by Mark Tufo
“Who are the newbies?” he asked.
“Doctor and his kid,” Hildie said.
“Sweet, get in. Your shot woke up a few of our dead friends, and I’m thinking they’re going to want to crash this party.”
It was a tight fit. Porkchop seemed the happiest with the arrangement. He ended up on Dina’s lap, which the doc found sort of amusing considering that the ‘boy’ was bigger than her.
The captain turned from his seat in front. “Can you tell us what happened at the Camp, Doc? We saw the trucks, but we can’t figure out who would attack and for what reason.”
“Do you have a psychiatrist wherever you’re taking me?” Doc asked.
“Got a school counselor,” Hildie replied. “Why?”
“Oh, you’re probably going to want to have me committed after I tell you the story is all.”
The ride was shorter than Doc would have imagined. He was still relating his story about the Camp, Eliza, the zombie-laden trucks, and then his subsequent capture and torment when they arrived. Everyone was so enthralled they didn’t leave the small confines until he was done.
“So you’re confident this Eliza was a true blood-sucking, soulless vampire?” Captain Najarian asked.
“You don’t seem so surprised,” Doc said.
“We’ve heard about her, even captured a few truck drivers who seemed to be reluctant to talk with us. And you think she’s dead now?”
Doc nodded. “Porkchop heard some of the men talking about it before they left. That was, of course, after the zombies they were shipping around turned on them.”
“This is some weird shit. You believe him, Cap?” Buzz asked.
“I can assure you, if I was going to make something up, it would be far more believable,” Doc said in his defense.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure I believe in who Eliza was, but those men did. We have some people studying the vials she had them wearing to see if we can replicate the effects they say they did,” The captain said.
“Oh…they worked. But without Eliza alive, I think they’re useless now,” Doc said.
“Convenient.” Buzz extradited himself from the minivan.
“Don’t mind him,” Hildie said. “Strong as an ox, loyal as a dog, dumb as a grape. But I love him,” she said as she also got out.
“Come on, sweetie,” Dina said to Porkchop. “The mess hall makes the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
Porkchop looked to Doc. Doc nodded. Porkchop’s face lit up. “I’m really kind of hungry, the beans are great, but I always need to fart after I eat them and then sometimes I fart so hard I’m afraid I’m going to crap my pants and I don’t have any other pants to wear and I don’t want to walk around all day in crappy pants.”
“Yeah that would be crappy.” Dina laughed, Porkchop joined her. “Maybe I can find you some new pants too…just in case.”
“I’d like that, as long as I don’t have to go into the dressing room. There’s always girls in the ones around me and they laugh and giggle a lot, talking about this boy and how that one kissed her and did these shoes make her look fat. How can shoes make anyone look fat? Fat makes you look fat,” Porkchop entreated.
“No dressing rooms or shoe talk, I promise.” And then they were gone.
“Let’s get you cleaned up as well, Doc. You look like you’ve had a rough go off it. I’m sorry about your family, I truly am,” He said. “One more thing, though, who is Michael Talbot?”
Chapter 13 – Mike Journal Entry 6
“What about a snow plow?” Gary asked.
“What about it?” I asked, looking back at him in the mirror.
“Why aren’t we riding in one of those?”
I didn’t have a valid response. It made sense. A ton of sense. A few tons of sense.
“That’s actually an awesome idea,” Travis said.
“Will we all fit?” BT asked.
That also was a valid point. The truck was beyond its limit with the eight of us. I wasn’t sure about a plow, but it was basically a dump truck retrofitted with a plow. Really wouldn’t be room for more than three or possibly four. And I was not keen on splitting up.
“What about two dump trucks?” Tracy chimed in. I think she liked the idea of the bigger, much safer, vehicle.
“That’ll call for way more gas,” I said, although that idea was not completely out of the realm.
“What if some of us got in the back?” Travis threw in.
