by Tufo, Mark
“Where in the fuck are we?” We had stopped and were looking down a slight incline at a roadway below.
“That’s going to be the best place to get orientated,” BT said as he began his descent.
“What are the odds there’s a pizza joint down there?” I asked.
Nobody said a word. If anything, I might have made the crappy situation even worse because there wasn’t much that would be better right now than to find a slice of normalcy topped with cheese and pepperoni. As we were heading down, I noticed something bobbing against my chest; it was what remained of my microphone and transmitter. At some point, it had been destroyed, I hoped it was from my An Officer and a Gentleman moment with Tommy rather than a near miss from a zombie. I pulled it off and was looking at the remnants.
“Going to lose my security deposit on this one.” I tossed it aside. “Any one still have comm?”
BT was still picking his way to the roadway; Tommy flipped his on and stopped, I hate to say dead in his tracks, well, because of the obvious, but that’s what he did.
“Got something.” He had a finger up. “Think my charge is dying. Stenzel?” he called.
He had my attention now. BT plodded on, finally stopping and gently putting Johnny down when he reached the hardtop.
“Lost her.” He pulled the earpiece out. “Dead. The headpiece, not her.”
“What’d she say?” I asked.
“Sounded like she was talking to someone else.” Tommy put the device into his pocket.
“BT, do your comms work?” I asked, heading to the road.
He didn’t say anything, but turned so I could see the side of his face and an ugly looking scratch that ripped a line from his neck to his mouth.
“Branch got me.”
“Damn! Does that hurt?” I couldn’t look away; he had a Joker thing going on.
“Doesn’t feel great.”
“Let me get some antiseptic on it.” I fumbled around until I found the tube.
“You aren’t putting anything on me with those hands,” he said. I don’t know if it was because I was so tired or just so used to seeing it, but my arms were coated halfway up in all manner of human debris; I was more likely to give him sepsis than anything else.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said as I was studying some white-ish blob stuck to my forearm.
“Fuck.” Now that it had been pointed out, there was little else I could focus on. Nearly clipped my junk on the green mile-marker. The number 10.3 did little to tell me where we were, kind of like saying you were in the woods because you could see a lot of trees. Super helpful.
At this point, I didn’t even know which way the treehouse was. Did we go right or left on the roadway?
“We going to keep moving?” BT had slowly, and with a fair amount of groaning, lowered himself to the ground.
“Have to.”
Hannah had done a controlled collapse as she got next to Johnny. “So tie-ard,” she said in a teenage drawl.
We were in a bad way. One pistol, one rifle, limited ammunition, no food, no water, no comms, no sleep, and no help coming in the foreseeable future. I’d been in some dire situations before, but I cannot figure out why I always feel the need to see if the ante can be upped.
“Hannah, any idea where we are?”
“On the road.” I don’t even think she meant it sarcastically. Probably too tired to muster up that type of response.
Even Tommy, who was unflagging, parked his ass. I wandered a step or two before I succumbed to the peer pressure. The heat from the asphalt felt good on my butt. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help myself as I lay back. Myriad aches and pains flowed from my limbs as I did so.
“Just for a sec.” I closed my eyes, the sun making my closed eyelids glow a brilliant red. Usually, this would be enough to infuriate me as I attempted to sleep. Funny, there’d been times in my life when I had to have black-out curtains on the windows, a comfortable bed, soft blanket, and a medium-firm pillow along with a white-noise generator to just potentially fall asleep, and usually with minimal results. Here I was, lying on the road with the sun blazing down, covered in goop, and I was out in seconds.
It was either the sound of an engine or tires on pavement that disturbed my peace. I had just sat up and was getting ready to move into action when Stenzel stepped out of a Hummer.
“Hello, sir. Need a ride?” She looked as relieved as I felt.
“’Bout time.” BT had yet to move.
