by Tufo, Mark
“It also has the ability to echolocate; it pinged in my head. I’m pretty sure it can see in infrared.”
“What?” I looked up from the tracker to Tommy.
“When I got pinged, I circled around and was upwind. It turned and looked right at me. I can’t be entirely sure if it saw me or heard me, but Mr. T, it zeroed right in on me.”
“How many?” I moved my jaw to say the words and then my mouth hung open again, like it had been.
“It’s impossible to tell. These mutations, they happen as the zombies have need. The specialists, like shriekers and bulkers, are rare. I think it’s safe to say these would be too.” Tommy said.
“You sure?” BT asked. “Speeders aren’t all that rare.”
“Thanks for that; you should have stayed asleep,” I told him. “And for the love of god, get some clothes on.”
Tommy tossed the body away from the walkway and went inside. I attempted to peer through the murkiness at what I was sure was out there. I saw nothing before I pulled what remained of the door closed behind me.
“How you feeling?” I asked BT once he was back under his covers, in the office.
“If you’re asking if I’m ready to leave, I’ll say yes because I have to, but I would love to sleep for the next eight hours.”
“Try then. Can’t leave anyway.”
“Mr. T,” Tommy brought me to the main area, “they’re out there. They wouldn’t just let a tracker go off on his own.”
“What are they waiting for?”
“You really want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Do I?” I mean, how does one respond to that? If someone asks you that question, pretty great odds it’s going to be something you do not want to hear. Sure, the perfect scenario: “Want to know what I’m thinking?” being followed up by: “I think we should have extra sprinkles on our ice cream,” it can happen. That was not the case here.
Tommy shrugged. “I think they know we have more people with us and that they’re likely to come and get us.”
“More food. We’re bait. The squad is safe; they don’t know where we are. Now we have to wonder how long they’re going to debate whether it’s better to have one in the mouth or two in the bush.”
“I don’t like your variation on the old adage.”
“Me neither,” I told him. “And sorry about earlier. You just caught me off guard.”
“I get it, Mr. T. Just know I would never do anything to intentionally harm my family.”
I nodded to him then absolutely hated myself for getting hung up on the word intentionally. “I guess I’m staying up too.” We went to opposite sides of the building to keep a lookout. Was hardly worth it; I would have got the same view if I’d stared at a brick wall. The fog and darkness were impenetrable; I made sure to not fall into the trap of every horror movie ever filmed. You know the one. Person can’t see anything outside the window, so they press their face up against it like that’s going to help. Really only one of two things can happen at this point. First is the shock-scare of either the monster smacking up against the glass or the bloodied hand of the monster’s latest victim, or, the second, even scarier scenario, hands break through the glass, reach in and rip the unsuspecting dipshit outside, where he or she is summarily eaten. Nope. I was avoiding that trope. Kept a good two-foot cushion between me and the see-through horror fest.
The fog began to peel back just as the sun started its skyward journey, almost as if they could not coexist. I looked over to the radio just as Corporal Stenzel called in, looking for us.
“This is Talbot. How you are guys doing?” I asked.
“We’re fine, sir; worried about you, been trying to reach you all night.”
“We’re holed up, safe for now.”
“Where are you? We’ll come by and pick you up.”
Tommy was waving me over.
“Hold one, Corporal.” I went over to the window and looked out. There were three zombies standing out in the middle of the parking lot. “What are they doing?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “The fog moved away and they were just standing there.”
“Guards…they must be. Tasked with making sure we’re not going anywhere.”
“What are you going to tell Stenzel?”
“I was thinking about telling her to go back to base and have a good life.”
I turned as BT came out of the office and stretched.
“You doing this shit on purpose?” I asked.
He scratched his belly before making an adjustment I made sure to avoid watching.
“How does looking at our parking lot triumvirate seem more appealing than watching BT?” I asked Tommy.
I could hear BT rustling his clothes as he put them back on.
“Feel much better, thanks for asking,” he said as he approached.
“I wonder what my sister would think if she knew just how often you liked parading around in the nude.” I regretted the words the moment I said them.
“She’s fine with it,” followed in an instant.
“I wish you had a sister. I’d let you know what that felt like.”
“Any sister of mine would be a warrior goddess that would want nothing to do with you. What’s going on out there?”
“Guards, we think,” I told him. Now I was stuck on the imagery of a female version of BT that would not only get mad at me if I told her I thought those pants made her look fat but could outright kick my ass for voicing my opinion.
“Don’t seem to be doing guardly things,” he said, taking a longer look.
“They’re zombies; how do we know what they consider guard duty?” I asked.
“Any out back watching the windows?” he asked.
I was going to tell him I didn’t know; I went and checked instead.
“Nothing,” I said when I came back.
“Lieutenant, you still there?” Stenzel called.
“We’ve got a situation here. Pretty sure we’re surrounded and the zombies are waiting for our ride to come.”
