10

Mike Journal Entry 9

I awoke the next morning with a start. Nearly took off the top of my head when I sat up quickly. I was trying to figure out where the hell I was, and more importantly, why I was naked. Figured BT was trying to take advantage of me. That gave me a smile. I missed the man. Then everything crashed back into me: the kids, the roof, the zombies, my leg. I was pretty sure I hadn’t slept for two days because my clothes were still slightly damp, though I sort of wished I had. The idea of putting them on while my skin was salted over from the ocean was not all that appealing. The choices were limited. Pretty sure the kids wouldn’t want to be rescued from me in that condition. I could see my son, saying “pass” when I showed up in the truck. I grabbed my damp clothes and opened the door.

“Zombie.” I said softly. It was the smell. It wasn’t overpowering, not at all, almost a ghost of the scent. Like I’d been visited by an ethereal living dead one. I placed my clothes down and grabbed my rifle, hesitant to use it even if I needed it. If I was feeling sticky from my time in the water, how was my rifle faring? I wasn’t going to do anyone any favors if the damn thing blew up in my face. I listened intently for a sign of anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. That didn’t necessarily mean too much though. Zombies were generally stationary when they were trapped, at least until something caught their interest. I pushed the rifle through the railing, but there was no target.

I climbed down the ladder, clearly aware of just how naked I was. Something about nudity displayed just what frail and fragile beings we were. On the plus side, my left leg was completely behaving itself, sore but otherwise moving like it should. I made it all the way down the ladder without any problems. It was when my right foot touched down that all the festivities began. I don’t know where the fucker was hiding. She scared the shit out of me when she turned the corner and ran straight at me. Barely had enough time to turn around and get my rifle in front of me. As for the shit thing, I want to be clear that this was more an expression than a reality, although at least I was appropriately undressed if this were to have happened. The barrel of the rifle struck her belly as she forced herself forward. The barrel twisted up, and just as I lost my grip, a round went up and under her breastplate then the rifle fell to the ground.

She didn’t care, even as the round exited somewhere around her collarbone and slammed into the ceiling. I had her at arm’s length. She was slimy, sort of like month-old deli meat. With one hand, I tried to fend her off while also trying my best to punch her into oblivion. I’d hit her enough times in the temple to make that happen. I was sure she had to be feeling some effects. She drove my back into the ladder, and for one disgustingly gross encounter, my best friend for most of my teenaged years collided with her midriff. Let me make this clearer: My penis smashed up against her greasy, oily, dirty, diseased and sore encrusted, gray, brown, dead, pus-covered skin. I damn near froze up. Felt like I was trying to hump a beached tuna or something. I mean not that I’d ever done something like that. Was just letting my imagination run wild with that one. At this fucking point, I’d do the fish a couple of times if it meant I didn’t have to touch this thing. I attempted to push off, with extreme prejudice, but my hands sunk into her sallow and rotten flesh.

“Oh, come on.” I looked at the gelatinous mess hanging from my right hand. It looked very much like an overabundance of dog snot. This I was all too familiar with. Henry could manufacture it like no one’s business. She came back for more. I made sure to turn my hips to the side to avoid a repeat of our earlier encounter. She turned her head when I punched. She couldn’t have been any closer to biting down on my knuckles if I’d purposefully inserted them in her mouth. She snapped at air, her teeth making an awful clacking sound. I just kept jack hammering the side of her head. There was a loud crunch, and either my knuckles had given or her skull had. There was enough pain in my hand that it could have been the latter. Her eyes were beginning to lose focus as I somehow went faster. My arm was a blur as I cocked it back and just kept pummeling. I had my left hand wrapped around her throat. I was clutching so hard that if she had any humanity in her, she would have been fighting for air.

My chest was heaving with exertion while I forced her to the ground, my umm, my junk dangerously close to circumcision by zombie. Luckily, it hadn’t dawned on me at the time. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her skull was caving, as I forced shards of it into her brain. My knuckles were bruised and bleeding by the time I finished. My shoulder and bicep were sore, and I’d dislocated two fingers.

“Fuck!” I yelled. When I let go of her neck, she collapsed to the floor, shaking violently. I kicked her once in the midsection for the pain she’d inflicted on me. That’s when I remembered I was barefoot and that hurt as well. So being the brainchild that I am, I hauled off and kicked her with my other foot. I cried out in pain again. “You’re an asshole!” I told her. She didn’t care as she passed over to wherever they go. I stumbled to the bathroom, my limbs now dangerously heavy as the adrenaline dose dissipated within me. Pastel blue coated the walls along with a plethora of seashells. It looked like a third grade art experiment in there, with shells glued to the mirror and the toilet. All I could think was they looked like damn barnacles. I tossed the lid off the tank reservoir and plunged my hand in, a swirl of sludge drifted off. I cried out again when my disjointed joints bumped up into the toilet innards. When I pulled my hand out, it was reasonably clean, but I looked like I had a severe case of crippling arthritis. My pinkie and “fuck you” finger were bent at unnatural angles.

“This is going to suck; this is going to suck” was my mantra for the moment. Must have repeated that phrase twenty times, psyching myself up to do what needed to be done. I dipped my toe into the pool (figuratively) with my pinkie. It was smaller, so I figured it would hurt less. Side note: It didn’t. Sounded like two pieces of wet, heavy-grit sandpaper rubbing against each other when I grasped the tip of my finger and pulled straight outward. For five brutal seconds, the knuckle did not pop back into place but rather sat atop the hand as if to get a better view of the world. A flood of relief passed through me when it slid back into place. Sweat flowed from every pore within my body. So much so, it was pooling at my feet. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought the toilet had a leak. I danced around until the pain abated. The thought of going through that again did not sit well with me. Usually, you can do something once because you just don’t have any idea how bad it’s going to be, but once you have the experience, do you really want to give it another go?

Case in point, my sister had a dog, Talon, beautiful German Shepherd, but he fancied himself a hunter. His quarry was a porcupine. He ended up with a mouthful of one hundred and twelve quills. An emergency visit to the vet and three hundred and thirty-six bucks later, he was cured. At three bucks a quill, I would have done it. You got to believe any sane dog would have said, “Yup, lesson learned; that slow thing with the funny spiny looking fur is a definite no-go.” I guess this was a poor example. The very next week, he came home with ninety-eight. I think my sister got a volume discount at the vet the next time, though. Much like Talon, I was compelled to go back for more. I grabbed the tip of my middle finger and danced around that small bathroom like I was being stung by a nest of hornets. I was yelling all sorts of obscenities, a fair number of them made up on the spot. Instead of wet sandpaper, this one sounded like an old rusty door that hadn’t had its hinges oiled since the New Deal era. Before I popped that finger in, I wouldn’t have thought the human body capable of making that sound.

Maybe I had enough endorphins flowing through my body this time, or it just wasn’t as bad, but the pain was almost manageable. I dropped to my knees, gripped the edges of the toilet bowl, and wretched. There wasn’t much to it besides some long strings of bile-laced drool. I stayed that way for a few minutes, my head hanging low. I was again wiped. When I felt certain I could stand without swaying, I did so. I went back out to the hallway. The zombie was still twitching like she had a small electrical current being pushed through her body. I stopped and stared at her. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty, maybe even late teens. Almost done in by a female teenager. She tried to finish what my daughter had started. I think a grim smile forced my lips upwards. I wasn’t sure, and I definitely didn’t want to see that expression in the mirror. I looked up and scanned the rest of the cottage, a little late in the game. If there had been another zombie, I would have been screwed. It wasn’t like they were wallflowers and would wait until someone came up and talked to them, even then avoiding eye contact. Nope, they were all teeth and fingernails.

I was as gross as I can ever recall being. A fair part of me including my nether regions and thighs were coated in a thick viscous solution I decided to call body gel. I’ll deal my way, you deal yours. I had blood all over both arms, some gray matter and bone bits as well. Add to that the general overall stickiness of my forced swim the previous day, and I could barely stand my own skin. There was no way I could put my clothes back on. I didn’t have the intestinal fortitude for that. I went back to the bathroom. I’d completely spoiled the water in the toilet tank and had sort of puked into the bowl, so yeah, the toilet was definitely out. I flushed and heard a strangled cry of air-logged water pipes attempting to do something they hadn’t been called on to do in some time. There was some gurgling: my belly and the toilet. I jumped back when bright, blood red water flowed into the toilet. It looked like I’d severed the thing’s artery or something. I’d seen rusty water before, but this looked like paint and was nearly as thick.

“Take pity on me!” I wailed to the gods. I could see the fuckers now, and they were laughing at me. I started mimicking them, “Yeah, let’s get the automysophobiac as disgustingly dirty as possible without any chance of cleaning himself, and we’ll see if he breaks down or not.” I think Zeus was giving ten-to-one odds I wouldn’t make it through the morning. Oh, and just in case you ended up in your shelter without a dictionary, automysophobia is the fear of being dirty. I had that one in spades in addition to the rest of my issues. I turned the shower on as well as the sink. Whatever sludge was working its way through the system, it had completely fouled up the showerhead because only drops of blood, as if the thing had sliced itself with a razorblade, were making it through the small openings. The sink spigot, though, was gushing the vile fluid that I noticed had a very distinct and disgusting odor, like rotting fish.

The bathroom was looking like a serial killer’s headquarters. I backed out and closed the door behind me, not even bothering to shut the water off. Well, fluid, I didn’t shut the fluid off. I thought I might have more luck in the kitchen. I didn’t. This I did shut off, though, when the foul smell began to assail my senses. I got down on my haunches to check the cabinet under the sink. There were your typical cleaning supplies. I wondered if Drano would hurt too much if I lathered it on my skin.

