Alive in a Dead World

by Mark Tufo

“I will kill him, Tomas, and you will help if I have to drag you kicking and screaming through the blood and guts of the mortals.”

  “I’ll be there, Eliza, but it will only be to witness your demise,” Tomas said heatedly.

  “We are family, Tomas, you and I. Is this how you would treat one of your own?”

  “Mr. T and his family are my true family!” Tomas shot back defiantly.

  “Blood!” Eliza said fairly quaking. “Blood is the thickest bond, Tomas. It is something which you share nothing of with that mongrel!”

  “I do now, sister. Remember? I bit him.”

  “You are a fool, Tomas. You jeopardize everything we have and everything we can attain, for what?”

  “Love, Eliza, for love, the most basic and strongest of all human emotions.”

  “Hate, Tomas, hate is a much stronger emotion because it can burn longer, it can span generations. I’ve watched it spread across borders for no other reason than there were people on the other side of an imaginary line in the dirt. Love lasts for a few years between individuals, hate spans millennia among the populace.”

  “If that is the case, then let him have his few years of love. There will still be time for hate afterwards.”

  “You still don’t understand. There is no fun in defeating an opponent once everything he has is lost. Much like a fine wine, it can be savored as we pull him apart, piece by piece.”

  “Hey! I’m still here. I can hear everything you’re saying about me and I’ve got to be honest, I’m not all that pleased,” Mike said, trying to inflect some levity in his words.

  Tomas could not help but smile, shielding it somewhat from the raging form of his sister.

  “How?” Eliza demanded.

  “Not sure. I guess it’s some sort of party line, looks like we’ll be able to stay in touch a lot,” Michael said. “Maybe I’ll be able to sing you some lullabies or read you a bedtime story; you seem to get real cranky without enough sleep.”

  Tomas had to turn so that his sister could not witness his delight, although the rising and falling of his shoulders was a dead giveaway.

  Chapter Two – Mike Journal Entry 1

  “You alright, Mike?” BT asked with concern.

  “I’m fine. Why? Do I look bad?” I asked him with the same concern. I didn’t want to start turning into that pasty-looking version of Tom Cruise in “Interview with a Vampire.” He always looked anemic, although how that was possible after drinking all that iron-rich blood, I’ll never know.

  “Well, to be honest, you’ve looked better, but that’s not why I’m asking. You were just standing there and then this shit-eating grin spread across your face. You looked like you had maybe just taken a shit in your pants and you didn’t want anyone to know. That sort of thing.”

  “That’s pretty graphic, my friend. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Oh no, why do I ask? Why God?” BT asked as he turned his head up to the heavens.

  “What’s going on?” Tracy asked. The activity of the last few days was weighing heavily on her shoulders, fearing for her children and now for her husband. Tracy could not gauge if BT were wailing to the heavens or merely jesting for Mike.

  “Your husband has an idea,” BT said seriously, never pulling his gaze from the clouds that flew by overhead, oblivious to the prayers that drifted through them, seeking a higher purpose.

  “Mike, we’ve gone over this time and time again,” Tracy said, placing her hand on BT’s shoulder in commiseration.

  “I know, I know,” I told them. “But this time, it’s going to work.”

  “Heard that before,” Gary said from twenty feet across the parking lot of the Big 5 Sporting Goods store they were in the midst of ransacking. Most everything of any value was long gone, but there were a few small caliber rifles and bricks of .22 bullets, some camping gear, a few packs of dehydrated food and, for some abnormal reason, pallets of knee-high socks. It looked like the World Cup was coming to North Carolina soon.

  “No, I’ve got insider information now,” I told them.

  Tracy’s head bowed as she realized I was talking about Eliza. It was one thing to know about her, completely another to be linked to her.

  “She’s coming for us,” I told them.

  BT threw his hands to his face. “Shocker!” he exclaimed.

  Tracy punched him so hard in the arm, he actually stepped back a few inches.

  “Damn, woman! If I could crane my neck far enough down to see you, I’d swat you away like a fly,” BT bellowed.

