by Mark Tufo
“Did it get you laid?”
“I was twelve when I saw it.”
“I’m talking later in life. Did you ever tell a woman you were a huge Star Wars nut and she just wanted to jump your bones?”
“Well, no, nothing quite like that.”
“Point made.” He smiled.
“So you equate life altering with getting laid?” I asked.
“Don’t you?”
I paused. For the second time that day, I’d been presented with an argument I could not dispute. “Well, it was still a great movie,” I blustered, doing my best to save face.
“Friggin’ nerds,” I thought I heard him mumble.
Unlike the rest of the town, the hardware store had been hit. The front windows were smashed out and what looked like long ago dried blood was pooled up all over the front sidewalk. From who or what was impossible to tell. The brown stains on the cement were the only remnant left from what had happened.
“Tommy?” I asked.
He shrugged. Gary was idling in front, the sound echoing off the store and making everything that much louder. Without any prompting from me, he shut the truck down. The resulting quiet wasn’t any better.
I climbed up and over, placing my feet carefully as I descended down the side of the truck, finally finding the tire. When I was confident I was not at an ankle turning height, I jumped down. I immediately had my rifle at the ready. “We should have walked.” I said taking stock of my bumps and bruises.
“Isn’t there another hardware store we can try?” Tracy asked as I came up alongside her window.
“Probably, but I heard these guys were having a sale,” I told her as I advanced cautiously.
“I’ve got the coupons.” BT rushed to catch up.
“You guys should take your show on the road,” she replied.
Tommy slid down the roof and hood and silently landed next to us.
“Impressive,” I told him.
“I’ve been practicing.”
“For what, a Starsky and Hutch remake?” BT asked.
“You’re giving me shit about Star Wars and you like Starsky and Hutch?” I chided him.
“Now a 1975 souped-up Ford Gran Torino will get you laid,” he said, referring to the car in the popular TV series. Again the bastard was right. “Can’t really drive an Artoo unit around, now can you? And if you could, you sure couldn’t find room for a date.”
“I liked it better when you didn’t like me,” I told him as I advanced on the store.
“What makes you think I like you now?”
“There are machetes in there,” Tommy said, brushing by us both.
“So?” I asked, following him. I wasn’t planning on visiting the rain forest anytime soon.
Tommy had already entered the store. BT and I were hard-pressed to keep up.
“Take the sheath off,” Tommy said as he tossed me a large bladed machete. He didn’t say it loud, but there was definitely a sense of urgency implied. He did the same to BT.
BT looked over at me. I shrugged, but he was also ripping off the wrapping that protected curious little kids from being able to wield a dangerous weapon. As all of you know, ‘child-proof’ applies to adults as well. I was struggling with the damn thing.
“Put your gun up,” Tommy said, rubbing his thumb along his now exposed blade and nodding in satisfaction.
My first thought was to tell him to ‘fuck off’. Then I shouldered my rifle. Tommy spun away from me.
“Oh fuck!” I said, hurriedly working on my blade as I peered down the aisle. A zombie was peering at us, his head cocking from side to side like it was assessing something—or more likely us.
“No shots,” Tommy said, getting into a defensive posture.
“What?” BT asked, finally looking up with a look of victory on his face for being able to conquer the damned wrapping.
“How’d you do that so fast?” I asked, sweat breaking out on my brow.
“Because I’m not a…” And then he stopped. He must have caught a glimpse of the thing looking at us. “Shit.”
I smacked the blade hard against a shelf, the force shattering the plastic wrap It also had the un-added benefit of getting the zombie to move.
“Leave it to you, Talbot,” BT said, getting his blade up.
“I didn’t make him materialize.”
Tommy was swinging, and if not for the speed he possessed, I think the zombie would have sideswiped the blade; as it was, it was pretty close. The blade clipped the top of its head about an inch from the edge. The speed and the torque with which Tommy delivered the blow sheared off the left side of its face. It fell away like a sliced piece of bologna from a dropped package. Had I seen it in a movie I would have thought the effect was as cool as hell. Live and personal, it was horrifically disturbing. For the briefest of seconds the zombie just stood there, his brain, eye and teeth all exposed on that side. Then he fell away, the weird part was he landed almost perfect in conjunction with his sectioned face like he was trying to reattach it by proximity.
