by Mark Tufo
“Basement?” I asked, looking at Tommy.
“Dozens…sounds like a hive,” Tracy said.
“Bikers and zombies, sounds like a horrible B-movie.” I quipped.
“I’ve seen that one,” Trip said, coming out of the bedroom with a pillowcase.
“Going trick-or-treating?” I asked him.
“It’s Halloween?” he asked all excited.
“Shit, there are enough monsters out there for it to be,” BT said.
Trip started to head to the door, apparently to go seek out some free sweet treats.
“Why are you egging him on?” I asked BT.
“You’re the one that brought it up,” he said in self-defense.
“Trip, buddy, it’s not Halloween yet,” I told him.
“Sure it is. I have a pillowcase.”
“Steph!” I yelled. She came and grabbed her husband.
“Maybe we can get out of here while they’re fighting the zombies,” Tracy said.
It was plausible. It did sound like most of the fighting was happening on the far side of the building. But they’d be retreating to where we needed to go. Would bygones be bygones if we ran into each other now, the whole ‘your enemy is my enemy thus we are friends’ saying? I got up and went to the door, opening it slowly. I poked my head out, to the right it was clear, to the left were bikers being closely pursued.
“Shit, he saw me.” I pulled back in and quickly shut the door.
A couple of seconds later, a trio of heavy pounds hit the door. “I know where you are, fucker!” he yelled as he raced by.
“What the hell is he going to do about it?” BT asked.
“Beats me,” I said, then we heard bullets firing outside our doorway. For a split-second I thought they were directed at us. But they went by and then we heard the pitter patter of zombie feet—shitloads of zombie feet. It sounded like the beginnings of a marathon out there.
“How many are there?” Tracy mouthed the words.
“Like…five,” I lied to her quietly.
Occasionally one would slam into the door as they were jostled into it. Or we’d hear fingernails drag across it as a zombie or two tried to regain their balance. It was horrifying.
Stephanie came up to me and shook her head, letting me know they didn’t find anything worthwhile. “No sheets, nothing,” she said as we heard the last of the zombies streak on by. Then we heard the pounding upstairs; the bikers were leading them up and more importantly away from us.
“We should go,” BT said. “This is our window.”
“Where?” I asked. “Our ride is busted, and if the zombies catch wind of us, we’ll never be able to outrun them.”
“I hate when you make a valid point,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem right when someone as unstable as you makes sense, kind of throws my whole world off-kilter a bit.”
I flipped him the bird. We all looked up when we heard footsteps overhead. Blaze had apparently decided to take up residence above us. I could tell how poorly the apartments were made when I could hear every single one of their footfalls and the ensuing muffled conversations they were having. Must have been a blast living under an apartment of a family with a few kids.
“Hey, shithead, you down there?” he yelled.
That came through loud and clear.
“Against the walls!” I hissed, but loud enough that my message was received by everyone.
Within a few seconds, bullets punctured through the drywall above us and burrowed deeply into the floor.
“Two can play at that game, shit stain!” I yelled, sending a spray upwards. I was rewarded with a scream, a thud, and a heavy cascading of blood leaking through the holes I had just made.
“Okay! Truce, man, truce! No more shooting!” Blaze, or whom I figured to be Blaze, yelled. “We cool?”
I didn’t answer.
“Listen, man, we’re pinned down by zombies. How many of you are there?” he asked. I thought I could detect an edge of panic in his voice.
“Seriously?” I asked him.
“Sorry, sorry, it’s this new world, man, makes people do stupid shit.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t think it was this ‘new world’ that brought out the shittier side of humans. We have always had it in us. Why is man so fundamentally flawed? Does it really go back to knowledge and that stupid apple Eve just had to have? I would have rather been a noble savage. Thanks, Eve, for ruining it for the rest of us. There was civilization before the zombies, but I truly think it hung on the precarious edge of a razor. Take the news for example; which stories were we as a people drawn to almost without fail? It was the murders, the rapes, and the large scale robberies. In some sick way, that stuff triggered things in us.
Now, that’s not saying we didn’t enjoy the occasional ‘feel good’ fluff story about Johnny and his dog raising money for poor kids in Africa or something. But it’s the devastating and sick stories that really got us. If you want to sit there and act all indignant, go ahead, but it’s in all of us. Haven’t you ever wanted to murder someone on the roadway, or shove a pen through your boss’s eye? Not to mention what you may or may not do if you were ever able to get a hold of a cheerleading squad. The question is WHY is wanting to do harm to our fellow human being hardwired into us?
The veneer of civilization and religion usually prevents us from doing this. We obviously don’t want to go to jail, or be tried in the court of public perception. But, you strip the restraints away, and being kind to your neighbor goes out the door in a hurry. Zombies suck; don’t get me wrong, but it’s the living that are worse. In a time when we should be banding together, we get people like Blaze who are only concerned with the moment in which they find themselves, and making it to the next at any and all costs to any that fall along his path. Can it be Evil sensing an opportunity? If God gave us free will, he sure wasn’t granting us any favors.
“Blaze, I can’t hold the door much longer!” someone screamed up above.