“Ah dish soap!” I hadn’t even begun to think this through as I squirted copious amounts on my body. Dish soap in small amounts in a perfect world takes a few gallons of water to wash off, I didn’t have so much as an ounce. I was wondering how much saliva I could produce in the next few minutes. I now had a rapidly thickening congealing mess of soap holding all the other things I had on me, onto me. My arms were outstretched. I didn’t dare move for fear that something would get stuck.

“What have I done?” I lamented. I pulled everything out from under the sink; anything in liquid form went into the “maybe” pile. Lysol, carpet cleaner, lighter fluid, you name it. I’m crazy, not quite insane though. I looked out the window and to the ocean. That was my play now. Sticky was leagues better than whatever I was now. Hell, I wouldn’t care if a school of haddock pissed on me right now. Anything was better than this. I was heading for the back door when a small door to my left caught my attention. I opened it up just to make sure there were no zombies. It led downstairs. No smell; that was encouraging, and it gave me pause to reconsider my ocean swim. I was heading outdoors without clothes but, more importantly, without my rifle. I had to check the basement. Maybe I would luck out and there would be a hot tub.

The basement was more of a crawlspace, just tall enough that I could stand, but it wasn’t much bigger than the bathroom upstairs. Shelves containing large jars dominated the whole wall to my left. At first, I mistakenly believed that this was indeed the home of a deranged killer and the jars were full of various body parts he used as trophies for his sick fantasies. Then it dawned on me that these were pickling jars full of mostly cucumbers. Some had beets and other things I wouldn’t have eaten when other fare was available. My repulsive self was forgotten for the moment as I opened a jar of pickles and took a sniff. Why I was compelled to place my nose a quarter inch from the top of the jar is beyond me. A strong scent of vinegar burned through my olfactory nerves before I could pull away.

I looked around, pulled a large nail out of some rotten wood, and used it as a skewer. There was no way I was touching potential food the way I was. I hadn’t taken a breath until the tenth pickled cuke touched down into my stomach. As I emptied the jar, I realized that I now had a viable solution to cleanse with. Sure, it smelled horrible, but vinegar was a powerful non-lethal astringent. I tipped the remaining contents, pickles and all, over the top of my head. The smell was horrendous. I did get a laugh, though, when a couple of the brined vegetables got stuck on various parts of me. Brought me back to what at the time I thought was a dark period in my life. I would go back to that just laid-off self in a heartbeat if it meant I got to avoid this time and place. Two jars later, I had gotten a fair amount of the soap off of me, though I’d traded one repellant for another.

“Just get most of it off, man, and then you can take a quick dip.” I was trying to soothe my neurotic half. Okay, neurotic two-thirds. Three-quarters?

A serial killer would have been repulsed by what I left on that floor. I looked better though, even if I had traded my scent away. I was fairly convinced that it had permeated my skin and I would smell like this forever. Would Tracy ever want to lie with someone who smelled like this? Wouldn’t doubt if I sweated vinegar for the next few months.

“It’s better, man. Right? It has to be.” I checked again for the tenth time, hoping maybe I had somehow glanced over a case of bottled water or something, then I headed upstairs. I was going to get my clothes, rifle, take a quick swim, get the damn truck, save my kids and wife in the vault, and then maybe drive out to the hot springs in Colorado, where I would see if I could melt off the top few layers of my skin. I’d gathered my things and had my hand on the door handle as I stared at the ocean and what I now considered clean water. Perspective is an amazing thing.

“Dammit.” Ten zombies were milling about at the shoreline, not doing much of anything really, just being a nuisance. I could take care of them from here, but the noise would bring others. That was assured. I would have to forgo the water. The litany of swears I spewed out as I dressed far surpassed that of those I’d said when I was popping my knuckles back into place. I was as mad as a pit bull with its balls stuck in a vise as I headed out the front door. I didn’t stop mumbling swears until I saw the sign for the power company. The gate was closed and locked. Again, this was good and bad. Good because no zombies could get in; bad because no zombies could get out. I climbed over. It was as I was sitting atop in that precarious position that I saw them. Zombies had discovered me, probably not all that hard considering the scent of me was as potent as a skunk and half as appealing. They’d probably like me this way. My meat would preserve longer. I risked injury to flip them the bird before I went down the other side.

Twelve trucks were in that yard. Four were dead. This I knew after trying to turn the lights on, batteries having given out at some point. I had eight chances. Now I just needed to find some keys, and that meant going into the building. I’d been avoiding that because if there were any zombies here, that was the most likely place. As unattractive as I was feeling toward myself, I still had to go into combat mode as I approached the door. Rifle to my shoulder, my gaze fixed and focused looking for targets. I banged on that door like I was selling used vacuum cleaners, then stepped back to see if anyone would come to greet me. No one did, which I found just outright rude. The door was locked. I went over to the side, where some offices were. I grabbed a good-sized boulder and hurled it at the window, where it bounced back, nearly crashing into my shins.

“Stupid safety glass.” I was reluctant to shoot, but I wasn’t going to keep messing around here. I’d already spent far too much time away from those who needed my help. The first shot left a nice hole about the diameter of the bullet I’d fired. “Perfect. Couple of hundred more shots, I’ll make a hole big enough to fit through,” I said aloud. Two more shots…. The second didn’t do much more damage than the first. The third, however, starred that glass from corner to corner. “That’s what I’m talking about.” I grabbed the boulder again. This time, I was rewarded with the satisfying crash of glass breaking up into nearly a million pieces. Still no zombies coming to investigate. Didn’t mean I was free and clear. They could have been stuck on other floors or in offices. Just as long as they weren’t having an after-hours party in the key room on the night the zombies came, I should be all right. I waited a few extra minutes, just in case there was a slow zombie, then I climbed into the building, quickly coming up with my rifle at the ready.

“Three stories. Think, Mike. Where would they keep the keys?” There was a garage bay off to the side for maintenance. That was on my short list. I didn’t think the boss would have something so mundane as key watch duty under his care but his receptionist would; odds were she ran the show anyway. “Okay, but the boss is most likely on the third floor. Probably don’t want the help going up to the classy part. That leaves the front desk.” I was confident I had reasoned this out correctly. It really is mind-boggling when I use my brain. The things I can do. Maybe I was learning; maybe I could actually look before I leapt. I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. Then I ran into another cliché: pride cometh before the fall. I ran down a hallway to a large open area where a huge oak semi-circular counter dominated. This was the nerve center of the building, where all the communications, rosters, and most importantly, keys were housed. Of course they were in a small, steel case, but that was fine. What was not were the zombies staring back at me as I got behind her desk.

“You’re shitting me, right?” They’d waited until I had made it inside. That was the only reason they’d not come to check out the noise. This getting smart shit was beginning to become unnerving. How much was it going to suck when they became smarter than me? Wouldn’t be that long either. For hell’s sake, I was in remedial English for much of my high school career. Then, when I let my reasoning catch up, I realized they weren’t moving. Well, I mean they were moving, just not toward me. They were struggling against their bonds. Looked very much like electrical cable. Made sense considering where I was. But who had done this? Eight zombies were tied up. Tethered together, and to a large steel beam that was a support column for the building. I don’t know who the person was that had wrangled them up, but I silently thanked him or her. At first, I had a hard time concentrating on the steel box. I was dividing my time looking up and to the zombies, where I was sure they were going to break free and rush my location.

If the box hadn’t been bolted to the wall, I would have taken it with me outside where I could have busted it open. I could hear the rubber insulation of the wire squeak and squeal as the zombies rubbed against each other and strained against their constraints. Most of the time, their gaze was upon me, their arms upraised, their mouths open in silent screams of rage and desire. But every so often, they would turn to each other as if they were discussing something like a plan. Trying to open this box with them there was like trying to take a piss with someone watching. Sure, it could be done, but who the hell wants that kind of pressure? They got a little rambunctious when I started slamming the phone against the lock. I wasn’t even watching where I was hitting when the phone shattered much like the window had. I ended up holding a jagged piece of plastic with some circuitry attached to it. I had not wanted to use my rifle, but I was running out of options. It was two bullets later when I noticed the receptionist’s top drawer was slightly open and there was a key that looked like it would have easily fit into the lock.

“Yeah, Mike. Weren’t you just talking about thinking before doing?” The repercussions had stirred the natives up something fierce. Two male zombies had dropped to their knees and were now gnawing on the heavy gauge wire that bound a female zombie, who apparently was in charge of this small troop. So they now had a pecking order. Well, wasn’t that special? Still had to work at prying the box open, and of course, I’d damaged the thing enough that the key no longer worked. After a torn fingernail and two significant scratches and one tear deep enough to draw blood, I was staring at a panel of keys. For a brief second, I panicked, thinking that this just might be the receptionist’s storage panel for some cherry granola bars or something equally as disgusting. Like maybe some of Tommy’s Pop-Tarts. No one had quite experienced food until they’d had a mayonnaise-filled and cinnamon-topped pastry. That was easily one of the most disgusting things I’d ever tried. When he’d handed me a piece, it looked like some sort of vanilla-frosting filling and the cinnamon smelled pretty good. The combination of the wet tart mayo mixed with the spiciness of the cinnamon was one of the most disgusting melding of flavors I’d ever been exposed to. There are foods I hate: cherry, ham, green vegetables … those are all known. But I like mayo and I like cinnamon; however, the two together are horrendous, about as appealing as peanut butter and tuna. Two great tastes that suck ass together! It can’t be normal to digress like this. Can it?