  “Hey, this is pretty cool, I’m usually the one in the middle of the shit storm.”

  “Shut up, Talbot!” BT and Tracy said in unison, and then they high-fived. Well, to be fair, Tracy way-high-fived and BT went way-low, but it was the same thing, sort of.

  “Okay, no shit, we all know she’s coming. But I know when and how. I think it’s time we went on the offensive.”

  “I’m listening,” Brian said, carrying his third load of socks to the car. “What?” he said as he dropped them in the backseat. “I like to have clean feet; it’s an Army thing.”

  “So you gleaned all this info from her?” BT asked, reluctant to use her name.

  I nodded, maybe just a little too enthusiastically.

  “Close your mouth when you’re nodding, Talbot,” Tracy said, “You look like the village idiot.”

  “Any chance she fed you some misinformation?” Brian asked.

  “First off, I think she’s probably too arrogant for that,” I said. “I think she’d tell us willingly what she planned on doing, probably thinking there was nothing we could do to stop it,” I told the growing group. Gary and Justin nodded in agreement. “But no, I’m pretty sure she had no clue I was eavesdropping on her.”

  “Whew, buddy,” BT said, rubbing his hand over the top of his head. “This isn’t like solving the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune.”

  I stopped him there. “BT, don’t tell me you watch Wheel of Fortune?”

  “What in the hell is wrong with Wheel of Fortune? Vanna White is a goddess.”

  I shrugged, I had to agree with him there. She might be a few revolutions of the globe past her prime, but who amongst us had never fantasized about her turning our letters on? Okay, poor sexual innuendo, but it gets the point across.

  “So you were saying?” Tracy asked BT as she pushed me to wake me from my Vanntasy. (See? That was much better!)

  “No offense, buddy,” BT said, “but your ideas suck ass.”

  For the second time in a matter of seconds, I found myself agreeing with BT. “Granted. But I’m sick of running, I want her to re-think her strategy, I want to bleed her this time,” I said with anger.

  “You are not talking that ‘last stand’ shit again, are you, Talbot?” Tracy flared. “Because if you are, I will drag your sorry ass out of here by your balls, upside down!”

  BT, Gary, Paul and even MJ, who was not paying us any attention covered up their privates in a mutual shared sympathy.

  Justin nearly split his side laughing. Travis was shaking his head from side to side, in disbelief that he had just heard those words issued from his mother’s mouth.

  When I felt I could safely remove my hand from my nether regions, I continued, although I have to admit I had turned a slight degree or two away from Tracy, so as not to give her easy reaching access to my cherished jewels. “No, no I promise no John Wayne stuff. I want her to feel some of the trepidation that we do every waking second. I want her to think that maybe her next breath might be her last.”

  “Mike, vamps don’t breathe,” Gary said.

  “Analogy, brother, just an analogy.”

  “Gotcha,” he said, clicking his tongue and pointing at me with his index finger.

  Well, let’s get this part out of the way, I thought to myself. “Tracy, I still want you and Meredith and the boys to head back to Ron’s. The sooner you can get MJ back there and working on his wonder boxes, the better; and this gambit should buy us plenty of time.”
<
br />   She looked at me coldly with her battleship-gray eyes. I waited silently for the tempest within to be unleashed. It never came. “You swear to me, Talbot, that this is not one of your do-or-die stunts and I will do as you ask.”

  “Really?” I asked incredulously. “I honestly wasn’t expecting that.”

  “The window of opportunity is closing,” she said forcefully.

  “Yeah, yeah yeah,” I said quickly. “No, it’s not any sort of final encounter.”

  “Then you teach that bitch that messing with the Talbots means you have hell to pay!”

  “Sweet,” I told her. “Who wants to stay for the fireworks show?” I asked the growing crowd.

  “’Bout fucking time,” Deneaux replied, clapping her hands together and rubbing them briskly.

  “You’re in?’ I asked her, unconvinced.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she told me, dead serious.

