by Mark Tufo
I’d argued with Gary for a bit as the sun began to set. He wanted to throw on the generator to run some lights so he could see and also use some of the power tools that would have made the building process quicker and easier.
“Are you thinking this through?” I asked him. “You want to be the only place in the entire city lit up and making noise? Might as well throw on an ‘open’ sign.”
“I could just about finish tonight,” he begged.
“It’s looking great, man, it really is. We’ll work on it tomorrow. Plus we won’t have a hostile audience watching us.”
“We’ve got the fence to keep them out.”
“Zombies are starting to climb. Do you want to spend the next two days trying to defend this area and not be able to? Or do you just want to do what you need to do tomorrow and we can get out of here?”
“Well…option two sounds better, but option one gives me lights.”
“Funny guy, do what you can tonight.” And then I walked away to find Justin who was patrolling the perimeter. “I’m going to need you and your brother to have a late night tonight standing watch. You alright with that?”
“Whatever it takes,” he told me. “Unless mom comes looking for you…and then I’m throwing you under the bus as fast as I can.”
“That’s not being a team player.”
“I am a team player, just her team.”
“Fair enough, she always wins anyway. Seriously though, I want the both of you out here tonight. This isn’t just a matter of watching the gate anymore.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked in seriousness.
“Yeah, the zombies are using the resources available to them and I don’t like it one bit.”
I don’t know how the woman does it, either I’m pretty readable like a damn open book or a switched on e-reader, or she’s just plain psychic. I acted as casually as I could all night. Never checked my weapons or my ammo, never talked with anyone in hushed tones. I just went about my business, but I could feel her eyes on me constantly. She was looking for something. This was why, early on in our relationship, I’d learned to never lie to her. I just couldn’t get away with it. Now that’s not to say there weren’t times I didn’t use subterfuge, but never with the spoken word. All of my stuff was done with plausible deniability.
Like the time when the kids were young and she had to go to California for corporate training or some crap. I was supposed to be watching the kids, but Paul was having this party over at his house, with a band and everything. Now most guys would figure out this elaborate lie about why they had to drop the kids off at the in-laws. See, that involves too many questions. I just brought them with. Paul gave them a room with a TV and I brought some toys. And I would drunkenly check on them from time to time. Responsible parenting? I think not. But it sure saved me from trying to remember what I told her or didn’t. I almost got caught when she asked about the kids’ new toys, things I had bought for their silence. We all have skeletons. At least mine don’t have as much meat on them as some folks. Shitty rationalization tactic, but it’s how I cope.
This night of all nights, though, the woman would just not go to bed. If I could have found some sleeping pills I would have gladly slipped them in her drink. As much as I wanted to press her on the subject of how tired I was and that we should go to bed, I knew that this tactic would immediately send up a red flag for her. Once that was raised, I’d never get out without a proper grilling. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two o’clock, not really sure, I didn’t have a watch. On a side thought—it’s amazing how quickly the man-created concept of time becomes significantly less important in an apocalyptic setting. At least, the preciseness of it. I mean, we were still using things like tomorrow or tonight which were generalizations that I have to believe all animals use. But as for 6:32 in the morning, well, that particular time can go fuck itself. (That was what I used to set my alarm for when I had to go to work.)
She fought it. She did…but when she pulled the third shift for guard duty, she figured she had to get some sleep. It was brutal acting this nonchalant. I was revved up like an ADD sufferer at a kaleidoscope convention. I just wrote that and I’m not sure if it makes sense. How about a six-year-old mainlining espresso? Yeah, that’s better. I waited until her breathing deepened before I moved. I wanted to kiss her forehead, but she’d know; not sure how she would, but she’d know. We were connected like only soul mates can be. And how was that still possible if I was a little light in that department? Concepts for a later time I suppose. Tommy was standing at the door to the office Tracy and I were staying in. He was quieter than a cat.
‘You ready?’ He asked in my head. I was about to tell him to be quiet when it dawned he hadn’t spoken aloud. I was not a fan of that mode of communication. I patted his shoulder as I moved past him, he followed.
“Heading out for some bread?” Came out of the shadows.
“Hey, BT,” Tommy said.
“Now where would you two be going at this hour of the night?” he asked, stepping out of the shadow of the building, the thin sliver of moon barely illuminating any of us.
“Don’t you have some busses to bench press or something?” I asked him.
“We’re off to destroy the hives,” Tommy told him.
“And I wasn’t invited? I feel like I’ve been left behind on the night of the prom.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t the case,” I told him. “You were probably the Belle of the Ball.”
“Careful, Talbot, how fast do you think I can get upstairs and tell your wonderful wife?”
“It’s not your size that repels friends, it’s your mean streak,” I told him.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“Plan?” Tommy asked as well.
“Not cool, Tommy,” I told him. He shrugged his shoulders in response. I’d been getting that a lot lately. “We’re going on bike, BT.”
