by Mark Tufo
“I talked it over with Kylie, it’s not good. We were hoping it was a mini-stroke or a warning stroke, as they call them, but looks like she had a full-blown hemorrhagic stroke. Maybe, maybe if she’d had it in a fully staffed hospital that deals with these things, she’d get a fair amount of her strength and faculties back after some serious rehab. But now…” He left it there. Really what more could he say?
“Thank you,” I told him before he went back up. I walked over to sit in the chair Tracy had been in. I reached out and grabbed Carol’s hand. Like I’d sent an electrical current into her, she gripped my hand tight, her right eye opened wide, the left lid drooped more than halfway down giving her a simultaneously sleepy, surprised look. She tugged gently on my hand, meaning she wanted me to come closer.
Her words slurred to the point of non-recognition; in honor of her, I will not write down how she said it, but rather what I interrupted it as. “How bad?”
I cried. I couldn’t even manage one fucking consoling word; I cried. My world, the entire world, was crashing down on me. Loss is a part of life; they go hand in hand, but how much can one person be expected to burden? I once read a comforting poster that said God does not give us more than he knows we can handle. Right now, I wanted to burn that poster because I definitely could not take anymore. I’d been riding an edge for a good long while now, and every loss cuts me that much deeper. I’m not in danger of falling into the abyss, no, my real danger is that I’m going to be completely cut in half.
“That bad?” She attempted a smile.
“Oh, mom,” I told her. “I remember the look you gave me when Tracy brought me to meet you. Guarded, but hopeful, I guess. Then I made a complete ass out of myself and instead of you rejecting me outright, you said you found it endearing that I was trying so hard.”
“You’re a good son.” I don’t know if she meant to add the in-law part or not, but just that sentence took most of her energy to finally get out. “Good father,” she added.
“I heard horror stories from my siblings, from those I worked with, friends, about mother-in-laws. I never once got that vibe from you. We talked football–sure you were a Broncos fan–but I never held that against you.”
She cough-laughed.
“We drank together; I loved when you came with us and the kids up to the mountains for vacation, never thought it was a burden. And the kids.” I cried again. They were going to be devastated.
“I’ll be alright.” She squeezed my hand tight. “I miss Everett,” she said, referring to her husband. She smiled again and closed her eyes. My head was bowed, tears falling freely from my eyes. I didn’t even hear the kids come down. Nicole was leading the way; by the time she got over to me her eyes were also free-flowing. Travis and Justin were holding back a little, and it was obvious. I’d grown up old school, that a man never shows weakness, doesn’t cry, all of that shit, and right now I regretted that they were doing their best to suppress those natural feelings of loss and remorse. Right now, I was hoping to lead by example. Even if I wanted to try and hide it, which I didn’t, it couldn’t be held. It wasn’t long until they joined in. After another ten minutes, I was flushed out. I don’t think I could have squeezed one more drop of water from me and my splitting headache let me know that I was on the way to complete dehydration. I needed a minute to collect myself.
“One of you stay with her, I’ll be right back.” Nicole nodded. I needed fresh air and didn’t even think about it as I headed for the front door–I walked into a wall of smoke. Deneaux had not moved from her spot since we’d come back. She was in danger of being buried alive from the volume of cigarette butts she’d deposited around her. Looked like she was trying to recreate the Great Wall of China one used filter at a time.
She said nothing, though I could feel her eyes on me. Was expecting something cynical or crass. Odds were, she could tell I was near to snapping and she didn’t want to be the recipient. I headed down the end of the walkway and sat on the curb, stretched my legs out onto the roadway. I let the sun shine on me for a while as I dried out my sinuses.
“What do you want?” I said, when I realized she had moved behind me. Would have been hard to miss the stale smell that emanated from her clothing. Well, that, and she was casting a shadow onto the road.
“I was never in league with Knox.”
“Speaking of which, how are you here? You a spy now?”
“Oh heavens no. I keyed in a self-destruct code into the module when it was time to update the password.”