“Naw, that’s not safe. It’s all steel, and you’ll get tossed around like bowling balls,” I said. Travis was still thinking that sounded fun as hell. Youth is its own folly.
“Wait, wait! What if we built something we could anchor seats to back there?” Gary said, the light clearly shining above his head. “Hear me out before you say anything else. We could build a two-by-four framework inside the dump part; maybe even put plywood up on the sides for added protection. And it wouldn’t be all that difficult to mount a couple of bench car seats to that. It’d be perfect.”
“And what about inclement weather?” I asked.
“Can’t you just say ‘rain’?” BT asked. “Inclement weather,” he mocked, shaking his head. “It’s rain, Mike.”
“Well, it could be hail too.” I tried to defend myself.
“Tarps,” Gary chimed in, “we could have tarps pulled over the whole thing. Maybe even mount a couple of battery lamps inside so we can see.”
“Sounds like an RV on steroids.” I had meant it in jest, but the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. “Who gets to tell Ron we left his truck by the side of the road?”
“NOT IT!” Gary shouted.
I don’t know if they planned it that way, but just about all occupants in the truck save myself responded simultaneously with ‘Not it’. Even Henry punctuated this with a well-timed burp that, if listened to slowly, could have the potential to have sounded like ‘not it.’
“What’s one more truck in the grand scheme of things?” BT asked, shrugging his shoulders at me. “It’s not like he’s not already expecting it.”
“Okay, first off we have a lot of things going on. We have to find a plow and then the appropriate supplies to retrofit it.”
“Talbot, we’re in the Northeast. How hard do you think it’s going to be to find a plow?” Tracy asked.
“Is that sarcasm? Because everyone needs a smart-ass. It’s my ass that’s on the line here. Gary, assuming…” I stopped to look at my wife. “Assuming we find this plow, how long are you thinking it will take to modify?”
“We’ll need tools, and some torches for welding, but I think with some help I could have something pretty good to go in two days, tops.”
“Man, I don’t like the idea of having to hole up for two days, but the idea of that rolling tank…I’m not going to lie, that sounds pretty enticing. And that two-day deadline is pretty firm? It’s not like that time you promised your friends you would build them a pagoda for their wedding?”
“It was short notice,” he intoned.
“How short?” BT asked.
“Six months,” I told him.
“Have you ever seen all the angles on those things? It’s as bad as doing geometry,” Gary said, trying to diffuse the stares being directed at him.
“That’s kind of funny, Uncle Gary, because it’s exactly like doing geometry,” Travis said.
“Yeah, well…no one told me that.”
“Yet you promised your friends this?” Tracy asked.
“Hey, their wedding was just as beautiful in the tent,” he said in his defense.
“Okay, we’ll try this. Two days, Gary, that’s it. We’ll find a DPW in the next town, I’m sure they have a garage with plenty of tools. You figure out what we’re going to need, and a few of us will go out and grab it.”
“Mike you know how I feel about this splitting up stuff,” Tracy said nervously.
“It’ll just be a few hours, in and out, I promise,” I told her.
“You kno
w nothing’s easy any more, right? It’s not like shooting over to Starbuck’s for a latte.”
“Iced Caramel Macchiato,” I said.
“What?” she asked, exasperated.
“I don’t like lattes I like Iced—”
“Yeah, Talbot, I get it. That’s not what’s really important here.”
I was going to argue with her that it MOST assuredly was important. I’d had an addiction to the damned macchiato. But perhaps it wasn’t the appropriate time. “Hon, for the foreseeable future, this is how it’s always going to be. Just taking a crap is a dangerous proposition right now.”
“Eloquent,” BT chimed in.
“You mind if we have a moment?” I asked him.
“We’re crammed in here like sardines, and you want me to ignore the only thing going on? You must be crazy.” BT said.
“Thanks, man.” I told him.
He grinned.