Seven sets of keys. I almost hate to admit this, but I was debating on which ones I needed to take. Hey! Don’t fault me. I was stressed out and was feeling the time crunch to get back to my loved ones, and in the end I figured it out anyway. I took them all. I’m smart like that. I was feeling pride at my accomplishment, of figuring out my little conundrum, when I heard footfalls of someone (thing) rapidly approaching.

“Shit, I never knew the fall cometh so quick after the smugness.”

They’d worked together and had got through her bonds. My rifle strap was over my shoulder, and I had two handfuls of keys, not yet transferring them to my pockets. I let them fall to the ground. They hadn’t yet hit the floor when she launched herself. Yup, this one was no dummy. She wasn’t going to run into the desk like the vast majority of her brethren would have. She was going over it.

I ducked down as she went over. She had caught some serious air and launched right over me. Her right hand reached out and grabbed hold of my left ear. I thought she was going to rip the damn thing off. She didn’t let go until her head hit the wall. I’d been bent back at a wholly unnatural angle before losing my balance and falling over. My head was next to her abdomen. Her hands reached for me even while I struggled to right myself. Getting the gun was out of the question. It had fallen off and was mostly under her. There was a screech emanating from her that I could just make out on the peripheries of my hearing range. If I had two guesses, one would be she was calling for back up, or two, she was wondering what wine would go with her upcoming meal. Her hands were desperately seeking purchase wherever they could land while she moved her torso to get her mouth into position.

Her face was gaunt, her cheeks sunken, her teeth rotten. It was clear to see she was starving. I just didn’t want to be the one to cure her condition. Not sure why this group hadn’t chosen stasis. Perhaps the bindings had something to do with it. Didn’t really have the time at the moment to dwell on it. She landed a bite on to the bridge of my hat. She twisted her head back and forth, triumphantly thinking she was getting sustenance. It gave me the moment I needed, allowing me to get a leg into her mid-section. I pushed her along the floor and away. She was resilient if nothing else. She twisted, coming back again for the next round just as I reached behind me, getting my arm up on the desk so I could hurry myself along. I don’t know if I had the Lords of Combat on my side or they were doing an experiment. My hand touched a tool I thought was long ago forgotten in this modern era. My hand closed on a letter opener. Maybe the average Joe had no use for one, but I’d imagine someone who had to open a hundred letters a day might appreciate the knife-like apparatus.

It must have been a gift. The metal itself seemed made of silver, and the handle was a burnished walnut or equally expensive wood and was also engraved. I’m sure that the person who got it would have appreciated a bonus or a gift card more. This was akin to getting your wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas. Sure she might need one, but what the fuck, man. Do you never want to get laid again? Wow, serious departure from the subject at hand…. I brought the impromptu blade past my face and lodged it deeply into the zombie’s cheek. I could see the glint of the blade through her open mouth. It was about as appealing as it sounds. It got worse when I skewered that little hanging thing in the back of her throat, you know, the thing that makes a normal person want to gag when you touch it? Not the zombie though, she didn’t even flinch. I withdrew the blade and went to drive it deep into the side of her head, and may have succeeded if she hadn’t thrown up her arm in a defensive gesture.

A large portion in the very heavy majority wanted to, almost needed to, forget the blood that ran through me. I knew I recovered better. I knew I ran faster. I knew I was stronger. I knew all those things on a fundamental level, though I did not acknowledge them. I didn’t want to because of what it entailed. Because of all the negativity that surrounded these enhancements. Right now, this zombie had me in a precarious position. Her block of my strike had me falling over to the side with her coming down right on top, and I was in much need of help. I reached out with my mind, something I hadn’t done in a long while, something I’d never wanted to do again. This made my genital glazing earlier feel like a sponge bath in natural spring water by comparison. The mind I touched was as black as her teeth and as fathomlessly evil as one without a soul could be. I would not turn that mirror on myself, not now, not ever.

There was a hesitation in her movements as she felt my presence. I didn’t get the feeling it was one lone thought but more of a collective, like there was a vast committee in her head, all with one goal, with one purpose, but many entities trying to bring this about. And even as I formed a thought, I felt other presences in there as well … the same but different. I was seeing multiple views from the other zombies. Most were looking at the desk and desperately wanted to join in the feeding. Others, I saw them as they were chewing through their cables. She’d have help and soon.

“Stop!” I forced through our mind waves, or whatever the hell the link we talked on went over.

Again, she hesitated. The downward pressure she was forcing on me eased up just the slightest amount. I didn’t wait for her response before I began to use this to my advantage. After my earlier encounters with Re-Pete my fully remote-controlled zombie, I expected more of the same. When the resounding “No” came through our connection, I’ve got to admit I was more than a little surprised, shocked, and scared. And probably some more “s” adjectives. It hadn’t bought me much time, but enough that I could change the momentum of her downward push. We were nearly face to face, and unlike others of her kind, she wasn’t blindly chomping at the bit, hoping that something got stuck between her chompers. She was waiting for an opening, greedily eyeing my forearms. My left hand was trying to close around her neck. My right was pushing on her side. I still clutched the opener tightly. She had more coordination than most, but at times, it still seemed like she was a toddler trying her best to figure out how all the parts worked independently and in unison.

I brought my right hand up. She was defending her vulnerable temple, and then it dawned on me because, well I’m just that quick, that she knew what I was going for because we were still linked. I severed the connection. The damage had been done, for her at least. She over-committed to her temple, leaving most of her face completely exposed. I shoved that opener as deep into her eye socket as I could. I just nicked the side of her orb, cutting into it like it was a soft piece of cheese. As I pushed the blade in deeper, it forced her oozing eyeball out, the optic nerve holding it attached. It swung like a pendulum down by her ample breasts. Yes, I noticed them; being a guy can sometimes be one of the easiest things in the world. We are so hardwired for certain things as to become predictable in our behavior. I’m not saying I found her lust-worthy; it’s just that I couldn’t help checking out her breasts, which signified her ability to simultaneously attract a mate and feed her children. Although in her case, she could have kept a daycare facility amply supplied.

There was a shriek of pain from her as I pushed deeper, and then she was still. I hadn’t realized it at first, but the cry wasn’t auditory. She had passed that signal through the link we had in common and that I’d thought I had previously disconnected. Maybe strong emotions could override the off switch. When I was certain she would not stir, I let her drop to the floor. I let her have the wooden handled skewer, my gift to her. I didn’t screw around. I braced on the top of the desk, and shot the fish in the barrel. I was fine that they couldn’t move much; made my job easier. When it came to zombies, I was under the personal opinion there was no morality involved. These weren’t fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters—not black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, Catholics, Hindu—they were just fucking zombies. In some ways, they’d figured out how to create peace and unity by stripping away all of those man-made designations. Of course, it could have been that they all had a common enemy: us. Who knows, maybe when we were all gone, they would break down into their own groups, shufflers, speeders, bulkers, and brainers. That would be great if they’d start killing each other now, make my job easier.

I’d killed all but one zombie. He looked to each of his fallen comrades and then to me as I came from behind the desk and approached, my rifle still upraised and against my shoulder. His lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing all of his teeth. He pulled against his restraints, not to run away but to run at me.

“Fuck you,” I told him evenly. I don’t believe it was the words that worked him up into a frenzy but rather the sound. He was rocking back and forth, violently trying to shake loose from his bonds. I think I could have told him I’d bought him a flying pony for his birthday and he would have been just as crazed. “Sucks to be you.” I was within a foot of him. He stopped moving. He growled and leaned forward, desperately trying to rest his forehead against my barrel. I fired. His feet slipped out from under him, and he cracked down onto the ground with a skull-shattering impact.

I grabbed all the keys and headed outside of the building. There was a line of zombies at the fence. I felt like a captive lone wolf at the zoo who had finally come out from his hiding den and four classes of excited fifth graders on a field trip had just spotted me. They all moved down on the fence, bunching up so they could get a better look.

“Yeah, that’s not creepy.” It was, but not as creepy as it was about to get. I’d hopped into the nearest truck, pulling the door shut. I was more than a little concerned when I tried all the keys and none of them fit. “The next will work.” I wasn’t totally confident, but what the hell was I going to say to myself? “You can always hitchhike.” When I stepped out of the truck, I took note that some of the zombies weren’t completely fixated on me but rather looking to the building, actually up at the building.

“What’s that all about?” I came a little closer to where the zombies were pressed against the fence. I had hopes they would press hard enough to make zombie play-dough push through the diamond shaped wedges. It would have been gross, no doubt, but highly satisfying. I tilted my head up. I was looking at dozens of zombies looking down at me. They were trapped on the second and third floors. Had to have been at least fifty of them. “Don’t you dare!” I shouted at my nuts. They wanted to migrate back up into my stomach, where they could safely hide. My mouth went dry as I looked up. It took me a moment to realize that some of the zombies up there were beginning to leave. I wanted to believe that they were getting bored and were going back to their desks to go play a rousing game of solitaire or something, but that wasn’t it. They were looking for a way down, and if they had any brainers in their pack, odds were they’d figure it out.

“Next truck.” I rushed off. The third key slid in effortlessly. There was a chime and a slow steady whir then the triumphant cough of an engine firing. “Thank you,” I said, momentarily letting my head rest against the steering wheel. I wanted to thank God, but I was still holding a grudge for all the things that had befallen not only me but everyone. Of course, I knew it was the hubris of man that had done all of this, but as our overseer, He should have maybe been a little more diligent, perhaps giving a healthy case of leprosy to the originator of the virus. Then I realized that might not have been such a great idea since my lineage was tied to it. “Umm, we good?” I asked looking up. I’d not been hit with an errant meteorite, figured that was as clear a message as any.

