously as she chattered.
“Don’t move.”
“Can…can’t help it.” She was shivering uncontrollably.
“I mean stay put. I’m just going to check the house out real quick.” I did a mad dash around the main floor, then upstairs. I was amazed at how much a house this small was actually going for. The location wasn’t that good either; had a fucking infestation of zombies nearby, and a lousy storm drain. “You good?” I asked as I went past my sister, who had followed me in and was headed downstairs. One corner of the basement had a pool of water, but the rest was fairly dry. Plus it had a framed-out fireplace for what looked like it was going to be a hell of a man cave.
“Come on.” I grabbed my sister’s hand and led her into the cavernous room. In a few minutes, I’d made a decent collection of scrap wood. Another ten minutes, a fire was going. My sister started peeling off clothes; to stay in the wet ones spelled disaster, she knew that.
“What’s the matter? Oh, that’s right Meredith told me about your condition.”
“My condition? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your aversion to underwear.” she smiled.
“Hilarious. I hate the fucking things but I swore I was never going to let that happen again.” We were as close to the flames as we could be without standing in the damn thing. Funny thing was I must have been so cold, I didn’t start shivering until a half hour later in front of the blaze. Once the shaking started I wasn’t sure it was ever going to stop. I longed for my clothes to dry; I wondered how long I could leave them on a burning log before they would be unsalvageable. I dragged over some large sheets of plywood and fashioned a crude bench atop some sawhorses so we could at least get up off the concrete. I didn’t give a flying fuck if anyone could see the smoke we were making. I said that, but knew the moment a zombie popped in, I’d rue my words. Still, all things considered, I’d rather die warm.
At some point, I’d fallen asleep. The fire was still blazing; my sister was no longer next to me. I got a small start in my system until I saw her finishing up tying her boots.
“Clothes are dry. Mostly.” She flipped a wet pocket out.
“Turn around,” I said.
“Huh?”
“My underwear is still damp; I’m not putting nice toasty pants over them.”
“I’m not sure why mom didn’t get you some therapy.” She turned.
“Why? Because I don’t want my sister to see me naked?”
“No, because I bet they’re as dry as mine were—you just have some sort of mental issue about having them on.”
“Yeah, that one isn’t even high on my list.” I was pulling my t-shirt back on, rubbing the warm material against my skin. “That feels so damn good.”
“Now what?” she asked.
My boots were still slightly damp but they were dry enough I’d deal with it.
“It’s night now and it’s still raining. I’m not in any rush to head back out there.”
“What about the rest?”
“I don’t know how to get there from here and I’m going to imagine them safe and sound, BT included. I don’t think stumbling around in the dark is a good idea. And even though we nearly drowned today, we are going to need some water, and a little food would be nice. We get caught out like that without refueling or have to run without fixing our energy stores, it’s game over.” I tossed some more wood in the fire.
“My son is still out there.” She was staring into the flame. I didn’t feel the need to remind her that my family was out there as well.
“We’re not doing anyone any favors if we leave here now. I’m going to check those other machines and hope somebody left something behind worth eating.”
“You’ll get soaked.”
“Naw, some of the windows on the top floor have plastic on them I’ll use that to make a raincoat or something. Should keep most of it off.”
Wasn’t sure if there would be anything in the earth-moving machines or not but that wasn’t the real point of going out. Next to the lighter had been a pack of smokes. Not sure why I felt the need to hide my one cigarette a month habit but fuck it. I did like to be alone when I cheated with one. I stayed in the cab and savored every inhalation of that stupid thing. When I finished I figured I’d do what I said I was going to. Had a pretty good haul between the two other machines...one breakfast bar, a whole sleeve of fig cookies, a diet coke, and an orange energy drink. None of it was optimum, but it beat eating bugs.
“Look what I found!” I said holding up my loot.
“Did you bring the smokes in with you?”
“I’m twenty feet away you can’t possibly smell that.”
“I went to see what was taking you so long.”
“You haven’t touched them in years. You sure?”
“I could use one right now.”
We killed the rest of that pack before we opened any of the food or drinks. I felt a little green around the gills and somewhat high as a kite.
“We’re not going to talk about this to anyone either, right?” I asked, the basement was a fog of smoke.
“Looks like a bar in here,” my sister replied.
“I wish.”
We sat there the entire night. Every once in a while one of us would put something in the fire. There was some small talk, but for the most part, we were both lost in our own thoughts. Together but alone. There’s a connectivity between humans and even stronger bonds within families, but ultimately no one can know exactly what another is feeling. Even if that person wanted you to know, odds are they wouldn’t have the ability to adequately convey it through words, and even if that was somehow possible, the one listening wouldn’t have the knowledge or experience to completely understand. It was truly weird that we were so wired for communication but could actually accomplish so little of it.