“God, forgive me for what I’m about to do,” I said as I walked up to our doorway.
I pointed my rifle up and blew a good ten holes through the ceiling, moving before the resultant blood began to spill down. Then the screams began in earnest as zombies began to flood into the apartment above us, pushing past the now-deceased door minder. Sounded like they were hosting a huge rave.
“Let’s go,” I said amidst the battle above us.
“I’ll find you!” Blaze screamed.
“Only in the after-life,” I murmured.
I heard glass breaking just as BT exited. He and I were the last ones out.
“Hard-core, man,” he said.
“I’d like to say I feel remorse, but I don’t.”
“Understood.”
I turned as I saw something go by our window. I think Blaze was taking the express route.
“Come on, we gotta go before the zombies finish up and go looking for dessert,” I said.
BT was already moving. Tommy was by the stairwell door, I saw him look through the small safety window. He then opened the door slowly and fired off five or six quick shots.
“Three in the stairwell,” he said.
“Did they post guards?” I asked, more to myself.
We got down the stairs and out without any further complications, but we hadn’t made it more than a hundred yards from the building when we heard the door slam open. We’d been spotted, and they looked hungry. BT was looking better, but he was easily going to be the slowest in the bunch. Well…that was unless, of course, Trip stopped and started smelling the flowers. We had no options.
“The truck!” I bellowed.
Anywhere else was suicide. Although, so was the truck. In all reality, it would be just drawn out a lot longer. Nobody questioned my decision; there was no alternative. I stayed by BT’s side as he labored, turning every few steps to take out or slow down some of the lead zombies. Their bodies contorted as I sent hot lead into them. Sometimes I got lucky and would send a spread of brain
tissue into the air, dropping the zombie forever.
A Henry-carrying Tommy reached the truck first. As soon as he got my mutt inside the back of the truck, he moved to the side to get some shots off. Gary was second and started helping or tossing people into the back depending on their location.
“Let’s go, Tommy!” I shouted when I realized BT and I should be able to make it comfortably, and by ‘comfortably’ I meant by the skin of our teeth. If he had another seizure, we were through. “Help me get him in!” I told Tommy as an ashen-faced BT gripped the lip of the truck bed. Tommy and I hoisted him up while Gary and Trip pulled on his arms.
“This is just like Da Nang,” Trip said.
“Vietnam?” I asked as Tommy and I crawled in.
Gary pulled the rod that held the tailgate open. I thought my heart was going to burst when I saw nearly a dozen severed zombie fingers twitching inches away from my feet as they got stuck between the steel of the truck bed and the heavy tailgate.
“Finger food!” Trip laughed.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Gary said.
“Not in here!” BT and I said nearly simultaneously.
Fists and hands began to beat against the truck. The body was secure enough, even if it didn’t quench the stench. The cab was a different story. In his haste to leave the truck and get to the apartment building, Gary had left his door open. I couldn’t fault him for that; he, like the rest of us, figured we were never coming back to our armored vehicle. Now it was going to become the focal point of our defense.
“Move!” I began to push people out of my way.
I was heading up to the front and the Plexiglas window where even now a zombie was making his way inside. He was halfway through when I placed the muzzle of my weapon on the back of his head. He turned and hissed at me, pure unadulterated hatred burned in his eyes as I blew a hole in his head.
Even with my ears ringing I could hear Gary retching in the corner. Right now I’d take the stink of vomit over what leaked out of the zombie’s head. I was going to push him back out and into the cab, but that was not going to happen as zombies were beginning to pile in up front. Two pressed their way into the rapidly diminishing space. I waited until they were good and stuck before I ended their existences, such as they were.
Trip came up and put his arm around my shoulder. “Kind of reminds me of the cave,” he said, smiling.
And instantly I was transported back to that rock constricting vice-like grip that ensnared my entire body. “Thanks for that,” I told him, doing my best to shake the imagery from my mind.
“Oh…you’re welcome,” he said, looking at the zombies. “Good times.” He walked away.
The dead zombies next to me were twitching violently, but not from nerve endings still firing. The zombies behind them were attempting to get through the roadblock and the prizes beyond.
Travis was peering through one of the murder holes. “There’s got to be hundreds,” he said with just about no inflection in his voice. I’ll admit, that was in itself unnerving. It sounded like he was packing it in.
“We’ve been in tighter spots.” I hoped my false words would lend assurance to his deaf ear.
Then I thought, Have we? We were effectively trapped in a sardine can; it was just a matter of the zombies figuring out how to use that little key to peel the cover back. I wondered if they still used that little key. I’ve got to be honest, I can’t even remember the last time I saw a can of sardines being opened.
“You hear that?” Trip asked.
I heard Gary’s constant stomach gurgling, the jostling of zombies, the pounding of multiple hands on metal, a bunch of snarls and hissing—most from outside—and some apprehensive murmuring from within the truck, all normal things for this particular predicament. I did not know which one Trip was fixating on.
“I hear it too,” Tommy said. “Sounds like a plane.”
“So?” was my bitter response. “Fat lot of good that’s going to do us! Might as well be an ice cream truck.” I’d just had a momentary tailspin and apparently felt like raining on the improvised parade.