“Gonna have to get out and open the gate.” I laughed at myself as I pressed down on the gas. I really wanted to plow into the part where all the zombies were congregating, but I tempted fate every day that I awoke. Maybe right now was not the time to keep pushing that envelope. Instead of folding over, the gate actually swung outwards. I was relishing in the small victory when it scared the shit out of me by swinging back and smacking hard into the side of the truck. Didn’t do much except scratch the paint and give me a coronary; other than that, we were good. I beeped the horn as one final “fuck you” and took off back to town. For as long, arduous, and dangerous the trip to get the truck had been, I was literally back to the post office in under ten minutes.

Unfortunately, the zombies had not departed during my absence, although I think I would have been severely pissed off since this would have made necessitating getting the whole truck thing a moot point. Three heads popped up on the roof as I rolled in. I waved up. They waved back. Pretty sure we were all feeling high levels of relief at this moment. Now came the tricky part. Just because I had a means of escape did not mean the zombies were going to allow me to use it unhindered. I slowed way down, put the truck into low, and powered forward. The zombies that were coming to meet me were greeted with a few tons of steel. The first lucky few were pushed over, and I ran over them, leaving them relatively unscathed. That was, of course, the ones that didn’t end up under the wheels; they were crushed like giant cockroaches. The resultant spray out of organic material was hideous, to say the least, as it splashed against curbs and buildings, some of it going as far as twenty feet to red wash walls.

Then as more zombies began to strike the front, more and more flowed around the sides, some reaching out and grabbing hold. The engine, although not quite taxed yet, was beginning to feel the accumulated effects of all the zombies as the RPMs nudged up. Although I was going no faster, I’d actually lost a mile per hour or so. Two zombies were on the running board next to me, one holding on to the mirror, the other the door handle. They weren’t beating on the glass, which would have been better than the stare they were giving me while they pondered their next moves.

“Think all you want, assholes. I’ve got a little surprise for you.” I hopped the curb with the truck, shook a couple of the other bastards off like a dog does fleas. Not my new buddies though; they were stuck like barnacles. The mirror was the first thing to go as I scraped up against the building. The zombies were leaving a trail of shredded clothing and then finally skin and blood as I rubbed against the coarse brick building. Still, they held on.

“You’re grossing me the hell out,” I told them as they shook from the contact and the ass sanding they were receiving. The one holding the door handle was finally scrubbed away like a bad toilet stain. He rolled down the whole length of the truck before dropping off the end. My mirror guy was much more stubborn. I realized I was going to completely pass the building by. I put the truck in reverse. I finally loosened the stubborn bastard. As he rolled along the hood, I could hear the sound of heavy bones grinding together while he was wheeled away. For good measure, once he’d fallen to the ground, I went back into drive and ran over him. I stopped the truck—you can believe this or not, but for some fucking reason, it was at this very moment I decided to check the fuel gauge. Yeah, I already know that’s pretty irresponsible of me. You don’t need to remind me. Apparently, my appeasement to God had worked because I was sitting comfortably at three quarters full.

I again thanked Him. You could say that He had nothing to do with it, that a person had filled this up. Sure, I can agree with that. I can also agree that I could have picked out another truck that was running on fumes. Listen, I’m not a wise person, a diviner or sage or anything. I do know there are plenty of things in this world I have no clue as to how they operate or why. But when you can use all the help that you can, why close any prospective doors just because you don’t think there’s something on the other side? If a great brown-green crocodile alien warrior arose and wanted to give me help right now, you can bet your ass I’d take it. Sure, I’d be scared as hell of it, but one thing at a time. I’d deal with the walking luggage when the time came.

I was as close to the building as I could be and still allow myself room to get out of the truck using the window. Couldn’t be the door. If I could fit, so could the zombies. And I could not have them in between the truck and the wall. That needed to be a zombie-free zone for our escape. The window sloped away from the wall, and this was the only reason I could wriggle out. Felt like a newborn seeking release from the womb. It was a tight fit as I pulled myself free. I’d no sooner got on the roof of the truck than a couple of zombies got on the hood.

“This is just so much fucking fun!” I booted the first one that tried to run up the windshield. Must have been a hell of a kick because I saw at least three teeth go to the right as his head spun to the left. His head took the rest of him spiraling off and into the crowd much like a stage diving rock group lead singer. Although instead of crowd surfing, he kind of just hung there in the air. I had to twist too far to get an effective kick on the next zombie. A glancing blow on the shoulder paused his progress. I was done playing king of the hill, and I ran for the lift. The only way to be safe was to get out of their range. When I hopped in the bucket, this was another of those moments where I maybe should have taken a moment in a less hostile environment to familiarize myself with the controls, and maybe even more importantly, make sure the damn truck wasn’t in service for the hydraulics.

“Okay God, I know I’m kind of overusing the ‘I’m Your child and all’ card, but fuck, just this one last time, I mean, for this minute anyway. I can’t speak for the next minute. Could You just maybe let this thing work?” I didn’t bother with the safety door as I jumped into the small booth. I hadn’t been expecting it to move the way it did. Gotta tell you it didn’t leave me feeling comfortable. There were three controls, a green push button labeled “Power,” a small joystick for moving the arm around, and under a clear plastic cover, a red button labeled “Emergency.” Not sure exactly what that did, but if depressing it made some machine guns or flame throwers appear, that would really help with this emergency. I was pretty sure that was not what would happen, but in that very moment, you have no idea how much I wanted to give it a go.

The green button backlit when I pressed it. I took that as a good sign. Then I nearly tossed myself out of the bucket when I jerked the arm to the right. “Holy shit!” I shouted when I realized that less was definitely more. The controls had a feather touch. Damn near cracked my neck from the whiplash. The only decent thing that came out of it was that I sent three zombies airborne off the truck, and at least two of them had smashed their heads hard enough they were going to be out of the fight. I’d not yet learned the finesse of the stick. I swung back and missed crashing into the post office by inches.

“Dad, up! You want to come up!” Travis urged.

I mumbled a few choice swears under my breath, having still not learned anything. What can I say? The pressure was making me freak out a bit. I pushed the stick forward. I heard hydraulics whining and the truck engine taxing itself, but I was not moving. Somehow, I figured pushing it harder would make something happen. Still nothing.

“The stick toward you, Uncle!” Jesse yelled.

I mumbled more expletives. I yanked the stick back. I was nearly propelled out like I was wearing boots made entirely of Mentos in a container full of diet coke. My knees were up above the lip before the arm caught up. I landed with a grunt. I eased up just as I got to the height of the kids.

“Someone call for a lift?” I asked, doing my best to not make my ascent look like the cluster fuck that it was.

“I’m not getting in that thing.” Meredith said, backing away. Couldn’t really blame her; the operator was not very good.

“I’m getting better,” I told her.

“When?” She backed up another step, like I was going to reach out and force her in.

“You can’t stay up here.”

“Dad.” Travis pointed down toward the truck. It was then that I noticed the arm I was riding was swaying. At first, like I was in a small breeze, and then more like I was at ground zero for a decent-sized quake. Zombies were swarming on the truck.

“Well, that certainly makes things more interesting.” My heart felt like it was fighting to get outside of my chest. It was beating against my rib cage so violently. “Come on, we’re going to have to fight our way out of this, and the sooner the better.” The fish weren’t biting at all. The roof was safe. Sure, it was a slow death, but that was preferable to the insta-death below. “Travis.”

“Yeah, Dad?” He knew what I was saying. He just wanted no part of it. He wasn’t backing up like Meredith, but the thought was crossing his mind.

“Tell me there’s a cheeseburger in the truck,” Jesse said.

“Huh?”

“The only way I’m coming down is if you tell me there’s food and preferably a cheeseburger in the truck.”

I’m not the brightest bulb on the string, and sometimes, I even flicker like I’m gonna go out, but I figured this one out quick enough. “Sure, I stopped at McDonalds before I came here. There’s a bag of quarter pounders and like nine orders of large fries.”

“The quarter pounders have cheese?”

“Sure.” I said as convincingly as I could, now that the bastard had made me hungry. In fact, the more I dwelled on it, the more I wanted it to be true. I was half-tempted to go down without them and eat in peace before they found my stash. Jesse hesitated before moving closer. I helped him get into the bucket. Not to be outdone, Travis got in next. It was crowded, but we’d make room for one more.

“I can’t leave you up here, Mer,” I pleaded.

“Sure you could. I’ll keep a watch out for the flying zombies. They’re next, you know.”

“Take it back,” I told her. With the way they were evolving, I wouldn’t doubt it as an eventuality.

I think she realized how serious I was. “Uncle, they’re not going to sprout wings; that’s crazy.”

“Yeah, well, so is living dead roaming the earth in giant hordes, eating everything that gets in their way.”

“Oh …well when you say it like that. I take it back; there will be no flying zombies.”

“Damn right. Now get your ass in here or I’m coming on that roof and tossing you head first into the bucket.”

I think she realized I was serious about that as well because she did it without any more qualms. I was pressed tight up against the front of the bucket. Good thing we were stuck in there like a cork too, because once again I had yet to find the feel of the controls, we dropped a good ten feet in a half second. My stomach hovered above my head for a bit before settling back down.

“You suck at this, Uncle.” Meredith said what the rest of the group was feeling. I turned my head to give her a little crap, but the green tinge in her face signified that I already had.

“All right, I’m going to go down another five feet then we’re going to blow some holes in these zombies. Jesse you’re closest; you go straight for the window and in, then Meredith, Travis and I’ll follow. Understood?”