“Behind you,” Tommy breathed without actually looking.
I came up with the standard “Huh?” Luckily, BT had taken his morning coffee.
“Mike,” came his reply.
By the time I was turning, his blade was already in motion. He lodged his midway through the zombie’s neck, the head lolling to the side. I wasn’t having the easiest time with these disturbing images. There was a reason I didn’t like melee weapons.
Upset stomach or not, I needed to get into the mix, because I could guarantee I’d be more sick if I became a meal. BT almost killed me when he wrenched the blade free—the flat of it striking me in the top of the forehead. I staggered back, blood pouring into my eyes, probably split my skin open like an overripe peach.
“Sorry!” he shouted, his blade once again moving forward.
Another fucking reason to hate close combat. I quickly wiped my sleeve across my face, mopping up the worst of it. A zombie had closed to within a couple of feet. I didn’t have enough time to swing so I jabbed the thing like a spear, catching him directly in his open mouth. I cringed as the blade struck and, at points, stuck against his teeth. Fingernails on a chalkboard had nothing on this. I drove the point through the back of his neck, and yet he still kept coming forward. I brought my right leg up and kicked against its belly, driving him backwards enough to extract my weapon. This time I took a solid swing square on the top of its skull. The bones held out as long as they could before they caved, sending splinters into its fucking diseased brain bucket.
I didn’t have time to revel, nor did I want to. Zombies were coming in from both sides of the aisle. Tommy was like a ninja behind us, I could hear his blade whistling through the air. He was practically a food processor. ‘For all your zombie mixing needs!’
BT could have been swinging a fly swatter and still would have probably stopped the zombies; he was putting that much force behind each blow. The three B’s were constantly arcing up and around us each time he would remove his blade from whatever he had hit. I’m talking blood, brains, and bone bits. Is that four B’s? I was going to tell him he should use a little more finesse, but the moments could not be spared, and I don’t think he would have appreciated it.
The battle was mostly silent. I don’t think anybody outside even knew what was going on. Besides the occasional grunt and resulting thud of a fallen zombie, we were all too busy concentrating on the task at hand to talk. I wanted to call out for some reinforcements. The boys would certainly come in guns blazing, but for some reason, Tommy was against it and I’d have to defer to his judgment for now. However, if we started to lose more ground, I’d have to suffer with whatever those consequences entailed. Dying was dying anyway you sliced it.
“The shelves,” Tommy said. I won’t swear on it, but the boy sounded a little winded, and if he was winded, then odds were that BT and I were exhausted. How long could the adrenaline hold out? And what about the damned shelves?
“O
h.” I mouthed when I had a spare millionth of a second to check. Zombies were peering over at us; some of them were even in various states of climbing. “What in the hell is going on?” I swung, taking off an arm right above its elbow.
“Mike, fight is up front,” BT said with a slight edge of panic lacing his words. “Is there a sale on lawn ornaments or something?”
“Party crashers.” I told him, slicing Lefty across the face from his cheek through one of his eyes.
BT was backing up, and I was getting caught in the middle between him and Tommy. Maybe, if they pressed hard enough, I’d shoot up in the air like a burst pimple. It’d be safer up there. Unless of course an industrial-sized fan was spinning and then all bets were off. Tommy pushed by me and was now side-by-side with BT as I sliced up Lefty who had finally made enough headway that I could get a kill shot. It wasn’t long before another took his place. I’d been so focused on the one in front of me that I’d almost failed to see that the entire twenty feet of shelving had climbers.
“BT, help me!” I yelled as I pushed up on it.
I’d love to be able to write and say that I was able to push it over on my own, but it was definitely BT’s bulk and strength that sent the thing toppling with a loud and resounding crash. Most of the zombies that had been coming up where pinned under the bulk of the metal. Of the ones that weren’t, they were strewn around trying to regain their footing. We pounced on them. I could see the boys out of the corner of my eye racing in; the crashing noise had gotten their attention.