“That’s not a plane,” Trip said as I was even now beginning to hear the prop wash.
Whatever it was flew directly over our location.
“Drone,” he clarified.
“Drone? How can you know?” BT asked.
“He has three,” Stephanie said.
“Who’s operating drones?” I asked, definitely needing the answer.
“I don’t know, but it’s safe to assume they know we’re here,” Gary said, picking up his head long enough to speak.
“And what are they going to do about it?” I asked sourly.
“Talbot!” Tracy said sternly.
***
“Sir, I’ve got a visual from Sparrow Four on that truck you wanted me to follow,” Staff Sergeant Emerson said.
“Put it up on the main screen,” Captain Najarian ordered. “Holy shit, they got themselves into a jam didn’t they?” He surveyed the scene. Zombies surrounded the plow with more coming in from all angles. “I wonder why they’re not moving. Are they injured? Switch to thermal,” he said as the drone made a wide arc and came around, the gyroscopic camera mounted underneath the craft never straying from the turmoil below.
“Switching to thermal,” the staff sergeant said. The screen turned a murky gray with the minimal heat index of the zombies around the truck, bright points of light inside.
“Ten heat signatures.” Captain Najarian did a quick count. “At least two of them may be sick, one is burning with fever, and he’s a big one. And then two of them have a cooler core temperature. Dying maybe. What of the other six? Their temps looks fine, so either they’re out of gas, or that rolling zombie slayer has broken down.”
“Orders, sir? Sparrow Four is twenty-four minutes from splash down.” The staff sergeant was referring to how much fuel the bird had left.
“Well, let’s lighten her load. Send a sidewinder spinning,” Captain Najarian said.
“Sir?”
“Close enough to the truck that they know help is coming, but not close enough to cause them any harm. See how many of the zeds you can take out. And then unleash the fifty cal into the horde. That should buy you some more fly time with the reduced weight and them some more life time. Then get the bird home. I’m sending some boots on the ground to retrieve them.”
“Yes, sir.”
***
“You hear that?” Trip asked again.
It would have been impossible to miss. I’d heard enough missiles being launched during my military days.
“Everyone down!” I yelled.
If the drone and the people operating it were targeting us, then the gesture was useless. I was angry. Frying in a damn metal box was not on my list of things to do for the day. The truck rocked heavily as the missile slammed into the ground. The left side of the body got hot as a wave of fire and debris smashed into us.
“Wow, someone needs a little practice at the range,” Trip said.
“Um…Trip, maybe we should be hoping that they didn’t want to hit us,” I said to him.
“Oh! That makes WAY more sense!” he answered.
“Mike, what’s going on?” Tracy asked.
She might as well have been asking me to translate a calculus problem into German and then explain how it related to the ancient Mayans. I had no fucking clue. I was saved the trouble of bullshitting an answer as the air just about ripped open. The drone started firing what I had to believe was a fifty-caliber machine gun. Even with my hands placed against my head, the sound was ear splitting. If none of our eardrums were ruptured, I would consider that a victory. The truck bed only amplified the sound, like a mini-echo chamber.
The whole affair was over in less than a minute. When I felt it was safe to remove my hands from my ears, I could just make out the sound of the retreating drone.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
I looked out my shooting hole only to be
greeted with the ugly mug of a zombie. I stuck my barrel out and into his mouth, adding the back of his head to the devastation on the ground around the truck. The mini-plane had killed a lot of zombies. An accurate count was out of the question as there were parts of all sizes and shapes strewn amid the wreckage.
“I have got to get me one of those drones,” I said as I tried to get an angle to see which way it had gone.
“You do remember when I got you and the kids all those remote-control helicopters that one year, right?” Tracy asked, coming up to me.
“Yeah,” I said, dejected.
I had just got mine fully charged and no sooner got it into flight when it slammed off the kitchen light and onto the floor where a helicopter-hating Henry pounced on it, ripping the machine in half. I’d never seen the dog move that fast in my life. One second he was drooling on the couch a room away, and the next, he’s got a paw on the chopper’s blades and his mouth wrapped around the cockpit. I could only look on in abject horror as his massive jaw clamped down and snuffed out my fun. Travis had said I could play with his helicopter, but Tracy wouldn’t let me because we all knew how that would end up.
I looked over to Henry, his stub tail wagging. “You’d tear my drone in half too, wouldn’t you?” I said to him.
His mouth was open wide. It was hard not to imagine he was smiling.
“Got to be military right?” Gary asked.
Odds were yes, but none of us knew for sure, and even though the machine and its operator had helped out greatly, we were still surrounded by zombies. I had to imagine that the noise was only going to bring more of them.
“Dad, we’ve got a problem,” Justin said.
I wanted to tell him that we had way more than one. He was pointing towards the front of the truck; the zombies had figured out a solution to their problem. They were pulling the jammed, dead zombies out from the window. It was disconcerting as fuck to witness a thinking zombie; mindless brain eaters were bad enough. And almost as if it was coordinated, the moment the hole was free, we heard zombies on the roof. The same roof designed really to only be a protector against the elements—plywood and tarp were not very effective enemy shields.