by Mark Tufo
“Help,” barely escaped my mouth. But she heard it; oh yeah, she heard it. That tiny cry for aid was a catalyst. Her eyes turned to me, her head, which rested completely sideways on her cracked and broken neck, straightened itself out. Sounded like dry, brittle branches breaking under the weight of a nightmare. She floated down toward the ground, though she never really touched it, hovering a few inches above. I would have pissed my pants if I’d not been stone cold paralyzed from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. She raised her arm up and extended a finger toward me.
“You did this to me,” she said in a tortured voice, the rope having twisted the ligature of her vocal cords, making it sound like she was whispering through razor blades. I involuntarily backed up a step; she floated two steps’ worth closer. Again, she hissed:
“You did this to me!” Now these words had some force to them; this threat seemed to overcome my stupor.
“Please…I don’t know you.” As if a case of mistaken identity would offer up some defense to the specter before me.
Her head cracked loudly to the side as if she had maybe forgotten her neck was broken. Her eyes took me in, really took me in. “No, not yet you don’t, but you will.”
Might have only been ten, but I knew where this was going. The vengeful demon was going to make me pay for a transgression she believed me responsible for, and ummm…yeah, fuck that. There may have been maniacal laughter, difficult to say as I was running as fast as I ever had–my heartbeat was like a bass drum and the air was rushing past my ears. Somehow, I popped out at the exact point I had entered. I didn’t stop running until I got all the way home. You’d think this would be the strangest part of the story, maybe even the ending, but you’d be wrong. When I ran back through the garage, grabbing a box to bring back into the kitchen where my mother was, she smiled and told me: “That was quick.” Sometimes there is not an explanation, and in this case, I don’t think I wanted one.
I never told anybody about that ghost; even spent a few days at the library trying to find some story about a local girl committing suicide or being murdered–didn’t turn up anything. In hindsight, retelling that story from decades ago was most likely not the best avenue of retreat for my mind. I was already freezing to death; thinking of that chilling encounter had done little to warm me up. Night had settled in for the long haul; I could feel nothing below my shoulders, I had been making tiny tsunamis on the pool surface with my uncontrollable shaking, now even that had stopped. I was pretty sure I had read somewhere that this was not a good development. The moon had not yet started its journey up, but the sky was clear and there was some visibility with the light the stars offered. The zombies were still fucking afoot; like a stubborn wart, they would not go away. Not that I could have done anything about it anyway, I wasn’t even sure how I was going to get out of the pool. It seemed beyond my capability to move any part of me.
“Dad, you still alright?” Justin asked.
His voice brought me back to the present; I was still alive and that was something. It wasn’t pitch dark, but I couldn’t see him; I had to think he could not see me either. Not sure how he thought I was going to answer without ringing the dinner bell. This was when I ran into a whole new and deadly situation. My body was failing me, or more aptly, I was failing it. I was teetering like a bombed out building that had lost three of its four support columns. It was a slow process, but the direction my body was going was taking my head with it, and I was powerless to stop it. I commanded, demanded, ordered, then finally begged my arms to move and brace me so that I would not be submerged within the oily confines of the polluted pool. Didn’t work. My head drifted down and bounced off the bottom where my lips made contact with what I hoped was only a small tree branch. I don’t know if I have ever been more powerless during a life-threatening event in my entire life, at least, I mean, when I knew it was happening.