“NO GUNS!” I yelled. I had swung with a sideways twist of my arm. Again I caught a zombie in the mouth, this time no teeth as the blade cut through his lips, into and through the muscles of its jaw and then finally the jawbone itself. I tore through, coming out below its ears. The top of the head flopped onto my boots; of course, brain side down. There was another set of footwear I’d never wear again.
BT was hacking away at the zombies pinned to the ground before they could get away. Two zombies had gotten up and were heading towards my boys.
“I don’t fucking think so,” I said angrily as I tore into a zombie, the blade catching it in the hollow of its neck and slicing all the way down her back. The glistening of her spine was going to be another thing I added to the nightmare catalog of the day. She fell over as her head canted to the side. She wasn’t dead, but her lack of locomotion meant I could deal with her later. The next one I caught up to in a few strides. I launched from the ground, machete raised high and brought it down just as I landed, opening its head like a butterfly from hell.
“Talbot!” Tracy cried, exiting the truck quickly. I spun, thinking there were more zombies coming. I was confused when I didn’t see any. Tommy and BT were also coming out.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, searching to find the threat she was so concerned about. Blood whipped away from my head with the centrifugal force of it. I’d forgotten completely about my head wound.
“Sorry…my fault.” BT came up beside me. His hands were on his knees as he leaned over, catching his breath.
“Are you hurt?” Tracy asked as she came up to me.
“BT tried to kill me,” I told her.
BT almost fell over as Tracy shoved him. “If anyone is going to kill him, it’ll be me!” she told him.
“Sure, sure,” BT said, ambling away.
Gary was directing the outflow of materials from the hardware store into the truck. Tracy was working on my head which had finally stopped bleeding. She had me wrapped up like you see in those old Revolutionary posters, all I needed was a fife and I’d be all set. At least BT had given me a valid excuse from doing any heavy lifting. He’d come over every once in a while to apologize to me. I had a sneaking suspicion he was doing it more to appease the missus.
“Will there be any problem with the blood?” Tracy asked.
I knew what she meant. BT had just pulled the blade out of an infected skull and then thwapped the crap out of my forehead.
“I should be fine. The transmission seems to be through saliva.”
“And what about Justin’s scratch?”
“Maybe whatever that zombie had eaten was finger-lickin’ good.” Horrible pun and I wished I could take it back. Tracy gladly didn’t respond at all. Although I think I saw her face pale a little.
“Mike, we’re still going to need to get some lumber,” Gary said once he was satisfied they had everything of use they could get out of the hardware store.
“I’d love to be able to help, I’m still a bit woozy, though.” I was actually doing much better, the splitting headache was merely a memory of itself, but there was no way I was going to not malinger, especially since I now had a valid excuse. No one save me and probably Tommy knew how fast my body could heal itself, and he wasn’t saying anything. The kid was nearly silent as he went about his work. Looked like he was figuring out algorithms he was so lost in thought.
“Why no guns?” I asked when we got back on the road.
“We were surrounded by three zombie dens and they were huge,” Tommy told me. “They’re honing in on sounds that only humans make. Rifles and engines being at the top.”
“They’re distinguishing?”
“Resources are low.”
“So then the truck brought those zombies?”
“I guess. I think that was a patrol.”
“A zombie patrol? Tommy, I’m not liking this at all. Did they send a runner back for reinforcements?” I asked. The implications of zombies with tactics was fucking scary. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. An idea flashed in my head like a strobe. “So somehow you knew the dens were there. Could you find them?”
“No, Mike, it’s too dangerous,” Tommy said, alarmed.
“So you can.”
“Mike, what are you doing?” BT asked.
“Be vwery, vwery quiet, I’m hunting,” I said in my best Elmer Fudd voice.