I continued after I directed a nasty glare at BT; he cared little. “These are the chances we are going to have to take. There just isn’t a way around it. I’m not thrilled this is the way it is, but maybe finding Doc will change it. This reward is worth the risk.”
“I know, I know. I’m just always afraid that when you walk out that door, some or possibly all of you won’t be coming back.”
“Honey, you know that isn’t going to happen. How many times have I tried to leave BT behind, and he keeps coming back?”
“Fuck you, Talbot,” he said, reaching over to try and sideswipe my head.
“I’ll put this thing in a tree if you keep swinging at me,” I told him as I ducked away.
“And that’s different from your normal driving how?”
“Hilarious. Alright here’s our next town.”
“You couldn’t pick a different place?” Tracy asked.
“What’s wrong with Salem?” I asked her. “There were witches here not zombies.”
“If we were battling aliens, I still wouldn’t want to go to a haunted house,” she said.
What kind of argument can you make against that? I took the off-ramp leading in any way. We stopped at the town hall. BT and Gary had gone up and into the building while the rest of us set up a defensive perimeter.
“Five Jefferson Avenue,” Gary said happily from atop the steps.
“Yeah, because I know where Jefferson Ave is,” I mumbled.
“Be nice, Talbot,” Tracy said out of the side of her mouth.
“We follow this road for like a couple of hundred yards, take a right, and we’ll be on Jefferson, and then it’s just about right there,” BT said, looking at a map that had been ripped from a phone book. “It’s quiet here.” BT looked around.
“The witches cast spells to keep it that way,” I told him.
“Makes sense,” he said, coming down the stairs.
“You can kiss my ass, Talbot,” Tracy told me.
“I don’t know why you say that to me as if I’m going to take offense,” I told her. “I’d do it gladly.”
Salem really did look as if it had been relatively untouched. That did little to make me feel good though. The last place I thought had been untouched by the zombie invasion had merely been a time bomb waiting for an unsuspecting food supply to walk by, and Cash had paid the penalty with his manhood. I cringed just thinking about it. That’s it, next chance I got, I was going to get a metal male chastity belt. Yeah, right now Bennett, Colorado and Salem, Massachusetts had just about that same feel. Although, I’m pretty sure Bennett didn’t have any witches, but I could be wrong.
The DPW building was much like the rest of this place—undisturbed. And it was creeping me the fuck out. Battles, mayhem, and destruction I understood. Where was everyone? The gate was open, which was a good thing, because the chain that was wrapped around the left side of the sliding fence looked like it could keep King Kong penned up.
“What do you think, Mike?” BT asked.
“I was thinking I’d maybe like an ice cold beer while I’m sitting on a recliner in some ski chalet. Maybe a good football game on, and I’ve never had a pedicure in my life, but that sounds like a good idea as well.”
“How long have you known him?” Gary asked.
BT just shook his head. “I mean about this place, Mike.”
“Then you really should be more specific,” I told him. We were still sitting in the truck staring at the small building that was DPW headquarters. “Gary shut the gate,” I told him as I pulled all the way in. “Wrap the chain, too.”
I did not take my eyes off the building. It only took us a couple of minutes to do a complete sweep. We couldn’t even find so much as a trace that something bad had happened. Besides a bunch of dust and cobwebs, the place looked like it was waiting to open up. Salem had three plows, one of which was in the garage in more pieces than a jigsaw puzzle. The other two were all geared up with large plows and a full dump of sand.
“Pick one, brother,” I said, handing him the keys that I had found on a pegboard next to the receptionist’s desk. A large plume of black smoke shot from the exhaust pipe, the diesel engine was incredibly loud in the still of the day.
“Dump the sand and shut that thing down,” I told Gary as I jumped up onto the runner.