I was holding my breath; I think that probably happens automatically, but I knew my limits. Best of circumstances, I wasn’t going to go much more than forty-five seconds. Like the vast majority of humans, I liked to breathe. I didn’t see the benefit of knowing how long I could go without air. I felt the same way about the other three necessities in life; I ate and I drank and I returned the finished product, never having any desire to find out how long I could push my body to go without. I used to watch this show, Naked and Afraid, where they would send a male and a female to some remote, inhospitable armpit of the world, usually only supplied with a flint and a knife, and they had to survive for twenty-eight days. Sometimes they both made it, usually one did, sometimes neither did. They suffered hardships like thirst, hunger, plague-proportion bugs, heat, cold or constant rain. The question I always asked myself was, why? Why the fuck would someone send their resume in for this? Is it important to have the skills necessary to survive in extreme circumstances? Of course, it is! Very important! But testing them out under useless conditions just seemed like an arrogant waste of time, and could possibly even lead to harm. Who knows? Maybe harm that could prevent you from actually using those skills to survive for real one day. I would never even consider what they were doing. Hell man, they didn’t even get any sort of financial compensation for what they did. Did the fifteen minutes of fame have such an allure that they could not resist? Pretty fucking elaborately useless pain-threshold game.
Where was I? Oh yeah, I was dying by at least three different ways and if I managed to pull myself from the jaws of death, zombies awaited. I tilted my head to raise my mouth a few inches off the pool floor, not enough to make a difference, but being able to make my body do anything at this point was a victory. Next was a savage demand to my shoulder to do something besides connect my arm to my torso. It flinched at the request, but yielded to me and I was able to gain another inch toward salvation. The command then went down an arm that was much less willing to begrudge me, like I was an affront to everything it stood for. At this pace, it was a foregone conclusion that my loved ones were going to find me in the morning with leaf-choked lungs. I think it was my middle finger that finally relented and figured we were on the same team, no doubt remembering the good times. Amazing what your “fuck you” finger can accomplish when it sets its mind to it. As it pushed up, I made another inch or two toward my climb for safety, but it was a “fuck you, death” couple of inches. My hand, forearm, elbow and upper arm began to work, not in concert, mind you, more like a hipster jazz band, each doing their own thing, but at least they were fucking moving. My elbow collapsed once, sending me back to the dreaded slime covered bottom, before rebounding and giving me some thrust. I was stuck in no man’s land, halfway up, but still vastly short of my goal. My internal clock was crunching the numbers. Yep, I would need to breathe real soon. My heart was in over-exertion mode, it was thumping so loudly in my chest it was hurting my eardrums with its percussions. My lungs were beginning to constrict on themselves, a fire burned within them like I’d inhaled habanero infused smoke. How’s that for a descriptor? That’s the searing sacks of pain that were my lungs.
My torso thought now might be a good time to get into the game. My stomach muscles convulsed as they clenched and released in brutally painful contractions. Can’t say that I’d ever had a charley-horse in my gut, and right now didn’t seem like the optimum time to dwell on the new sensation. In between painful eruptions, I would force it upwards, ever upwards. I felt the cold night air brush across my head, so close, so achingly close. I dipped down grudgingly, knowing I was a second from taking in a deadly mix of water and all manner of microbes and parasites. One final surge; it was now or death, simple as that. I tilted my head above the surface and sucked in a combination of sweet, sweet air and salty, tainted water. I coughed vigorously for a minute before I was able to expel the worst of it and also get enough air into my oxygen-starved brain and extremities. The zombies were shuffling around from the noise but still, the water was acting as some sort of crazy alien cloaking technology.
Drowning throws up an instinctive red
flag for mammals, and certain systems kick in, and the panic in me had not settled down. I had fought hard for this victory, but I would not be this lucky next time. A fair portion of my life, even before the z-poc, had been me rolling the dice–you won some and you lost some, it’s the nature of the game. But when the stakes are your life you play with loaded dice–fuck the rules, and fuck all if it’s considered cheating. If you want to bet your friend a twelve pack on the outcome of a football game that’s one thing. Right now, these were stakes I was not willing to pay on and this was not a debt you could run from. I’m not proud of some of the defaulted lines of credit I left in my wake during my so-called “normal” life, especially that Best Buy one when they sold me a piece of shit laptop that died after three months and they wouldn’t honor the warranty because it was a discontinued model. Didn’t stop them from selling it to me though, did it? Fucking pimply-faced sales puke still got his commission. Maybe a little guilt there, but none of that mattered now.