“Shit, Stenzel. Would it be inappropriate for me to hug you?” I asked, walking toward her and clapping her on the shoulder. “How’d you find us?” It was then Trip stepped out, in all his glory, his long white ponytail sticking out from under his tinfoil hat. He was wearing a Federal Boobies Investigator t-shirt and maybe the loudest surfer shorts I’d ever had the displeasure of seeing. The kicker, though, was the fine, Italian leather shoes. Of course, he didn’t have any socks on; what better way to complete the picture?
He grinned as he walked past. He moved over to BT, actually spread his legs, so one foot was on either side of the large man. He was blocking the sun that was on BT’s face. “Want a teabag?” Trip asked.
Not sure if you know what that means, but my mind immediately went to the gutter. From what I knew, that’s something that drunk dudes usually feel the need to do to others that have passed out. Why? I don’t have an answer; never did it, never had it done to me, and I guarantee if it is ever attempted, I’m going to make someone a eunuch. Back to the explanation—it is when a man drags his testicles across another’s forehead or some derivative of that. Again, I don’t understand the appeal, but that is as close to a definition as I want to get.
“What the fuck? Trip!” BT sat upright quick. “Get the fuck away from me, and no, I don’t want a fucking teabag!”
Should have known, absolutely should have known, Trip had an actual teabag in his hand and a shocked expression on his face from BT’s reaction.
I hugged Trip. “Good to see you,” I told him, and I meant it. “Where’s Stephanie and the rest?”
“Got them evac’d,” Stenzel said. “You look like shit, sir,” she added hastily.
“The squad okay? Where’s Kirby?”
“Evac’d. Might have broken his foot; he went to kick a zombie, missed and hit the Hummer wheel.”
“Just like him to malinger,” I said.
She smiled. “We should get going, sir. Recon says there’s a large column of zombies heading this way.”
“I’m all for that. Stenzel, this is Hannah and Johnny. You got anything in there you can give them to eat?”
She nodded and ushered the kids to our ride. Both waved at Trip.
“There’s a problem, Ponch.” Trip had leaned in to whisper, but shouted.
“What’s the matter? Only have a pound or two of weed left?” BT had gotten up. He was his normal, surly self again. Shouldn’t have been happy to see that, but I was.
“The kids, Trip, why didn’t you take them with you?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t come.”
And it was as simple as that, really. Why should she have trusted him, and even if she had, why leave a perfectly good set up? No, she had to be forced from her home. For that, I was saddened.
“Can we get out of here?” BT was more shuffling than walking to the Hummer.
“His feet,” Tommy whispered, pointing to BT’s wet boots. Probably had blisters the size of my fists on them.
“Ponch, we weren’t supposed to get separated.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive,” I told him, wanting to enjoy the moment.
“We were supposed to go to New York,” he said.
That got my attention. “Why? Did you say anything?” I asked Stenzel, who was busy ripping open an MRE.
She shook her head. “We didn’t talk about much, sir, and definitely not a classified mission. Besides he was too busy smoking his ‘Summer Harvest,’ as he called it.”
BT had taken off his boots and
rolled his socks off. His feet looked like a mix between bad hamburger and peeling onions.
“Shit, Gunny.” Winters had grabbed his kit and went over to work on the injuries.
“Fuck, man! You all right?” I was heading over to offer some solace.
“Ponch!” Trip yelled, stopping me in my tracks. It was so uncharacteristic of him that I turned. “This world is in some serious trouble. We were supposed to go to New York.”
“I got that part,” I told him, curious where he was going with this.
“That lab should have been destroyed.”
I looked over his shoulder to my corporal and the rest of the squad. Stenzel shrugged. “Sir, I swear no one said anything.”
“What’s going on, Trip?”
“I…” He hesitated; there was a quiet desperation in his eyes. “The lucidity…I don’t have much time.”
“Go,” I urged. I knew enough about Trip that when he offered this type of insight, it was worth pausing to listen.
“The zombies that you are unwittingly creating…” He paused as his eyes danced around, seemingly searching for answers in his jumbled brain. He changed direction. “There are many worlds…” Then nothing.