I turned to look at her; not sure why. I’ve said it before. She was entirely too adept at lying for me to ever pick up any sort of visual clue or ever trust a damn thing she said. “Seems to me he would have killed you for that.”
“I set a timer for eight hours later. He shot the man that was using it at the time; figured it was his fault.”
“And when he had no more use for you, he just let you go? Doesn’t much seem like him.”
“I convinced him to give me a chance. He dropped me close to the zombie front lines.”
“You couldn’t have just been killed and saved us all the trouble?”
“I’m your friend, Michael. One of the best you have.”
I snorted; it was involuntary. Her words caused a gust of wind to push past my diaphragm and through my throat and nose.
“No. You killed one of my best friends, that I remember. Then you threatened the safety of my family if I didn’t capitulate and make you a vampire.”
She took a heavy drag on her cigarette, maybe making sure she collected her thoughts, realizing that I still might kill her just to be done with it. “I was merely testing you, seeing what you would say. I had plenty of time to take care of those that were threatening them.”
“You’re shitting me, right? This is pretty thin even for you, Deneaux. Your lies are usually much more protected than that. What? Thinking on the fly, are you? Don’t you remember? I was on the other side of that radio conversation. I heard the lust in your words, that perfect timing of your ultimatum. You weren’t faking. What if I’d said no? Would you have packed up your rifle and gone to California like you wanted to?”
She finished her cigarette before she sat down next to me.
“Fine. I wanted to be immortal. Who wouldn’t?”
“I could think of one,” I said. “I’m sitting here right now wondering not just if I should kill you, but how. Nothing drawn out and painful like you deserve, but just stand up, walk behind you, grab your head and snap that neck of yours. Can’t imagine it would be that difficult.” I shifted because the concrete curb was hurting my ass–Deneaux actually flinched. Probably thinking I had decided to do just that. I’ll admit it, her discomfort gave me satisfaction.
“I would have helped them no matter what. I don’t know why I find myself so drawn to the Talbot clan–I don’t. I’ve thought about it a lot. Why we were both in that God-forsaken townhome community together, how we’ve survived over all others. Most of all why, after the two times I have attempted to separate from you, we are always drawn close again. There’s a reason; I’m certain of it. If I could take back the wrongs I have committed against you, I would.”
“That’s the truth?” I wasn’t looking at her; what was the point?
“Possibly the most truthful thing I have said in many years.”
“Yet my family was captured.”
“Not sure what I have to do to prove my loyalty, Michael.” She loosened the belt that held up her pants and began to pull up on her shirt.
“What the hell are you doing?” Before I could finish that sentence, she had revealed a blue and blackened area that traveled up from her thigh to the top of her ribcage.
“Holy shit,” I said, looking at the discolored mass of misery she had. “What the hell does that prove? We’ve all been injured.”
She sighed. “I killed three of the degenerates that were going to do harm to your family before one of them had snuck up on my location. This is the result of a kick to the side. He cra
cked two of my ribs.” She then grabbed my hand and made me reluctantly touch a goose egg on the top of her head. “That is where he brought the stock of his rifle down. My understanding, while I was out cold, was that Knox had come on the scene, and instead of killing us all, thought better of it and was going to use us to flush you out. I could not prevent their capture, but I am completely convinced I saved them. If not for my actions, well, your wife’s virtue may not be intact, much less her face.”
Even if I had witnessed the event myself, I would always harbor doubt for anything Deneaux said. Yet there was evidence…but evidence isn’t fact. Had she manipulated the evidence to appear to corroborate her story, or had it really happened that way? No way to be sure. “I…I don’t know what to say. If that’s how it happened, then, thank you.”
She nodded. She had to understand that what she said was always going to be colored by distrust in my eyes, but I think she was satisfied with my qualified gratitude.
We sat in silence for the duration of three cigarettes. “How’s Carol?” she finally asked.