  “Huh. What a weird friggin’ day,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What do you need and what’s the plan?” Brian asked.

  Like the vast majority of my plans, it was long in thought and very short on words. As I write that, it doesn’t make much sense. Suffice to say, it basically boils down to an ambush, followed by the death of a bunch of her henchmen. If we’re really lucky, Eliza catches one in that tainted melon of hers.

  “Mike, as the only black member of this dysfunctional group, I’m truly amazed that I’m still alive. I mean I’ve watched almost every horror movie ever made, and without fail, if a man of color is in the movie, he dies first. In recent years, however, it has gotten somewhat better. Now, we sometimes make it to second killed, after the ditzy blonde, but I’ve got to imagine that a brother’s life expectancy in any horror setting is generally a couple of hours, at most.”

  “I agree with your movie assessment, BT, but how does that apply right now?” I asked him.

  “Alright, hear me out… So me still being alive bucks that trend, right?” I nodded in agreement. “But damn, Mike, you keep breaking the cardinal sin of all flicks.”

  “The splitting up, I know, I know. I feel like the idiot that says, ‘Yeah I’ll go down to the basement alone to check out the breaker box, and I only have this one wooden match to light my way. Oh, and did I mention that we heard suspicious sounds down there only moments earlier?’”

  “Yeah, like that, so you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Sure I do. I’m usually the one asking the characters on the screen what the hell they’re thinking.”

  “Well, what are you thinking?”

  “Well, it is dark and the basement does house the breaker box and my match is the extra long, barbecue-style.”

  “I wonder if I could catch up to Alex?” BT wondered.

  “I want my family out of here, BT. If only I could I’d send them to some lonely outpost on the moon to get away from this crap. Their safety means everything to me. They’re the air I breathe, the food I eat, the…”

  “I get it, don’t go getting all soft on me.”

  “Too much information?” I asked him sincerely.

  “I’m starting to see under all that Marine Corps veneer. Are you sure it wasn’t the Peace Corps? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I wonder if Alex would come back and get you.”

  “You think he’s alright?” BT asked.

  “I don’t know, buddy, but he keeps breaking that cardinal rule too.”

  “He sure does,” BT said as he walked away.

  “Paul, are you sure about this?” I asked my best friend for the better part of three decades. Damn! That makes me sound so old. And then the realization of my eternity slammed into my chest. My best friend, with whom I had shared so many experiences, would be a distant memory as I strode through the world, unencumbered by love. Would I bother with humanity at that point? The only reason I still interacted with people now was because of my wife and kids. If she were to be gone, then what? Would God forgive me? Would it even be considered suicide? I had already made my bed when I traded my soul for my family’s safety. I was pretty sure I was on the top of God’s shit list and I can guarantee that is not anywhere you want to be, just ask the ’04 Yankees. They’ll tell you the same thing.

  But what of Nicole’s baby? I would have to stay alive long enough to make sure he or she was able to find their way through this world. And then if he/she had kids, what then? When would I stop? Would I follow them through millennia, much like Tommy had followed his sister? Each passing day would push me that much further away from the inevitable death I was so seeking. Banned from the Garden, the alternative was excruciatingly painful, if only because I had glimpsed the beauty of it all.

  “Talbot, we’re leaving,” Tracy said, stroking my cheek, and wiping away a tear. “You alright, husband?” she asked tenderly. “You haven’t changed your mind on this, right? No Rambo stuff?”

  “What?” Gary asked from the entrance to the Big 5.

  “Rambo!” Tracy yelled. “Not Gambo!”

  “Gotcha,” Gary repeated with the tongue clicking and finger pointing gesture.

  “I’ll be glad if just to get away from his new mannerism,” Tracy said, smiling.

  “I’ll miss you, wife, but I promise this will be only for a couple of days, max.”

  “She’s that close?” she asked. “She’s relentless.”

  “That’s one word. Mine would be much more colorful and would end up being all those funny symbols you see in the Sunday comics when Al Capp swears.”