I didn’t know whether to prod or stay silent. He fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a giant blue pill and two round white ones. He never even looked at them; just dry swallowed all three.
“Prune juice,” he said breathlessly, holding out his hand.
I went over to Winters and grabbed his canteen, only wincing once as I looked upon the large flaps of skin the medic was cutting away from BT’s feet, if they were saved and dried they’d make perfect ship sails. I handed Trip the water.
“What’s this for?” he asked. “This one is a crux.” Trip started up again; he was looking to where I had been, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I had moved. “They are not infinite, but there are many; some are slightly different, some vastly so. They all carry weight for their particular destinies, but some are…”
This was brutal, watching him struggle with the serpentine knots in his head.
“Where’s the prune juice?”
“In your hand,” I coaxed.
“Ah, right.” He twisted off the cap and took a large drink. “These shoes aren’t that comfortable,” he said, holding his leg up for me to see them more clearly. “Cost over twelve hundred dollars. You’d think they’d light up or something.”
“Trip, the crux.”
That seemed to be the vocabulary slap across the face he needed.
“Like I said, some are more important; lynchpins, really. As they go, so do the variants, and this existence is pretty important, even among the other lynchpins. A master pin. Did you know…you’re dead in quite a few of the alternates. No matter what I do, you tend to get yourself killed.”
Wasn’t even remotely sure what I was supposed to do with that.
“BT’s, umm…” He looked over his shoulder to see where the other was. “He’s much bigger in a bunch of them.” He stuck his stomach out and exaggerated his arms out in front of him, so he looked like he was carrying a large beach ball, even waddle-walked a couple of steps to prove his point.
Had an easier time picturing a bunch of dead Mes than an overweight BT. What’s that say about me? Does that mean I’m aware I’m constantly pushing my luck? Possibly a self-aware moment; I would tuck it away for now. No one likes to see themselves so fully awake in the light of day.
“Whoa!” Trip staggered back. “Did I take Molly or LSD?”
“Who knows,” I told him.
“Might be both.” He seemed to be savoring his burgeoning high like a pretentious prick might a fine bottle of Pinot Grigio. He let the effects of the pill swirl around in his head like the liquid sloshing around the bottom of a wine glass.
“The smart zombies, Ponch, they’re going to take this world down. Want to know the kicker?”
I couldn’t figure what could be a kicker to that particular statement.
“There’s only a handful of worlds where I get my poncho back from you.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? I die, but you want your poncho back?”
“I try to save you! It’s like you don’t want to be. The influence from the lesser worlds is…ummm…lesser. But it does flow back, and each death in those worlds creates a ripple here. Now, if you were to die in this world, well, that wouldn’t be good. It would be more than a ripple.”
“Trip, I’m sorry, man, but I’m not concerned with other worlds, with other Mes, fuck, that makes no sense. Only this place, only this now.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Ponch! The key to victory lies here and now and it is very much in jeopardy. Your colonel dude…by sanctioning the research, he has opened Panda Express’s box.”
BT shook his head. We knew what Trip meant, but when you throw in curves like that, it tends to make you question everything he’s saying.
“If you know what to look for, there are markers, umm, predictive paths a world is on, nothing definite…but more probable than some other outcome. Like….like a highway that says in two miles there’s a certain exit, right? And if it’s closed, you figure there’ll be a next one going to about the same place. But all of a sudden there are new exits, they condense the space and make others disappear like they never existed; every time one’s built, another gets removed. It’s not making any sense; you don’t know where you’ll get off. Each world offers up variations, there are too many complex factors involved for that not to be the case, but most things follow more or less logically. But here, things are happening that shouldn’t be. And…and…whoa. My fingers are melting.” He was holding a hand up to his face. “LSD. Yup definitely acid.”
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked him, though I was sure I’d lost him to the drugs. He was busy slowly going through a Tai Chi-like sequence.
“This is called the cooking crow.” He had one leg in the air behind him, both arms above his head and he hopped.