“Please don’t take the caring too far. It makes you seem like you are no longer portraying your character in earnest.”
“Fine. I’m sure you know why I’m asking. I did not want to come across as unsympathetic, but we will not be able to stay here much longer. The zombies or Knox or both will be back soon.”
“Ah, there’s Deneaux! So, you want to know if she’s going to die soon or what, so we can get going. I don’t know the answer to that. My guess is she’s never leaving this place.”
“And what about those of us that can?”
“Don’t.” I stood up. “I’m well aware of the risks and dangers of staying here. I don’t need you whispering in my ear about it, about how surviving is paramount, about how I have to be vigilant with the rest of my family. I’m well aware. We’ve already come to common ground that we’re both survivors. I will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that for me and mine; don’t push me on this one.” I went back into the house, BT was standing in the doorway. “By the way,” I said over my shoulder, “feel free to go it alone if that doesn’t suit you.”
“Can I kill her now?” he asked.
“Have at it.” He seemed pretty confused as I walked past and back downstairs.
10
Mike Journal Entry 10
Sanders came downstairs to pay his respects and then motioned for me to come to the other side of the room. “Biddie says the zombies have pulled back and we have an opportunity to get the rest of your people. We’re gearing up, wanted to know if you wanted to come.”
“Let me get my stuff. Nothing I can do here except be in the way.” I downed three bottles of water in record time. As I loaded some magazines, I could feel it sloshing around in my belly. It did little to quell the hunger, but the thirst was sated. Sanders, Biddeford, Winters, and BT were all on the porch when I got there.
“You can sit this one out,” I said to my friend.
“I’ll sit this one out when you do,” he said.
“Thanks, man.”
We were cautious as we headed out but made great time; didn’t encounter the slightest bit of resistance. Looking back, it was too good. The world wasn’t built for “too good” anymore. In regular life, I was a fairly optimistic man, but I had a pessimistic streak as well; call it skeptical, I guess. I don’t know if that was normal or not; I never asked anyone. But I was always on edge, slightly fearful when good things happened in life because things have to balance-out, right? For every good, there has to be bad, doesn’t there? Yin and yang and all that shit? I mean how much does it suck to always be looking up, unable to enjoy the scenery because you’re wondering when that other shoe was going to drop?
Biddeford was point, not more than twenty-five feet ahead. He raised a fist in the air for us to stop as he approached the house where we’d left Trip. I could see blood on the porch and the front door had been ripped from its hinges; the frame a jagged mess of splinters.
“Bulkers,” BT said softly.
My heart was thumping. My first instinct was to rush in. Sanders saw me out of the corner of his eye as I crept up and put his arm out gently.
“Let him do his job, Talbot,” he said.
Biddeford went up the steps slowly, tactically, rifle pressed against his shoulder. He was peering through his red dot scope, legs bent. He was swallowed up in the darkness of the foyer of what I was now convinced was a death trap. He came out five minutes later, though it felt like two hours. He was alone; he shook his head from side to side. Whatever hope I had been clinging to was ripped free from me. My head sagged.
“Fuck,” was all I could mutter.
“Talbot, BT, I don’t know if you’re going to want to see this or not,” Biddeford said as Sanders and Winters went toward the house.
I had to. It was my way of paying some respect of a sort. The inside of the house was destroyed, furniture splintered, windows broken, carpet torn up; the floors were soaked in blood. Dozens of zombies had been killed–bodies were strewn everywhere. The fighting had been intense–something I would not think the people who had taken temporary residence here could have ever mustered. Blood streaked the walls and dripped from the ceiling. The front door looked bad, but the safe room door was just gone, the wall around it having been pressed in from the attack. The house already looked like a horror show; the safe room appeared to be something straight from hell. Expended brass casings, blood, zombie heads and unidentifiable body parts. I dared not look under the dead for fear of what I would find. The world began to close in on me, my peripheral vision narrowed as my brain was overwhelmed. BT caught me before I could fall onto the mass. He dragged me out of the house with me doing the minimum to help.