“Tell me where you’re at. We’ll come and help get you out of there.”
“Not yet, Corporal. Just because we’re in the middle of it doesn’t mean I want to endanger anyone else’s lives.”
“If the situation was reversed, sir, you wouldn’t leave us.”
“Difference is, I could order you to tell me where you were. Let us see if we can figure out what the hell is going on. Stay close to the radio.”
“Sir, don’t—”
I shut it off. Figured that was the best course of action. Every fiber in my body was demanding a speedy egress; Stenzel’s call was like that of the sirens of old. Different in the fact they’d be in danger too, but it’s an analogy; it doesn’t need to fit like a glove.
“Go see what they want,” I told BT.
“You lose what little of your mind was left?”
“You’re the one that doesn’t consider me your boss, so I’m figuring as our de facto leader you should go and see what they want.”
“Nice try.”
“You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”
“Thanks, Wayne.”
“You know a hockey quote?”
“I didn’t just watch Australian rules football.”
“Bullshit. Who’s your favorite team?”
“We lived in Colorado; how could you not be an Avalanche fan?”
“That’s a shit argument. You root for a team twelve thousand miles away.”
“Just shut up, man.”
“Should we all go out?” Tommy asked. “Three of them, three of us?”
“Nope. I think the temptation would be too much for them, and they might send a few in here to close off our retreat. I’ll fucking go.” I raised my hand like I was responding to a volunteer request. Seemed like a better idea if I wasn’t making the call on my own. It’s the little lies we tell ourselves that help us get through most days. You know the ones: “At least the pay is good.” Or: “This job
isn’t so bad! There’s free coffee!” Or maybe: “He (or she) is a decent person when they’re not cheating on me.” Well, maybe that last example wasn’t so little. How about: “It’s just a rash; it’ll go away on its own.” Yeah, that one didn’t work out for me either.
“You sure about this?” BT asked as he was escorting me to the door. I could feel him gently nudging me in that direction.
“I might not be, but you sure seem okay with it.”
“Don’t say that, man—you’re like my tenth favorite Talbot and easily break the top two hundred of all people I like.”
I was finding it hard to believe that there were that many people he did like.
“We’ve got your back. Maybe get your headset on, though, so we can warn you about anything going on.”
“Testing,” I said once I got it on. I got a thumbs up from BT and Tommy.
“I can hear you,” Stenzel said.
“Shit.” That I said aloud because that meant they were much closer than I would have liked.
“Do not move from your position. Are you in a safe area?” I asked.
“Seems that way, sir.”
“Fire up the ZAD; let me know what you see.”
“Kirby, you heard the man. Get on it.”
I could hear him grumbling in the background. “Shit. Want me to make an omelet too?”
It was a couple of minutes when I heard him whistle through his teeth. “Fuck me. Think I found the LT, gunny, and sergeant,” he said. This had me concerned, as Tommy and I would mostly show as black blotches.
“Sir, not sure where you’re at, getting some distortion on you three, but that’s not the point. You are surrounded. ZAD counting system has it at over five hundred zombies,” Stenzel said. “Got an unbroken ring of them around you holding at fifty meters.”
“BT, Tommy, you two see anything? I was peering, looking for a head bobbing, pair of eyes looking my way, any type of movement. Yeah, we were in a national forest, but fifty meters wasn’t that great a distance. I did not know how that many zombies could hide so efficiently.
“Got one,” Tommy shouted from the far side of the building. He’d found some binoculars; the things were big enough I think he could have seen the rings of Saturn with them. He handed me the glasses. “That large tree with the widow maker leaning on it, right off the base, five feet.”
I adjusted the focus and was about to tell him I didn’t see anything, then I did. Pulled the glasses down then immediately put them back up. “Shit. Stenzel, pack up, get the hell out of here. When you get in range of base, see if they’ll spare a helo extraction.” I figured this battle would be long over before that could happen, but it couldn’t hurt.
“What’s going on, sir?”
“They’re wearing camouflage…at least, the four I could spot.”
“What? Like an ex-military unit?”
I didn’t get that feeling. If it had been a unit overrun, their clothes would have been tattered, bloodstained, brackish—even just from the cesspool the zombies generally lived in. But these looked fresh, like they’d found a depot of them. Changing clothes to blend in? That had Intelligent Zombies written all over it. Now the question was whether the whole group was a bunch of Einsteins or there was only one directing them all.
“I don’t think so,” I told her. Stenzel was quick and got the implication immediately.
“We can’t hang you out there to dry,” she said.
“We don’t have the manpower to take them on. Get out of here and get us some help. That’s an order.”
She never answered and I didn’t have a chance to make sure she’d copied my last transmission.
“Our friendly neighborhood greeting committee is moving closer,” BT shouted over his shoulder, his rifle at the ready. “You want me to waste them?”