He got the implication; his leg was not a hundred percent and might never be. The bullet he caught should have sheered his leg off, and my field surgery was anything but expert-like. Doc had undone a lot of the damage I’d done, but a bullet is a bullet. Our bodies aren’t designed to deal with the trauma they inflict. They do the best they can to repair the damage but it’s not a perfect science.
I saw it in his face, he was warring within himself. His pride was hurting. No one wants to hear there’s something they can’t do. He was also thinking about giving me a healthy ration of shit. How’d I know this? Because I know BT. Plus I would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed. I thought about adding that Tommy and I were faster than him, but then thought better of it, that would be more like rubbing salt into the wound while we were pouring alcohol on it.
“BT, I am concerned with how these zombies are behaving, I’d feel worlds better if you patrolled with the boys,” I told him.
“So I’m basically on guard duty while you two play hero commandos.”
“BT, I’m asking you to watch out for the things I hold dearest to me. I can’t think of a more important job. Plus you said it yourself, you can’t ride a bike.”
He looked long and hard at me to see if I was trying to appease him. Sure, a piece of me was, but the vast majority was sincere and he saw that.
“I’ll watch them, Mike, and I swear nothing will happen to them, but I really do want to blow some shit up.” He walked away.
“I didn’t think he’d go so quietly,” Tommy confided in me.
“Oh, I’m sure at some point this will come back around. I’ll have to deal with it at that point, I suppose. Let’s get out of here before Tracy figures out I’m gone.
Tommy didn’t even say a word, he knew better.
I felt like a damned ninja when I jumped up onto the fence. I’d almost cleared it not realizing my newfound strength. I think I sub-consciously tried to force down what part of me was. I very rarely used my new skills and just tried to march on as if all was as it was supposed to
be. I truly hoped that the boys had not witnessed this feat. I launched myself up and over the rest of the way, landing softly on the other side. I paused for a moment, waiting for my body to react to the forces of gravity; for the bottoms of my feet, my ankles, knees, hips and back to scream their protests at jumping that distance and the more pain-inducing landing.
I gingerly took a step, when I realized I was going to be spared all those pops, groans and potential breaks. For that, at least, I was happy.
“What about the bikes?” Tommy asked.
“I just said that to throw BT off.”
There was that constant underlying funk of the dead as we roamed the streets. None were around us but the smell hung like a low covering of ground fog.
“You know where we’re going?” I asked Tommy softly.
“You do know we can communicate without speech right?” he asked.
“Yeah, I know, it just weirds me out.”
“Weirder than getting eaten?”
‘Fine, have it your way,’ I said through our silent communication.
‘Another mile or so.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The smell is most of it, and if you stopped closing your mind off to it, there’s still a connection there.’
‘You’re giving me crap because I don’t want to talk with zombies?’
‘Good point.’
We turned a corner and realized too late we weren’t alone.
‘Miss that one?’ I asked Tommy sarcastically.
“No guns.” He pushed my muzzle down.
“Dammit.” I grabbed the machete from its sheath behind my back.
“Hear that?” Tommy asked, putting a hand up to his head.
On some level I did, there was this low grating buzz that I just figured was a brain aneurysm. I told Tommy I didn’t hear anything.
“He’s communicating.”
“With us?” I asked, genuinely concerned. The last thing I wanted was a heart-to-heart with Larry the Lurcher.
“Other zombies,” Tommy said in a tone that left no room for doubt that he thought I was nuts to think such a thing.
The zombie was actually wavering between running at us and waiting for his buddies to come. For a moment it looked like he was going to flee as I came at him with the large blade. Now that would have been something to see. A zombie running from me, I would have paid good money for that. Instead, I was witness to the slicing open of his head. Blood blew out in a halo. That incessantly irritating sound he was making stopped before he hit the ground.
“Did it work?” I asked Tommy, wiping my blade off on the zombie’s shirt. At this point I wasn’t sure if I was making the blade dirtier or cleaner, all sorts of disgusting things were ingrained on the material. Shit, I think I even saw mushrooms growing (and they weren’t of the psilocybin variety either).
“Yeah, cutting his skull worked just fine,” Tommy answered, not understanding my question.
“I meant the SOS; did he get it out in time?” Now there was very little chance I was going to be able to get away with this without Tracy finding out. I was covered in all manner of disgusting little tidbits.
“I think the range is pretty limited, but I’m no zombie expert. Still, I think it’d be for the best if we left this general area.”
“You sound a lot like my other son…Captain.”
The observation may have been obvious, but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t heed it. We moved over to the next side street, hoping that if any zombies were coming, they would be on a different approach.
We stayed in silence the rest of the way. I could sense Tommy’s agitation as we got nearer to the town’s gas station.
“Getting close,” he hissed, not even heeding his own earlier advice.
“What’s with the gas stations?” I asked. “Seems like they wouldn’t want to be around something so volatile.”