If whoever was still in the town hadn’t yet known of our visit, they sure did by now. It took Gary a few minutes to figure out how to work the lift, and he damn near died for it. He’d—hell all of us really—forgot to unlatch the tailgate to the truck. So, as the dump portion began to raise up, the sand couldn’t escape. Gary’s front wheels were six inches off the ground and threatening to hurtle him and the truck into the air and onto its back before I shouted at him to let it back down. Luckily, the learning curve had already been traveled and he knew how to do it quickly. But it was more time that the loud engine was thrumming. I undid the tailgate, Gary raised the truck back up and, when all the sand was out, he popped the truck into gear. When he stopped a short ten feet away, the tailgate slammed into the rear of the truck with enough force to sound like a Howitzer had been fired. And then he did it again.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed at him. It wasn’t a quarter of the volume of the still echoing cannon-shot.
“Getting any sand that was stuck in the truck bed loose.”
“It’s loose! Drop the damn thing!” I told him.
“He’s your brother,” BT said to me.
“Yeah, but we’re in this together,” I retorted.
“We’re alright,” Tommy replied. He was off in the far side of the yard and had one hand cupped to his ear. He seemed to be listening for something none of the rest of us could hear.
The resuming quiet once the truck was off had a calming effect. If man was ever able to scrape himself up off the sidewalk, it was going to be difficult getting used to our noise pollution again.
I went back into the office and rooted around until I found what I was looking for.
“Gary, give me a list of what you need,” I told him.
“I’d rather go with you in case I see things I could use.”
“You need to make sure that thing is mechanically sound. BT and I will go grab supplies.”
“Wonderful, do I get a say?” BT asked.
“No,” I told him forthrightly.
Gary was furiously working on his list like it was a timed event.
Tracy was giving me a decent version of stink eye.
“You can almost see the hardware store from here,” I told her. “It’s less than a mile.”
“Talbot, we’ve been over this before, I hate separating.”
I knew she was right. I’d been breaking the damn unwritten horror rule for pretty much the entire invasion. Never Split the Group! Eventually, it was going to bite me in the ass. The town was quiet; there was no denying that. I didn’t think it was because all of the zombies had gone on vacation though. My guess was stasis, and as of yet, we had not discovered the giant lair. I felt like a blind man walking down a street full of sinkholes; eve
ntually I’d fall in.
“Fuck it, you know what? You’re right. I probably should take Gary so he can get exactly what he needs. We can fit everything and everybody in the back of the truck.”
“Really? You’re really agreeing with me? Are you alright? Is the disease you have terminal?” she asked in mock horror.
“I’m flexible,” I told her.
“Yeah, just like wrought iron,” BT said.
“Or ceramic,” Tracy added.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” BT said. “Because it’s brittle.”
“Kiss my ass. Gary, you think you can drive this thing without tossing the people in the back all around?”
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said with a smile.
“Wow that is so not comforting.” I said.
Gary was driving, and of course Henry got to ride up in the cab. I put him up there before I could get any objection from Tracy. Tracy went up there as well because, after the big dog took up his space, she was really the only other one that could fit. That left me and the boy’s club to hold on for dear life in the back of the truck. I made sure we were all holding onto the edge of the bed as Gary pulled out. Even completely expecting it, I almost did extensive damage to my dental work as my head bobbed and almost slammed into the steel.
“He drives as good as you,” BT said, holding on for dear life.
Tommy was actually perched on the roof like an antenna; the swaying and jerking of the truck having completely no effect on him as if he had his own internal gyroscope. I noticed that his rifle was in his hands, and he was scanning the buildings as we passed. It was not a comforting feeling. If he knew something, though, he wasn’t sharing. Justin and Travis seemed to be enjoying the improvised carnival ride.
“What’s up with Tommy?” BT asked, nodding his head to where the boy was sitting.
I shrugged. I didn’t know. “He’s feeling a disturbance in the force.”
BT looked at me for a few seconds, a questioning furrow developing in his eyebrows. “Is that a Star Wars reference? I told you, I’m not into that geek shit.”
“Geek shit? Star Wars changed my life.”