“Priorities, Talbot.” I managed to say in a small, shaky voice as I slowly made my way to the edge of the pool. I didn’t want to be any closer to the enemy than I needed, but if I pitched over again, it was my hope that I would fall against the lining and could prop myself up, stay above the casualty line. My teeth started to chatter; this time I thought that might actually be a good thing. I leaned against the vinyl, the body tremors started again. I could not control them–I certainly could not stop them. Water was splashing and my body thumping up against the pool wall was making a hollow, bonging noise. The zombies were most definitely interested. I think my ankle was on the mend, but just because I couldn’t feel it didn’t necessarily mean good news, more than likely it meant the circulation was sluggish or gone. I could not ride the night out in the water. I didn’t think it was much past midnight, still long hours away from the warming rays of the sun, and if it was a cloudy, rainy day, what then?
I reached a weakened arm up and grabbed the lip of the pool while also tentatively placing weight on what I hoped was a freshly knitted ankle. The pop it made was audible through the water. The pain was sharp and sudden. Yup, it was safe to say my ankle was still there, now the question was could I do anything with it? I put as much weight as I could on it, knowing the answers that yielded would mean the difference between escape and becoming a midnight snack. I stood to my full height. If I thought I’d been cold before, it was nothing compared to what I felt as the wind blew past my soaked clothes. My skin was stretching due to the oversizing of my goosebumps. I wanted to make a grim joke about how my junk had retreated inside looking for heat, but I was pretty sure that might actually be the case and that even if I did somehow make it out, it might not ever come back down. That’s shit you just don’t kid about.
I took a minute to look around me. For the most part, the zombies were doing traditional zombie things: smelling up the area, rotting some flesh, chewing on some human remains, you know, normal shit. But there was this one zombie, one with a little more brains than he had a right to, who was looking my way. He knew something was up and he was going to spoil my little planned get away. My rifle was at the bottom of the pool somewhere, and not only was I in no hurry to go back down there, I wasn’t even sure if I could trust its effectiveness just now. M-16s and their civilian counterparts, the AR-15s, aren’t particularly known for their ability to fire predictably when fouled. And the wet gloop it had been submerged in for hours, can’t have done it any favors. If the barrel was in any way clogged up, I could make an already bad situation fatal. I’d seen barrels blow up before, some on the battlefield as they were overused, and others at ranges when dipshits failed to do even the most basic of maintenance. Most had escaped with minor injuries; even those in battle had others around them to pick up the slack, but if my weapon blew, I only had me to count on.
Yes, I would grab it because I had to, but I didn’t think I dared to use it, even to signal Justin and Winters. If I caught blowback in the face and eyes it could be enough to disable me and allow the zombies their treat. I felt better for moving; my ankle was holding up reasonably well, but the true test was coming when I put it under stress. I slogged around until I struck the rifle with the toe of my boot. Now I had to do a little gut check and reach back into the water. For some reason, it felt like barb-laced ice cubes. There was a slight panic as my mouth dipped down and I almost went in face forward. I snagged it and jerked quickly up, happy for the weight of it in my hands, even if it was no more useful than a club.
So, there I was, standing in the middle of the stinking pool, pondering how in the fuck I was going to get out of there. Climbing the inner ladder seemed tantamount to Everest about now. Then I still had to get down and somehow make haste. Any maneuver with quickness seemed as elusive as a minotaur or a yeti, or more like a yeti riding a minotaur, or the other way around, if you want that visual. Wasn’t going to see it. I once had a fight with my wife, can’t remember what the hell it was about, something inane, I’m sure, didn’t matter. The point is she had me so twisted up in my own words, instead of telling her “not to fuck my shit up,” I said “Stop being a shit fucker.” Instead of getting pissed off, she got a confused look on her face and proceeded to bust out laughing. So, there I am, being all pissed off, having spoken a potentially horrible and rude insult, and she’s laughing her ass off, I mean to the point where she bent over and was grabbing her gut.