He said nothing as he gently helped me sit on the lawn.
“How’s he doing?” Sanders asked. He had come out a few minutes later.
“I’m…well, I’m not ‘fine.’ Don’t think I’ll ever be fine again, but not going to pass out, if that’s what you mean.” I was physically ill. If I could have vomited up every distasteful thing I had ever witnessed, I would have done so–even if it cost me my life.
“I’m not sure how to say this, so I’m just going to do it,” Sanders said. “They’re not all dead. Because of the well…carnage…and it’s impossible to say who, but Biddeford is confident some of them may have made it out.”
I turned away. A long, thick, ropy column of puke-water shot forth from my mouth. My stomach, my throat, my head were ablaze. And fuck the other shoe dropping, a steel toe boot hit me square in the face. I had just laid back as Travis and Tommy came running up.
“Grandma’s getting worse,” he said in a rush.
Getting back to the safe house was a blur. For safety reasons, I had pulled my consciousness as far back into myself as I could. It’s a technique useful for just letting my body function to get me from point A to point B.
Carol died later that same night. It was as peaceful a passing as I’d seen in a good long while, not that this made it better, not at all, just different. Well, maybe a little better; we’d been prepared, and her family was with her. There was a small park, two streets over; dug as deep a hole as we could before gently placing her in the ground. More guns were there than any ceremony for a slain officer, though we didn’t fire a salute. The zombies had decided to not crash the funeral, must have heard there wasn’t a buffet. Tracy was a fucking mess; the kids little better. I’d like to say I picked up the slack this time because if it seems like I’m the one that stands firm, it’s only with Tracy’s support that I do so. In that absence, I think I did alright. There was a lot of heavy lifting to be done, and though I wasn’t up for the task, auto-pilot kicked in. I went through the motions; that was the best I could come up with. Thankfully, the zombies, for some unforeseen reason, were gone for the night, though we couldn’t hold that as any sort of guarantee.
BT and I had spent most of the next day looking for any sign of Trip or any oc
cupants that had survived the slaughter box of a bunker. Nothing. No sign of them anywhere. Even just an ill-placed snack cake wrapper and I would have lobbied to stay and look for them longer. We had to assume that they had either got away, as unlikely as that seemed, and were waiting at a rallying point or, well, you know, been dragged down at a different spot. In terms of a fighting force, the people in that bunker were ill-prepared and would not have stood much of a chance, hell, that’s why we left them in the bunker. Yet there was ample evidence that they had fought with an unbridled fury. I had left them there to die, and Trip’s look…he had known. Why hadn’t he said something? I’d killed them. My decisions had killed them; I was convinced of it. I had placed my brother’s kids in there. Ron’s entire family had been reduced to Meredith. A sob escaped my lips as I thought on how close I had been to putting Nicole and my grandson in that room. But I didn’t. Had I known all along? Had I sacrificed some to save others? I looked at the muzzle of my rifle, wondered for a moment what lead might taste like.
“Whatever the fuck is going on in that head of yours drop it. I’m telling you to just drop it,” BT said.
“Easier said than done, brother.”
He uncharacteristically hugged me roughly. “We’ll make it through this.” He held me at arm’s length like a little kid. “Let me hear you say it. Talbot–say it.” He prodded my silence. “We’ll stay like this forever if we have to. Your wife, your sister, they’ll miss us both greatly, I’m sure, but I’m not moving until you say it.”
Tears streamed down my face. “We’ll make it through,” I finally told him.
He hugged me tight again. “Damn right we will.” I could feel his hot tears trail down my neck.
Carol’s death was crushing. That, coupled with the potential loss of seven more, I began to continually question my decision to leave Ron’s. I couldn’t help it. We would have been surrounded, but we still would have been entrenched. One thing I had learned in the Marines: it is infinitely better to hold a great defensive position than spread out looking for something better. I knew that, and I had failed my platoon.