I got nods from all of them. I think even some of the zombies got in on the plan, because they nodded as well. Pretty sure they were just waiting in extreme anticipation, though. I was so paranoid about dropping us right into the waiting arms of the zombies, I wasn’t even applying enough pressure to get us moving. The kids were ready to fight; apparently, I wasn’t.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, I’m working on it.” In contrast to my earlier movements, right now a snail could have outpaced us. I hoped I never got enough practice with this contraption to get the gist. When we were close enough, I gave the word. Zombie hands were halfway up the exterior of our ride, pushing against it from all angles. If we weren’t so close to our targets, it would have been more difficult to hit them. As it was, we were carving slices through them. Bodies fell away from the truck. At first, the destroyed zombies were resting atop the heads of the others that had not yet figured out how to climb aboard or could not find a place to perch. We already looked like one of those crazy over-crowded train cars from India. You’ve seen the photos, people camped out on top or hanging from windows. Can you even imagine having a mild case of claustrophobia and being the first poor son-of-a-bitch that got in that car in the morning? The press of that many bodies would be debilitating to one with a condition. There is not a call center job good enough that I would make that trek every day. Yeah let that one sink in for a sec. There you go, you got it! I dropped the bucket a little lower once we’d made some headway; that was as literal as it was figurative.

“I think I can make it!” Jesse said excitedly.

I wasn’t too keen on “think.” But like a typical teenager he didn’t wait for my response before jumping out. Hands reached and fell short as he quickly moved for the window. I covered his progress. I blew the side of the head off of a boy that looked like he could be delivering newspapers in 1850’s London, not sure who wore knickerbockers in this day and age but I didn’t stop to think about it for very long. Another zombie was trying to come up onto the hood and cut off Jesse’s egress. Travis moved quickly to shoot a zombie coming from Jesse’s vacated spot, and his hip hit mine, which in turn knocked me into the controller. We swung a foot or so to the side. I blasted a hole in the hood of the truck. I prayed to the truck gods that I had not damaged anything important.

“Sorry,” Travis said. I don’t feel he had the appropriate inflection to express the apology with enough genuine concern. It was bad enough I’d hit the hood; it would have been much worse if I’d hit my nephew. The truck rumbled then sputtered. I was holding my breath, and then it quieted down and purred normally. So far, everything was still working.

“Meredith, you’re up.” She moved without saying a word. That might have been a first. The truck was nearly devoid of the zombies. Blood and gore caked everything. What I had not taken note of until this very moment was that there was now a small empty perimeter around the truck, I mean, except for the broken and nearly decapitated bodies of dead zombies that is.

“What the hell?” I asked the question as I fired. “Go Travis!”

“Meredith isn’t in yet,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

“We have a window here, let’s not lose it. Go! I’m right behind you!”

Much like Meredith, he went without another word. I was thankful for that. Whatever the zombies were doing, I didn’t know how long it was going to last.

“Meredith’s in, Dad!” Travis yelled from the window. I spared a quick glance. All eyes were on me, from the cab of the truck and the zombies around. There was this expectant air, like we were all waiting for what would happen next. I took three quick un-aimed shots, using them as a deterrent and also to maybe bolster my courage. I placed my hand on the lip of the bucket and started my jump over. That seemed to be exactly what the zombies were waiting for. As one giant, disgusting organism, they moved. My trailing foot caught the lip of the bucket as the sheer weight of zombies caused the truck to move aggressively. My rifle went flying from my bracing hand while I tried to catch myself from falling completely on my face. I smashed my knee across one of the hydraulic pistons. This sent me tumbling, luckily toward the post office, where the wall kept me from heading off the side. My knee was battered, as was the side of my face where it collided with the brick. Zombies were making a mad dash for dinner. The rifle was a lost cause; it rested neatly on the hood before a zombie stepped on it and sent it to the ground. I wasn’t going to make it. Not a chance in hell.

“Travis drive! Just drive!”

There was a slight delay while he moved into position, and then the truck started rolling forward. The grind of metal on brick was ear splitting. I scrambled back up on my feet and hurried into the bucket. It was my only chance. At least a dozen zombies were on the truck with me, and more would be joining them. Travis turned the wheel enough to get us off the curb, and we lost a couple hangers-on, but they were quickly replaced. I hoped there wasn’t a safety device on the boom arm that prevented it from moving while the truck was in gear, or I was basically a human taco in my own plastic shell. For good or bad, the bucket moved up a little with a jerk. At least five zombies had grabbed hold of the lip of it and tried to keep it in place. I went a little higher. The arm groaned in protest from the multiple forces being applied to it while Travis laid bare just how inexperienced he was behind the wheel.

When the zombies came, he had been in the midst of learning how to drive with his learner’s permit. Once the shit hit the fan, we’d seen no reason to continue teaching him. I was just now realizing how large of an error on my part that was. A vodka-logged Russian on a three-day binge could have driven straighter. I didn’t know if he was doing the wet dog routine and trying to shake the zombies off or this was really how he drove. I remember fearing for my life a few times while we were out learning, but nothing quite this bad.

“Middle of the road! Drive down the damn middle of the road!” I had no way of knowing it, but at the time, the windshield was coated in a thick layer of viscera, making it nearly impossible to see anything, and right now sticking your head out the window was not advised, as the animals in the park were hostile. He jumped another curb, came back down, and clipped the fender of a Honda. Something in the bucket linkage was not a fan of all the stress it was receiving and broke free, I now spun like the damn teacup ride at the carnival. You know the one. You tell your wife you’ll take the kids on it because it looks like the most innocent thing that the fair has to offer. Then while you’re evilly laughing on the inside, you tell the rug rats to hold on tight while you proceed to crank that inner wheel for all its worth, turning the kiddie ride into a spinning torture chamber of doom with centrifugal forces threatening to pull your eyeballs into your skull.

The funny part is that the kids are scared shitless for the first few seconds, and then they’re laughing their asses off, begging for more. Then I would get off the ride, my stomach would be junk for the next twenty-four hours, and they’d be begging to go back on while eating fried dough, French fries, corn dogs, and cotton candy. By the time I would get home, I’d be lucky if I could hold down some Alka-Seltzer. Every fucking year I would do it, thinking that this year it would be different. Pretty sure that’s the definition of insanity; good thing I barely know how to read. Got to the point where my wife would bring a couple of tabs with us so I could take them as soon as I got off the ride. Want to know what’s even funnier? Even when the kids were older and too cool to go with dad to the carnival, I would still get on that fucking ride, even though I wasn’t trying to scare a kid anymore. I’d try to spin that damn thing off its axis. Same results, too.

That’s what I had going on here as well, although I don’t remember ever having to worry about smashing into telephone poles. The truck swerved hard to the left, the bucket whipped that way, just clipping the pole with a fingernail’s width of the bucket. The resultant crack sounded thunderous, like the heavens were getting ready to open up. The only thing I could think to do was raise up higher so there would be less arm to swing back and forth. There were a couple of things wrong with this. I was changing the center balance point of the truck, making it much easier for it to flip, and there was also a good chance I was going to clothesline myself on a phone line crossing the road. The way I was manipulating that control, I looked like a kid desperately trying to get a prize on those stupid claw games. Luckily, we were in the center of town, so there were no lines to be concerned with, but that good fortune was only going to last another couple of hundred yards, and we would not have lost our pursuers by then. At least, the twisting was acting like a windshield wiper, pushing the zombies off like the unwelcome bugs they were, and much like an old windshield wiper, it was leaving a heavy, sticky residue that would never come off without a sandblaster. The problem was I was doing enough revolutions to throw my equilibrium into the shitter along with achieving a hellacious gut ache.

I knew I was riding lady luck hard, bouncing up and down on her shoulders while I pulled her hair back and asked her, “Who’s my bitch!?” She was only going to take so much before tossing me off. The front of the truck was clear enough that Travis and Jesse were able to stick their heads out. Travis’s driving improved, but it still wasn’t anything that was going to get him his license anytime soon. It was already too late as far as the arm was concerned, that whole, “a body in motion will stay in motion,” and that was most certainly true for that bucket I was riding. It was turning like a ballerina in the midst of a pirouette. At least I wasn’t quite at a figure skater and a front-toe spin speed, not yet anyway. The telephone line was fast approaching. I dropped the bucket as fast as the mechanism would allow. I spun far out to the right, and I had to hold on to the bucket to keep from being pitched out by the forces. Jesse’s eyes got huge as I swept over his head, the front of the truck next, then I came back around to sweep over Travis, who I don’t even think saw me. We were down to three zombies on the truck and a horde behind. I needed off of this contraption before I ended up splattered across any number of immoveable objects.

I needed to time my jump out just right, so let’s get all the facts straight here: I needed to time my jump with the speed of the moving bucket, the speed of the truck moving forward, the inertia of drag times, the coefficient of time and space displacement calculated by the fractals … yeah I was airborne by now. I jumped out of the side that was already damaged, hoping this time I wouldn’t catch my foot. So far, so good; I made it out scot-free. Now, I just had to hope my momentum didn’t send me off the truck and onto the pavement, where the trailing zombies would make short work of me. At some point during my flight, I heard the fracturing crash of my home away from home coming to a violent end. The problem of such a destructive hit was that it had the effect of sending the arm back toward me a lot sooner than I’d anticipated. Oh, who am I kidding? I had no idea how any of this shit was going to work. I had jumped and hoped for the best. I was so low on that truck body I could have been considered a second coat of paint. I was grabbing anything that remotely resembled a handhold to slow me down. When I finally came to a stop, I dared not raise my head.