“No, not yet. You do that and whatever leash they have on the rest of the group breaks. Maybe we can stall long enough for help to arrive.”
“You don’t believe that,” BT said.
“No shit. I’m just trying to instill confidence in my troops.”
“We’re your troops,” BT said.
“Trying to instill confidence in myself, then.”
“Makes me feel so much better. You really don’t want me to waste them? They’re going to be at the door soon.”
“How do I look?” I asked.
“What, man?” He looked over long enough to try and figure out what I was talking about.
“Do I look intimidating?”
He turned back, muttering.
I opened what remained of the door to the greeting center. The three stopped moving and looked at me impassively.
“Did you not see the sign for no solicitors?” I asked. “I don’t need a vacuum, I’m delighted with the religion I’ve chosen, and I’m a registered Independent. Unless you’re selling Girl Scout cookies, I don’t need anything.”
They continued to stare, not a blink among the trio.
“What are they waiting for?” BT hadn’t moved from his position, but had craned his neck to watch.
“Must be looking for where they put their Watchtower pamphlets.”
“Mike, this is some serious shit. Feel free to take it that way.”
“Sorry,” I told the zombies. “My friend isn’t much for unannounced guests, makes him constipated. So if you would kindly leave, we’d appreciate it.” I shouldered my rifle as an exclamation point. I was applying pressure to the trigger as the zombie on the left reached into his pocket. I figured this was the turning point in the downfall of man, the first gun used by a zombie in battle. Instead it was a piece of cloth; more specifically, a piece of white cloth.
“A parley,” Tommy said he had crept up behind me.
“I was hoping they’d surrendered,” I responded.
“You going to talk to them?” he asked.
“Had a proctology exam when I was discharged from the Corps; I’d rather revisit that moment, bent over the exam table, possibly at a teaching hospital with an entire class of interns as witnesses, than go out there.”
“That’s explicitly vivid, Mr. T.”
“Truth isn’t always pretty, Tommy.” I advanced on the three, not letting my gun dip as I quickly gazed from side to side. I immediately hopped off the path and to the side to look onto the roof line for an ambush before swinging back around. “I’m listening,” I told them.
At first, there was nothing, as if the entire world was holding its breath for this very moment. There was no distant caw of a crow looking for a mate, no crickets chirping in the underbrush, not so much as the wind rushing past my ears. It seems strange when you say the silence was deafening, but that was the case. A few times in my life I had been in places where it was so absolutely quiet I wondered if I had gone deaf; this had now been added to that. And if you’ve ever experienced it yourself, you know it is not an altogether pleasant sensation. There is a difference between peaceful and out-cold.
We were standing there in this strange détente; I was waiting for them to say something, and they did, but not the way I figured they would. Let me see if I can pin this down; we all have this inner dialog with ourselves. We talk, discuss, some of you might even reason out a problem. Not my specialty, but I imagine some of you do. Anyway, there’s that constant voice in your mind, maybe going off on the idiot driver in front of you that has the fucking audacity to go three miles an hour under the speed limit, or maybe a verbal shouting match at the asshat who stops directly in the middle of a grocery aisle, the cart sideways while they’re bent over, deciding which can of corn to get—how can you be that oblivious-slash-rude to the other patrons? I still find that boggling. Or maybe you roll your inner eyeballs and mock the fucker that needs to tell Madge the cashier all about their cat’s visit to the vet to have a hairball yanked out of its ass, while a line of people impatiently wait to get out of the store and back to their own lives! Seems like my inner monologue tends toward anger; might be something I need to work on.
But maybe it would be easier to be a better person if that mother of seven hadn’t paid for all her happy meals with change. She literally dumped a bucket on the counter and counted it out. Didn’t help that she thought nickels were the same as quarters. Maybe if she’d spent a little less time…forget it. Not going there. Let’s get back to the zombies.
So the little dude in my head is gauging all that’s going on, wondering verbally what new and fantastic clusterfuck have we gotten ourselves into, when he says: “You should give yourself up.”
The conscious me recoiled at the words and the notion of that. I pulled my cheek off of the buttstock as I wrestled with what was going on in my head. It was so fucking subtle, I damn near missed it. One of the Zees in front of me was dropping suggestions into my head, not like it was a party line, but like he’d used my own inner voice to speak, like I was some dummy with a ventriloquist’s hand up my ass. That was a new wrinkle. How many people would succumb to something like this? It was subliminal, not an overwhelming suggestion. But someone even less stable than me might take it as a divine message. Or would the zombies possibly begin to find ways to screw around with chemical levels within someone’s head? Maybe cause great anxiety or depression and then they might act on the suggestion? That was entirely possible. It wasn’t that far-fetched a notion, considering they were already rooting around and had enough finesse to try and use my own id against me.
“Talbot, you look stuck. You all right?” BT had opened the window and was peeking at me.