  “Al Capp? Nobody reads Al Capp anymore, Talbot. What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’d think you would have figured it out after all these years,” I retorted.

  “You know you’re nuts, right?” she asked me.

  “That may be, but what does that say about you for staying with me this long?” I asked her snidely.

  “Oh, I plan on publishing a thesis about you when this ride is over,” she told me seriously. “I’ll be famous, I’ll be up for Sainthood.”

  “Tell God I said hi when you get there,” I said in jest, but its meaning had so much more depth than the way I had originally intended it. Tracy’s smile evaporated.

  “Oh Talbot,” Tracy said, falling welcomingly into my arms. “What are we going to do with you?” she said, burying her face into my shoulder.

  “There’s always the rodeo,” I told her. It was the first thing that came to my mind.

  She wiped a tear from her eye and looked up at me. “You rarely think before you speak, don’t you?”

  “What? I think I’d be great, those guys that get in the barrel and everything.”

  “You know those are rodeo clowns, right?” she was telling me.

  “Clowns? I hate clowns. They are the root of all evil in this world,” I answered.

  “You honestly believe that, don’t you?” Tracy said. “There are zombies and vampires roaming this world, but clowns rule as the supreme evil being in your world.”

  “That’s rich,” BT said. “You never cease to make me wonder what the hell is wrong with you.”

  “I thought the phrase was never cease to amaze?” I asked him.

  “Nope,” he replied dryly.

  “Hey, Mike,” Paul said, walking away from a very angry spouse. Why the hell he was exposing his flank to a pissed-off wife was beyond me and they called me the crazy one.

  “Hey, buddy. Hey, Erin!” I yelled over his shoulder.

  She semi-waved, but it looked more like she was flashing me the finger as she turned away.

  “I take it you’re staying for the extracurricular fun and activities?” I asked him. He nodded in return. “And you told Erin to leave with the advance party?”

  “Right on both counts.”

  “She’ll get over it when she sees your smiling face in a couple of days.”

  “You think?” Paul asked, looking over his shoulder at his wife’s back.

  “I’m an old pro at this; you’ll be fine.”
<
br />   “I haven’t gone yet, Talbot,” Tracy said from her car door as she loaded an extra clip of ammo. “I can still kick your ass before I go.”

  I was going to comment on how good someone, who only a few short months ago hated firearms, was now loading a clip. But then, the reason of why she was so proficient at this new skill struck. I would rather she remained inept than have to deal with this walking abortion we’re calling life. I reverted to, “Yes, dear.”

  Chapter Three – Mike Journal Entry 2

  I actually did not feel bad when Tracy, the boys and the rest left because I knew what we were doing was right and it felt good. We would finally make a stand, sort of. No more retreating and firing blindly over our shoulders as we ran for our lives. We were taking the fight to her and it gave me goose bumps just thinking about it.

  “This is a great set-up,” Brian said, coming up to me as I surveyed the highway below us. “Plenty of clear firing lines and ample opportunity for escape.”

  “You ever killed a human?” I asked without turning.

  “I’ve killed dozens of zombies,” he responded.

  “I didn’t say zombies,” I told him, now turning to look him in the eyes.

  “What are you talking about Mike?” he asked with a “what the hell?” expression.

  “I’m asking have you ever killed an air-breathing human with thoughts, feelings and a hope for the future before? In the Army?”

  “More times than I’d like to count,” he told me solemnly. “Why?” he asked cautiously.

  “Well, not that I consider the stupid bastards that hooked up with Eliza to be much above the zombies, but she has at least a hundred or so human sympathizers that help move her horde around and give her nourishment when she runs a little low on fresh stock.”

  “Are you shitting me, Mike?” Brian said, looking like he was getting a little green around the gills.

  “Not at all, and those are the ones I want to target.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to expect with this, but I guess this wasn’t it. I was really kind of expecting a giant mob of zombies to be coming down the highway and we would just let gobs of lead fly.”

  “Oh, we’re still going to let gobs of lead fly, just a different target than you were expecting.”