“Sir.” Stenzel had just got off the radio. “They’re less than five minutes away.”
Needed no clarification on who they were.
“Ponch, we should run,” Trip said in a conspiratorial tone.
I did not know if he meant in a general way, like right now, which we certainly needed to do, or overall; to maybe blow off our entire highway and look for a completely different exit strategy.
“Let’s go.” I grabbed Trip’s shoulder. He one-legged hopped the entire way.
I suspected Trip had scarcely scratched the surface on what he wanted to or needed to tell me. Still, it was enough. The question was, what did I do with the new information? I could talk to the colonel, but he’d already firmly given me his stance on the entire subject. He was playing the numbers game, and I understood that. He had to do something, and in a war, who turns down a potential game changer? Every advance in weaponry had, at one time or another, given an advantage to one side in a conflict. It was matched; then the game continued, one side seeking the next greatest killing tool over the other. Would we be better off if we’d never evolved from the sharp stick-poking phase of our distant ancestors? Sorry; I hate when I jump off the path and start working my way through the thorns on the side of the story I’m trying to tell.
Bennington had a weapon that he felt gave us an advantage. When instead it turned out to favor the enemy, it was like nuking an atoll somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific inhabited by kimono—no, wait, what the hell are those things called? The ones with the toxic saliva? Komodo! Yeah, nuking an atoll with Komodo dragons, and out of the ashes arises Godzilla. Sure, you got rid of all the big lizards, but you ended up with one colossal, pissed off dragon.
The smart zombies could communicate with the others while also coordinating attacks. Maybe they had been on this path for awhile. We had seen anomalies along the way, zombies that gave us chills with their sentient expressions, could hold a tool, or made to retreat when odds were stacked against survival. Better than ru
dimentary knowledge seemed to be expanding; perhaps the lab scientists had only hastened the inevitable. Who was I kidding? The zombies were potentially getting smarter, but they needed the guiding hand of Man to ramp things up. I sat next to Trip on the ride back in the hopes that he would flash to mental acuity. I gave up when he started looking at the patterns on the soles of his expensive shoes. Which he didn’t take off, by the way; he pulled his leg up and around to get a better angle.
Speaking of feet (which is weird for me because I’m barely a fan of my own, much less anyone else’s. Skip a few paragraphs if you feel like I’ve gone off the rails again), when the internet was a thing, we were all exposed to more “variety” than we’d ever cared to see in the entirety of our lives. There are few things that stick out more to me than the time I stumbled across a YouTube video that should have been banned in any civilized world. It revolved around how disgusting some people can be. Had one lady digging out nuggets from her ass crack and then licking her fingers. There was another on a train; the woman was fiddling around with her toe jam, looking for a little snack to tide her over until dinner.
Both worthy of some sort of Blecchie Award, but the one that really stayed with me, was of this hippie couple that looked like they’d been walking around barefoot since the Carter administration and hadn’t showered since Nixon. Anyway, her feet were blacker than tar and covered in what I can only figure were super plantar warts. That was nauseating enough, but the ass-wipe of a camera operator had offered the pair ten bucks if the dude would suck on the crustaceous toes of the woman. Hempmeister, yeah, that’s what he called himself, said he would a done if for ‘nuffin.’ His words, not mine, though I think the mispronunciation had more to do with the teeth he was missing. I’m ashamed even to this day, but I watched. I don’t even have a valid reason as to why. You can’t even imagine how many times I was enjoying a meal only to have this little blight of a memory creep in and ruin it.
The things you forget and the things you remember…seriously, though, it wouldn’t have mattered if the woman was a famous foot model and had pristine tootsies; the sheer act of licking parts of someone’s feet or sucking on toes, yeah, that’s a hard nope from me. Once had a guy I worked with admit to this fetish; I knew his girlfriend, too. Never could look at him the same way again, and every time he offered for me to try something he was drinking, I would emphatically refuse. Honestly, do any of us know what things some people will eat? I want no part of it. Let’s close the chapter on that particular phobia of mine.