“You’re certifiable and somehow I’m stuck with you.” BT moved to the far side of the truck bed. “Lord, I haven’t asked you for much, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never done anything in my life heinous enough to deserve this.” He was quiet for a moment. “Is this a test? Is that what this is? Am I promised a spot in Heaven if I can get through this? Probably a Sainthood. I could deal with that, Saint BT. Patron saint of dipshits.”
“I can hear you,” I told him.
“I’m not talking to you,” BT said.
“Alright, first we get Gary’s wood, then me and you are going to reduce the zombie population,” I said.
Tommy did not look nearly as happy as I felt. Normally, I’d let sleeping zombies lie, and maybe this was as bad as the Japanese waking the US into World War II, but they’d come out the other side an economic power house. It’s all well that ends well, I kept telling myself. I refused to remember anything about the atom bombs and the shit-storm Japan had been for a while.
The lumber store went worlds better than the hardware store, and I was still able to milk my injury. I grabbed a couple of ten-foot long two-by-fours and then rammed them into everything around me. BT felt so bad, he had snagged them out of my hands and insisted I sit down. So I did.
“You’re a horrible actor,” Tracy told me. She was standing guard.
“Good thing then that BT’s not a critic,” I told her.
We were halfway back to the DPW shop when I shouted at Gary to stop for a second. He’d almost sent the lot of us hurtling into the front of the truck.
“What’s up?” he asked, looking out and up as I struggled to regain my feet. I told him to wait.
“You need help, Mike?” BT asked.
“I’ll be right back.” I jumped out of the truck. I thought I heard him tell Tommy that ‘I looked fine now once all the hard work was done.’
I was breaking all my rules today as I walked into Anne’s Bike Shop. Number one was having to fight zombies with a bladed weapon; and second was using a mode of transportation that was unprotected. I grabbed a couple of bikes and t
hen handed them out to the boys. I went in and grabbed a couple of more. Plus a few flat repair kits and some spare tires.
“What are you doing, Mike?” Tracy asked.
“Going green,” I told her as I hopped back up.
“What’s with the bikes, Mike?” BT asked, not at all pleased with the wheeled machinery by his feet. “You know I don’t know how to ride, right?”
“It’d be interesting to watch for sure…almost like a circus act.”
“I’m sure I could wrap one of these things around you, though.”
“Zombies like the sound of engines. I’m removing that from the equation. Tommy and I are going to wipe out a few dens.” I told him.
“This your idea?” he asked, looking at Tommy. “No, of course not,” he answered before the boy could say anything.
“Listen, I’m not doing it because I’m looking for any more trouble than we already have. Just hear me out. It doesn’t look like zombies will die on their own. Neither time or starvation seem to play a part in their physiology. Fuck, they’re like Styrofoam coffee cups, they’re never going anywhere.” BT nodded. “And now it looks like they are starting to tap deeper into the brains they infest. Day by day they’re getting smarter. I mean, I don’t know if it’ll come down to it, but what if they start to figure out how to wield weapons or shoot guns. What then, man? We’re already swimming in a pool of shit and now they want to try and drown us in it.”
“Fairly graphic analogy…but probably fitting,” Tommy said.
“The stasis time is going to be our best chance to take out as many of them as possible,” I told him.
“On one level, Mike, I’m completely with you. On the other…what are the odds your wife is going to let you do this?”
“I’m not telling her,” I said without skipping a beat. “And neither are any of you.” I pointed to Travis, Justin, and BT.
“Tommy and I are going to head out tonight and see if we can make some Z’mores.”
“That’s fucking gross,” BT said. “If you’re not telling her, then we never had this conversation.” He pointed back and forth between us.
Gary had us all doing things while he welded different supports and brackets to the truck. Most of it I really didn’t have a clue what they were going to end up doing, but when he started cutting out gun wells with the acetylene torch, that I knew. It was brilliant! He was making a homemade tank. And then I had to revert back to ‘What the hell took so long?’ There were two ports on every side including the front. He also cut out a large window that let the folks in the cab see into the back and vice versa. He welded a couple of runners and then slotted through a good-sized piece of Plexiglas so that we could slide it back and forth.