It was like I was stuck under the blades of a helicopter as that arm continuously whipped by overhead. I don’t know what Travis ran into this time, but whatever it was, it twisted the entire aperture to the point where the bucket slammed into the side of the truck with enough force to lift us onto two wheels. I was now looking down at the roadway as I held on to a hydraulic hose for all I was worth. A platoon of angels must have sat down on the far side, because somehow the truck slammed back down onto all our wheels. My jaw bounced off the truck body, and I’m pretty sure I chipped a tooth. For the briefest of seconds, I wondered if there were any dentists still around. The arm was imbedded in the side of the truck—well, more like the truck body had melded around it. I pushed away from the edge and got onto my hands and knees. One determined zombie still shared the exterior with me. He wasn’t moving forward; much like me, he was holding on for the ride. The trailers were losing ground as Travis was now somewhat driving a straight course.

“Dad, you all right?” he shouted back.

“Fine! One zombie to your six!”

“Should I stop?”

“Not yet! In a couple of miles!”

The ride was somewhat enjoyable after the previous few minutes. I kept an eye on the zombie, as he did me. Neither of us moved, which was fine with me. I was still trying to get my adrenaline levels down to an acceptable level. If a cop gave me a sobriety test right now, I would look like a meth addict in the midst of a giant tweaking. That always goes over well with the cops. The truck started to slow. I took a quick glance behind me. I was happy to see that we were out of sight of our pursuers. I raised up at the same time as the zombie. I waited until we had almost stopped before I hopped off the truck. It was nice to have regular old ground under my feet. I staggered a couple of steps. Apparently, my inner ear had not yet completely stopped its spin cycle. The zombie got down as well, in a very athletic predatory jump if I had to admit it. Back when this started, it would have just walked off the edge of the truck, fallen into a heap of deadness on the roadway, then pushed himself up to a standing position before once again coming at me. Not this one though. I had a start as a rifle report rang out. The front of his head bulged out as the bullet struggled to get out of its encasing. The zombie fell forward.

“Thank you.” I told Travis.

“Where’s your gun?” he asked me.

“Get back in the truck.”

“You told me that my rifle is the most important fighting tool besides myself and that I should never leave it behind. But yet here you are, Dad, without your rifle.”

“You’re really going to give me shit after that bumper car excuse you call driving? Get in the damn truck before the zombies catch up.” I smiled. It was easy to smile when you’d flipped Death off and were still standing. Of course, he’d be back, but for now, it was Mike four hundred and seventy-two to Death’s zero. The sucky part about that was Death only needed one to win.

“Where to, Uncle?” Meredith asked. “Oh my God! Is that you?” she cried as I got into the truck. “You … you smell like maybe bad pickles or something. I thought, like, maybe it was something in the bucket, so I didn’t want to say anything. It’s horrible … I thought Henry was the worst thing I’d ever smelled. You beat him.” She yanked her hoodie above her nose and drove her face deeper still under the makeshift nose cover.

“Okay, I get it. I stink.”

“Understatement, Dad.”

“Listen, you guys have no idea what I’ve been through!”

“Yeah, well, just think what we’re going through right now.” Meredith’s voice was muffled. “I think maybe you should tell us. You owe us at least that much. I think I’m going to vomit.”

I couldn’t help but notice her eyes were watering from my stench.

“It’s not really that bad.”

“Uncle, just because you’ve burned a hole in your nose doesn’t mean the rest of us have.” Jesse added.

Travis was turning different reddish shades as he tried to hold his breath. Meredith was threatening to shoot out the windshield to get more air in.

By the time I’d recounted most of my tale, they’d made some sort of peace with my funk, or more likely, I’d caused some serious permanent damage to their olfactory senses. When I was done, I circled back around to Meredith’s original question, because it was a hell of one. Most of my family was stuck in a bunker under the post office. They were safe, though, and that was something. We needed to regroup. I needed a weapon, and we could definitely use more ammo. Then my thought was to go to Ron’s and assess that situation. If we could help, we would. Problem was the easiest store of guns was at Ron’s. Maine was a gun-friendly state, but we’d proved over and over again that going into someone’s home to look was not a great idea.

“We need a bigger truck.” I headed for a rock quarry a couple of towns over. It wasn’t quite the Tyrex’ that Eliza had used against us, but I hoped the zombies would have a hard time getting on to it. The trip ended up being half a bust. There were two trucks there. One had its engine out and the other was dead, and dead like not moving, not undead or living dead, meaning it would move. There is a huge gun store in Holden called Maine Military. We stopped. Had to. It’s a requirement of all rednecks to stop. It’s in the Redneck Nature Guide right after the discussion about beer-can chicken. They had been cleaned out like the store had closed and the inventory sold off at auction. Someone had even taken the fake prop guns hanging on the far wall. I felt bad for the idiots that thought those were going to do anything to the savage lines of enemies coming their way. Well, I guess you could always go pew, pew, pew really fast in mimicry of a machinegun.

I was saddened by so much nothingness. The people who came through here had been thorough. I would love to see their hideout. I could guarantee they were doing all right. They had enough ammunition that they could hand it down from generation to generation. I was at a loss as to what to do. We were a mile down from the gun store, heading to Ron’s, when Travis pointed to another store. It was a fireworks place.

“This is no time for bottle rockets,” I told him right before I locked up the brakes, having all the kids brace against the dashboard in an effort to keep from ruining their expensive dental work. All of their responsible parents would have been pissed at me if I had busted anything.

“And you say I drive bad? Plus, you can’t get bottle rockets in Maine.”

“What?” That sounded like blasphemy. One of my favorite Chinese-made products of all time, and it was banned?

“Something about unknown flight path or something.”

“Well, that’s the damn point of them.” I drove backward up the road so I could turn into the parking lot. Unlike the cleaned-out gun store, this place looked like it had just been freshly stocked; if not for the heavy coating of dust I would have assumed it was getting ready to open for business. Any other fucking day of my life this would have been like letting a monkey loose in a chocolate covered banana factory. Right now, all I could see were large noise makers. I mean they had rockets, but the odds that these would hurt mass amounts of zombies was minimal. I wished I had Justin around; the kid had the uncanny ability to take some of the most harmless of fireworks and turn them into small bombs. Then I was walloped with that “a-ha” moment. I ran over to the sparklers.

“Which ones, Trav?”

“Which ones, what?” he asked. He was looking at the mortars.

“Remember a couple of years back. July Fourth. Justin had us come outside to check something out. Blew a trashcan to shreds, broke three of our neighbor’s windows, and apparently, made Mrs. Durphy’s dog so scared he shit all over her expensive couch.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Didn’t you have to go to court?”

“No, I paid for the windows and told Mrs. Durphy if her dog hadn’t been on the couch to begin with he wouldn’t have shit up there. She only threatened me with court. She did move out soon after. I always meant to thank Justin for that. She was a pain in the ass.”

“Because she didn’t want her windows smashed or her dog to suffer near coronaries?” Meredith asked.

“Was anyone talking to you?”

She raised her hands in an apologetic manner.

“It was sparklers.” Travis was thinking. “Colored sparklers. I remember him showing me. He grabbed a handful of them and wrapped them in an entire roll of electrical tape.”

They had a bunch on display and even more in the back. The beauty of having an energy truck was the overabundance of electrical tape they had onboard. We made over twenty handmade bombs before I decided we should check out just how effective a weapon we had. We used one of the sparklers itself as a fuse. I lit the sparkler, and like a seven-year-old, I got transfixed by the shower of blue sparks.

“Dad, throw it!” Travis backed up.

Thing had to be a pound by the time it was all wrapped up. I tossed it a decent distance away and even backed up a few steps. We all waited. I could still see sparks shooting on the ground, then nothing. I was not liking our chances of dispersing a zombie horde with pretty colors. I started walking forward. I about halved the distance when I was rocked by an explosion. A peppering of small rocks and clods of dirt struck me, but that was nothing compared to the concussion that felt like it was shifting my internal organs around.

“Fuck me!” I laughed, brushing myself off.

“You’re bleeding, Uncle,” Meredith said as she ran up next to me.

I had an inch long splinter, which looked like a piece of chopstick, wedged in my forearm. I didn’t care. If the divot in the ground was any indication of the damage we could do, then I was all in. Actually, I did kind of care about the chopstick, if that was indeed what it was. Who knew whose mouth that thing had been in? I pulled it out. It came loose with a sickly wet smacking sound. When I felt like my organs had slid back into place, I caught up with the kids, who were looking at the eight-inch-deep carve out in the ground.

“I think that will work,” I said while we all looked down. “This time though, we’re going to wrap some shrapnel up inside as well.” Again, we had more than we needed in the truck: screws, staples, nails small hand tools … we didn’t care as we bundled everything up. By the time it was all said and done, we had nearly a hundred of them.

“Let’s go get the Talbot compound back!” I was happy. It was the first modicum of hope I’d had in a while, and I was going to enjoy it. The truck sounded like rocks going through a cement mixer by the time we pulled up to Ron’s. That we had everyone’s attention was without a doubt. We’d known this was a one-way trip with the truck, so I’d made what sounded like a decent plan on the go. It had more holes than Trip’s underwear and smelled as bad upon closer examination. I had let the kids out before I drove closer. Their job now was to creep as close as they could to the horde and climb a tree. I had to hope that zombies hadn’t thought to post sentries quite yet. That was a comforting thought as I rolled on. I lit a makeshift fuse, fixed the bungee cord on the steering wheel to keep it straight, and popped a heavy rock on the accelerator to get it closer, then I bailed.