“The smell, the gas masks them.”
“I don’t know about that.” My own eyes were watering. “That sure does make them a lot smarter than I would like to give them credit for. Let’s get this done,” I said to Tommy.
I almost popped my knees out of their sockets when I attempted to thrust up from our hidden vantage point and didn’t move. Tommy had a firm grasp on my shoulder harness and I couldn’t budge.
“Guards.” He pointed to a small group of zombies milling about over towards our far left.
“Guards?” I asked. It just looked like a gaggle of the slimy fucks. “They just look like they’re hanging out.” And then I answered my own question. They were hanging out watching over their brood. “You have got to be shitting me. How can we possibly kill that many without one of them sending off a message?” There were eight of them that we could see from our vantage point and I had to believe they had more behind the station. “Will they go for bait and not call for others?” I asked.
“Mr. T, I have a tenuous link, I’m not the zombie whisperer.”
I looked over to him. “That’s funny, you know. I just thought you should know that. Alright, let’s give this a shot. I’m going to move over to their side and when they notice me I’m going to run towards here and hopefully we can kill them all.”
“Hopefully?”
“Hey, don’t give me shit. At least I made a plan this time.”
“Not really much of one,” I heard him mutter. I backed up so I could move around quietly.
Zombies were predators plain and simple. Why would they call for help if a meal was on the line? I mean, why share all this delicious meat with forty or fifty of their closest friends when eight should be sufficient to get the job done? At least that was my hope. If we got the whole den in on the action, we were going to have to leave in a hurry.
I was perpendicular to the front of the station. I had been so intent on being quiet that they had not noticed me yet. When I got within thirty or so yards, I started whistling All My Love by Led Zeppelin. I have no idea why that song sprang into my head, but it sure as hell got their attention.
All nine heads swiveled in my direction. Nine? I looked quickly in the direction I needed to go; it was about a football field away—maybe a Canadian Football field. I licked my lips, hoping that my flight would trigger their instinctual need to pursue. No worries on that front, they were already coming.
“I did this voluntarily?” I asked as I started to run.
If I didn’t have some of Tommy’s blood in me, I wouldn’t have made it, plain and simple. The zombies weren’t running to a spot where I was, like they had been, but rather where I was going. They were on an intercept course and they had a better angle. Getting a touchdown was going to be difficult.
“Coming in hot!” I shouted to Tommy when I was within a few feet.
“Like I can’t see you.”
Tommy stuck out his hands, absorbing my speed and helping me to slow so I could turn and help him fight the enemy. Nine, even for Tommy would be pushing it. The zombies fanned out once they saw that I had stopped and was standing my ground with another. Their hasty approach became one of slow and steady caution as they began to stalk us.
“This is unreal,” I said referring to their being able to adapt to the situation and act accordingly. I honestly didn’t think the use of basic weapons was too far out of their grasp, so to speak. “I’m thinking we should attack before we’re completely surrounded.”
Tommy barely waited for the reverberations of the words to stop before he moved to his side, his blade whistling through the wind. I was mid-swing when I heard a head strike the underbrush. We moved in a fluid dance of death, spinning clockwise to our center. The black steel of the blades quickly becoming covered in all manner of what was once human detritus. I’d killed three on my trip around the merry-go-round while Tommy doled out the ultimate punishment to five. The ferocity with which he dispatched his impartial judgment was awe-inspiring and quite frightening at the same time. He had more of his sister in him than either of us would have liked to admit.
I d
id the math quickly in my head, three plus five is eight, we were light a zombie. Then I noticed one was hauling ass back towards the building.
“This sucks. I like stupid zombies just fine,” I said as I hurtled over two dead ones.
I caught him just as I felt that niggling feeling in my skull. The tip of my blade sliced straight down his neck and back, parting the skin and giving me a perfect view of his spine. I watched the compression of his disks as he kept running before blood began to well up in the one inch wide opening. He quickly side-stepped, my next slice catching him low in the neck, more towards the collar bone. The blade was lodged deep into bone, so much so that I completely stopped his forward momentum. We both nearly went down with my wrist attached to the machete by a heavy hemp cord.
The blade popped loose as he struck the ground. He was staring straight up at me as I brought the heel of my boot down on the middle of his face. I turned my face as gore shot up and around my contact point. The next time, I stomped my whole foot down. I’d done it so hard that it sent shock waves throughout my entire body. I twisted my leg like I was putting a cigarette out, or maybe doing the funky chicken dance, you decide which analogy fits better.
I was breathing heavy; not so much from the exertion, but from the fight itself. I was disgusted by what I had just done; yet, in one sense, exhilarated. I’d defeated my enemy on the field of battle. It was them or me, and it always had to be them. This wasn’t dominoes; there was no margin for error. As Tommy walked up, we both watched the zombie’s legs twitching like the death throes of a cockroach. Now that was fucking disgusting.