“I don’t want to ever be a shit fucker, Talbot, and I would hope the same for you, and I’m not sure if I should thank you for that visual or not.” She left me alone so she could go and enjoy the rest of her laugh and maybe ponder the question she’d raised. Not sure the reason for the tangent, I guess I was just trying to show the importance of visuals and why you might want to be careful with what you use to display your thoughts; remember, an idiotic picture will haunt you much longer than a dumb sentence. Right. Back to reality. I was looking to the ladder while also keeping watch on the zombie that was ever so slowly making his way over to the pool. Yeah, that one was definitely giving me the old stink eye. He wasn’t completely sure what was going on, but the pieces of that puzzle were beginning to fall into place. If he got close enough and I could make everything work right, I was going to shove a knife blade through his temple.
We were approaching each other like two lovers might across a smoke-hazed dance floor, a slow, sweet song serenading in the background. We would finally meet up, look deeply into each other’s eyes, kiss, and then a slow clap would ensue. Again, man, I don’t know why my mind diverges like it does. I’d like to say it’s a defense mechanism; keeps me from going insane from the reality I was actually living, because really, a broken and decaying undead cannibal was ass dragging what was left of his jaw over to bite into my face, and I was freezing my ass off, hobbling broken-ankled through thick green sewer slime, carrying an inactive gun, to kill him up close and personal, obviously you can’t kill what is not alive, but you get my meaning. The only music we had was the percussion of my teeth and the hollow moan of the cold wind through his missing flesh. We both halted with the sound of a car engine approaching, I turned to the street, which had been to my back.
“What now?” I asked. If Knox and / or his henchmen were coming back, what was I going to do? Odds were, I’d be overlooked in the pool; it would be the house he would be going for. I wondered idly whether rats could climb the aluminum siding and swim at me.
“Talbot!” It was BT shouting. Like a dumbass, I tried to shout back. As luck would have it, I sounded more like Rose Dewitt of Titanic movie fame after she’d been in the Atlantic for an hour; a cricket farting would have carried more sound. By this point, the self-preservation part of my brain had kicked in and I realized how bad of an idea that might be.
“BT!” It was Justin.
“Justin? Are you guys alright? Where’s your dad?” I could hear the concern in my friend’s voice.
“We’re fine…well, dad might be busted up. He’s in a pool in the backyard.”
“Talbot, answer me!” BT demanded.
“He’s frozen and surrounded by zombies,” Justin clarified.
“Right. Hold on, pal. I’m so going to get you the fuck out of there.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
The car was idling on the street. BT didn’t even need to climb the privacy fence to look over it. A flashlight that could potentially burn out retinas illuminated the area.
“Whoa, you look like shit,” BT said as the light found me. “You a zombie?” he asked.
I managed to unfurl one finger, obviously the most useful one I had in any given situation.
“Good to see you too, man,” he said. The zombies made a go for the fence. “Can you run?” he asked as he realized he was pulling them all away from the pool. I gave him a thumbs-down. “You really do look like shit. Got the Marines. We’ll come up with something and get you soon. Hold on.” With that, he took the light and was gone.
Not going to lie, there was a dip in my morale as he vanished. I wanted to be gone now too. I’ve been in some armpits of the world; I’ve seen the horrors that one man can do unto another. Killing in war, while not necessarily the best way to go about getting something accomplished, is still leagues better than torture. There were times we came across whole villages that were tied up in a certain way; a rope bound their hands and legs behind their back then noosed around their neck. So, if they relaxed their extremities they would begin to be choked by their own body pressure. There is only so long the human body can be forced to hold out like that. Knees and shoulders began to burn as if they are on fire; eventually, ligaments will tear, yet this is still worlds better than when you try to take pressure off your screaming joints and the ligature in your neck is compressed and your airway is pinched off. Waves of panic, surge though your brain, forcing you to struggle and press even more against the bindings, producing a whole fresh wave of pain that you can barely tolerate before you start the whole process over again. It’s criminal how strong our will to survive is–the horror we will endure to keep breathing.