“No, no, no.” I’d gone face first into a poison ivy plant. That was not the greatest way to start a mission off. The truck plowed into and through quite a few rows of zombies before it succumbed to the terrain and the sheer press of dead people around and under it. Zombies swarmed around and even in it looking for a meal. I’d gotten off the long driveway and into the woods. I got to the very outer edges of the zombies before finding a decent-sized tree to climb, and one that actually afforded some cover when the debris started to fly. I was not more than ten feet off the ground when the tree vibrated. A wash of heat and bits of metal blew past me. Then came the wonderful smell of burning corpses. I was downwind, fantastic. I got up higher, hoping to out climb the stench. It sort of worked. I was damn near thirty feet up. I scanned the tree line to my left. Travis was waving his arm back and forth. I acknowledged him then raised my shoulders in a questioning shrug. He pointed to where Jesse and Meredith were. I could barely make them out through the cover of branches, but that they were safe, that was all I needed to know.

I finally got a decent look at the truck, or at least what was left. The heft of the body was fine, but the cab had been shredded, peeled back, in fact—looked like a giant pissed-off ape had stripped it back thinking a banana was inside. Dozens of zombies laid around the wreckage in various forms of body-frayed disarrayed states. Those that weren’t outright dead were missing limbs or had large swaths of muscle torn from their bodies, making any form of decent locomotion out of the question. Arms hung at odd angles, legs were bent awkwardly, torsos had gaping holes; it was all the carnage one would expect from an IED, or improvised explosive device. A couple of zombies were even ablaze, which worked in our favor as they sought to share their body heat with others.

“Who’s out there?” Ron called from the deck once the truck simmered down from blazing inferno to camp fire. Meredith called out.

“It’s me, Daddy!” she said triumphantly.

“Mer?” he yelled out. I caught the hitch in his throat. I’m not going to lie; I teared up a bit as well. Who wouldn’t? His daughter, who he had no idea how she was doing, suddenly shows up and is right as rain. “Who’s with you, honey?”

Zombies were beginning to meander over to the sound of her voice, looking around for the source. “Jesse, Travis, and Uncle Mike!” I watched a flare of flame come up from her spot then drop down close to the base of the tree, closer than I would have liked it. I didn’t think the bomb had enough power to knock the tree down, but that wasn’t a risk one took. If the ride to the ground didn’t kill you, then the zombies would take up the slack. I could see her leaning over to watch the explosion.

“Meredith, hide!” I yelled, using as much force as I could. She peered at me for the briefest of seconds, and then I think it all kind of dawned on her. It was a damn shame that she had a fair amount of Talbot running through her as well. The explosion was glorious. There were vivid reds, deep blues, dark greens, and purply purples. Ran out of adjectives. It ripped the entire layer of bark off the bottom three feet of tree. Its days were indeed numbered. Although, odds were it wasn’t going to fall today. Disease, rot, and ruin would be its downfall. The nearest zombies were propelled in the air along with various body parts. If it were people, I would have been sickened. That it was zombies only made it that much better. I conveniently forgot the simple fact that they once were human.

I was easily over fifty yards away from her, and still, I found a two-inch nail embedded in the tree not more than a couple of inches from my head. “Damn.” I used force and pulled a good half inch of it from the tree.

“Talbot where you at?” It was BT.

I made sure I had my voice under control. If it hitched while I replied, he would rib me mercilessly. It wasn’t just that he was my best friend. It was now I felt like I could share the burden I’d been shouldering the last three days alone. Of course, the kids had been holding their own. It was just, at the end of the day, their safety was my responsibility. That was tough enough, but that two of them were my sibling’s kids made it that much more difficult.

“Over here, man,” I said reaching as deep down as I could for my baritone.

“Good to see you. About time, man. Where the hell you been?”

“What are you, my mother?”

“I missed that.” I think he was talking to Gary.

“Me too, man.” I said softly. “We’ve come to rid you of your infestation!”

“Mike, I’m not thrilled you gave my daughter explosives.”

“Relax, brother. They’re fucking sparklers. Fire in the hole!” I yelled before lighting one and ducking behind the trunk. Leaves rained down on me as my tree shook. It was twenty maybe twenty-five explosions later I called a cease-fire. I wasn’t sure anybody would hear me, as I could barely hear myself, and I was the one doing the talking. My ears were ringing, and my eyes were bouncing. The zombies had taken hellacious damage, but even more importantly, they’d yielded ground. In all likelihood, we’d only killed ten percent or so of the horde, but they’d had enough, at least for this round. At some point, gunfire had erupted on Ron’s deck. They were making the tactical withdrawal of the zombies a full-on retreat. I climbed down off the tree to see if it was any type of ruse on their part. I made sure to keep an eye out on the too-maimed-to-walk zombies that could still inflict a deadly wound. So far, so good.

I went over to each tree and waited for the kids to come down, urging them to run for the house while I watched their backs. It was while I waited for Jesse to get back safely when I thought about how I didn’t have a weapon—well a rifle, anyway. I still had plenty of bombs, not great for in-close combat though. Meredith was the last down, and I ran with her back to the house. BT wrapped me up in a huge bear hug when I got to the top of the deck. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was covered in poison ivy oil. It wasn’t a long hug anyway, once he got a big strong dose of me.

“You fucking reek, man! But it’s still awesome to see you!” I noticed he was backing away before coming forward to grab me.

“Thanks, man,” I told him as he placed me down. He had a big grin on his face. “Before you go asking, everyone else is all right. They’re in the bunker.” I consciously moved closer to him, just to screw with him.

“Want a sandwich?” Trip had come outside in nothing more than his underwear and mismatched socks. He held up what looked like three pieces of bread. “I always get hungry after sex, man. Me and the missus were going at it so hard the earth moved. A few times!” He smiled then proceeded to scratch his nether regions before once again thrusting the sandwich under my nose. “Whoa, man. I just realized I should have put pickles on this thing,” he said as he sampled the air and headed back into the house.

“Your wife isn’t even here!” BT called him out.

“Whoa, man. Then I guess I rocked my own world.” He held up his right hand and looked at it with an awed expression.

BT walked away, disgusted. Muttering something about crazy whiteys. I too walked away when he grabbed his sandwich again and started eating. Unfortunately, Trip decided to follow me. Finally, I stopped and just started talking, trying to distract myself from him. I told everyone what was going on at the post office and about the new development with the zombies, although they’d witnessed some of that first hand. They were still out there, but they’d pulled back completely out of arm throwing range. We went into the house. I needed to get cleaned off and hydrated, and a little food wouldn’t hurt, either. Especially considering that Trip’s bread sandwich was starting to sound better and better. When I was done, Ron sat down at the table next to me.

“Now what?” he asked. “And yes, you still smell a little like vinegar—well a lot like vinegar, actually.”

“Must have soaked in. At least I’ll preserve well. As for the post office, I guess we mount a rescue. Maybe it was a mistake to separate,” I told him.

“You think?”

“Hey Ron, I know you’re worried, but I didn’t come to that decision on my own. If you remember correctly, I wanted to take my family who I mistakenly thought was the source of this newest threat as far away from here as possible, and it was you that maintained, fervently, I might add, that we had to stay.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve just been so worried.”

He felt even worse after I told him what the kids and I had been through the last couple of days. He kept refilling my water and offering to make something for me to eat.

Gary came into the room decked out in all the football gear he must have been able to round up in the tri-county region. A Star Wars storm trooper would have looked underdressed next to him.

“Going somewhere?” I asked him.

“Aren’t we going to get everyone else?”

“You’re going like that?” BT had finally got some distance between himself and Trip. For some reason, Trip followed him around incessantly, and BT couldn’t stand it. He would peek around corners in the house making sure Trip wasn’t in the room before he would enter. More times than not, though, the perpetual stoner would be behind him, wondering what BT was looking at. You could oftentimes find him peering underneath the bigger man’s shoulder and arm.

“The question you should be asking is, ‘Why aren’t you going like this?’” Gary replied.

“I could round up five hundred brothers, and I guarantee I would not find as many crazy motherfuckers as are in the house.”

“That’s true; the average rate of insanity is higher among whites than non-whites.” Trip had ducked under BT’s outstretched arm and walked into the room. “Although, if you can believe it, Genogerians actually have the highest rate of all at a staggering two-point-three percent within their general population. Wait … is that this world?”

“Did he just say old people are insane?” Gary asked.

I shrugged. Sometimes you could only take a stab at what Trip was talking about.

“I’m not sure if I should agree with him or not.” BT looked confused.

“I wouldn’t. He’ll just change his mind about what he said later.” I figured this for sage advice.

Ron wanted everyone back on track. “We need to figure out how to get them back.”

“Through the use of overwhelming force,” Gary said.

“Nice.” I could get onboard with that plan.

“Not very helpful,” Ron chided him. Gary looked slightly deflated.

“He’s actually on to something. You’ve seen it yourself; these new zombies aren’t big on taking casualties. They are apparently becoming self-aware. Wow, I did not realize just how scary that sounded until I said it. Fuck. Anyway, umm … where was I? Yeah if they’re getting routed, they will withdraw. We just need to show them the door so to speak.”

“Do we leave the house?”

“We can’t leave it completely unguarded, but I think if a few of us head out now, we could be back before dark with the rest of our families.”

“I’ve got something that might help.” Mad Jack beamed. He handed us small boxes about the size of a garage door remote.

“And these are?” I asked him. He looked at us like we were supposed to know what they did.

I noticed Trip was repeatedly pressing the green button on the side. I was thankful it was not a personal detonation device used to blow yourself up in case of an emergency.

“Zombie repellers shrunk down!” He beamed.

I was skeptical. We’d had mixed results thus far. I mean sure, practice makes perfect, but when a failed experiment could lead to death, one got wary.

“I improved the battery life and the odds of a fire have been halved.”

“Halved you say? And what were the odds of a fire before the improvements?”

He didn’t look too particularly pleased to answer that question. He turned his head and mumbled a number.

“He said sixty-three percent.” Trip was drinking something that looked like ice cream.

“We have chocolate chip ice cream?” Travis asked.

Tommy pulled him away when my son reached for it. He shook his head. “It’s milk.”

What I thought had been a whiff of zombie wafted by my nose. I now realized it was old and curdled milk, with some sort of foreign object in it, probably fly larvae.

“We need to save them, if only to get Stephanie back and rein his fool ass back in.” BT could not get far enough away from Trip. He covered his nose with his hand.

I nearly forgot about the box in my hand. “Wait, sixty-three percent chance of bursting into flame, really?”

“Yeah, but I halved it.”

“Oh great, so there’s only a one in three chance of this thing bursting into a white phosphorous grenade then?”

“Thirty-one point six seven is not one in three,” he said indignantly. “And it does not burn like a phosphorous grenade. The wearer would suffer no more than a second-degree burn roughly the size of a bowling ball.”

“Oh, is that all? And what of the bite marks from the zombies nearby?”

“Well, that would be an unfortunate side-effect.”

“Did he just call getting eaten by zombies a side-effect?” BT looked like he was about to take up arms.

I smiled. Sure, it was serious business, but the sight of BT about to lose his fucking mind was priceless.

“What if I were to wear two; that way if one burned up, I’d have a spare?” I asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that.” He sounded very troubled by that thought but did not elaborate before leaving. He oftentimes did that. I don’t think he meant it as a slight. I just think he had the social graces of a pre-pubescent boy suffering from crippling shyness mixed in with the attention span of a moth.

“He’s a weird bird,” Trip said before taking in his last big gulp of whatever the hell he had in that glass. Hearing the thick liquid slide down his throat threatened to loosen my lunch’s hold within my stomach. He smacked his lips and rubbed his belly. “What did I just eat?”

“Are you seriously thinking about using these things?” BT looked on the verge of smashing his against the floor like a television remote after his favorite team lost in the playoffs because of a bad call.

“It still works two out of three times.” I said, thinking I did more to rev him up than calm him down.

“We still need to get out of here.” Ron brought the discussion back full circle. “Just because they’ve withdrawn doesn’t mean they’ve given up.”

“That’s why I’m wearing this!” Gary thumped himself in the chest with a hockey stick I’d yet to have seen. He winced from the strike.

“You all right?” Meredith asked him.

“I’m fine,” he forced out.

This was not a good scenario. We had already split the group, and we were going to do so again. The house would be undermanned while we made our rescue attempt. There was no doubt it had to happen. We just couldn’t go about this the traditional Mike Talbot way.

“It might be better to leave them where they are?” Tommy paced around the room, not focusing on any one thing, at least not in this realm.

“What the hell does that mean?” Ron was not too thrilled with the prospect of leaving his wife alone.

“They’ll be fine for at least a week,” he said, never looking at anybody.

“And then what?” Ron asked.

“Then? Then they might be on their own.” Tommy left the room.

“Duh, duh, duh!” Trip sang the words. “That sounds ominous! They usually play that music in the movie when someone is about to jump out of a closet.” Trip’s gaze immediately went to the outside door. He stared at that thing longer than I figured he could until what I thought would happen happened. “Are we waiting on pizza?” he asked. “My stomach hurts. I maybe shouldn’t have had that second blueberry and mayonnaise smoothie.” He went in the same direction as Tommy, although I think he was heading for a bathroom. I had no idea where Tommy went, probably the roof to get better reception for whatever signal he was tuning in to.

“Okay, so we don’t need them to leave. We just need them to clear a path. We mount a few of these incendiary devices on the car.”

“They’re not incendiary devices!” Mad Jack yelled.

“Shit, when did you come back in?” I’d been busted. “Okay, we mount some of these zombie repellers-slash fire bombs.”

“Talbot, why are you prodding the genius? This is what makes them evil.” BT was getting in on the goading.

“You don’t understand the load the circuitry is under for the signal that needs to be produced. The right components for this job haven’t even been made yet. I’m working with prototypes here. That any of them work is a testament to my….”

“It’s okay, Mad Jack. Don’t get your pocket protector all twisted in knots.” I walked over to him. He was not a fan of good-natured ribbing, and I’d be damned if I indeed made him an evil genius and awoke to see that he had teleported me to an alternate realm where maybe aliens ruled or I was haunted by ghosts. Zombies were bad enough; I’d leave it at that. “Listen, these boxes have saved our ass a couple of times, and we appreciate the hell out of them. Okay?”

He nodded quickly and pushed up on frames for glasses that weren’t there. “Okay,” he echoed. I looked sternly over to BT, who I’m sure was about to undo my gesture of good will.

“Ron, I’m going to need a truck.”

“Of course you are.” He sighed.

“I’ll be gentle.”

“I’m running out of trucks, Mike.”

“We’ll get more.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

I get that there’s a certain satisfaction to going and buying a car that you’ve worked hard for. You appreciate something more when you’ve earned it. But there was this little button in my brother that no matter how hard I tried to press it, it would not depress. The world was different. A lot of those old ways of thinking were no longer relevant. Sure, we still needed to hold on to faith and morals, compassion, the things that made us decent human beings, but the other shit, the pursuit of material things, appearances, keeping up with the Joneses … those things made no sense anymore. Everything we did was purely about survival. Being the first child, he’d always been an overachiever, and his hard work was supposed to mean more than just “making it.” I could see his angle. It just wasn’t valid anymore, and that pissed him off to no end.

“It’s the truck or our families; what’s more important?” I don’t think I meant to strike that quick and hard at his jugular. Maybe I did. His eyes shot to mine, full of anger and resentment, and then immediately cooled to reason. Now that I had him, I was going to go full bore. “I need the Gatling gun as well.”

BT’s air sucking-in sound wasn’t helping my cause. I pressed on.

“I need to plow the field so to speak. I need it to mow down all the zombies in the road leading up here. I don’t make it out of here, they’re all screwed.”

Ron stood, pushing himself away from the table. “Fine, Mike. Take my truck. Take my gun. Why don’t you take my Rolex as well? Make a clean sweep of everything I’ve worked for in my life. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Just take? You’ve been doing it your entire life. Why work hard when people are just going to hand you shit? Isn’t that your motto? Oh, Mike, he’s the baby of the family. We have to look out for him. We have to help him. Look how far that got you in life. Couldn’t hold a decent job to save your life, could you? Just a couple of years ago, you had to call Mom and Dad and ask for money so your family could eat. How pathetic is that? Forty and can’t provide for his own!”

“Ron, that’s enough.” BT stepped closer.

“You don’t know shit, BT,” Ron spat. “His entire life, he’s skated on the backs of those carrying the rink. And it’s never enough. He always wants more, and somehow us idiots keep giving it to him. My father worked his ass off providing for our family. He did an admirable job. We ate and we had a roof over our head. But you don’t know how many times those basic necessities were threatened by Mike. His legal expenses siphoned off a good portion of our parents’ savings. Or how Mike defaulted on his car loan and my parents, being the good little co-signers that they are, had to foot the bill. Mike has always been about Mike. He places himself above all others, no matter the cost.”

“You’re a damn fool,” BT said, pointing a meaty finger in Ron’s face. “I’ve personally seen him put himself in harm’s way more times than I can count to save someone.”

“Yeah?” Ron questioned. “Did he do it for him or for them?”

“What the hell are you talking about? He saved them.”

“I’m saying, ‘Did he save them for himself or for them?’”

“What you’re asking makes no sense.”

“Sure it does. Mike would save his family and friends at all costs because he would not want to put himself through the pain and suffering of watching a loved one die.”

“That’s not always the case. I’ve seen him risk his life for those he barely knows.”

“And by doing so, it fans the flames of his ego, which burns as bright as the sun. He does what he does so that he appears as if legend. Isn’t that it, Mike? If you can’t actually do in this life, then there’s always the smoke and mirrors routine.”

I’d had enough. I can absorb a few punches if it allows someone the opportunity to vent, but Ron looked like he was just getting started. “Let’s get a few things clear, brother.” Ron was about to speak. “No, it’s time for you to shut the fuck up while I say my piece. You got yours; I get mine. Yeah, was I a dumb kid? Sure was. Did I cost Mom and Dad a shitload in legal fees? Again, a big yes. In fact, close to thirty grand, which, if you had bothered to ask, I had paid back all but five grand before I got laid off the last time. As for the Jeep, after Dennis totaled it, I had two options. Either have him thrown in jail for drunk driving and stealing my car or pay for the damages out of pocket. Yeah, Mom and Dad paid for it up front, then Dennis and I paid it back. You do realize at that time we were both working for Dad’s construction company? No? You missed that part? As for asking Mom and Dad for money when I got laid off, yeah I did.

“We were in fucking trouble. I couldn’t make the house payment. I was doing odd jobs and spending every waking hour looking for work. Do people sometimes need help? Yeah, man, they do. We’re not all born with a silver fucking spoon in our mouth. Oh, don’t go giving me that butt-hurt expression on your face. You were always the golden child, the one that could do no wrong. Everything you ever received growing up was brand fucking new. You ever get a fifth-generation hand-me-down bike that’s about ten years out from the newest version? It had no fucking pedals, Ron! All I could do was walk the thing up hills and glide down. As for saving my family and friends, why the fuck would anyone want to go through the pain of watching someone they cared for die? That makes absolutely no fucking sense. Am I being selfish because of that? I don’t know. Maybe that’s the definition of it, but sure, I’d rather die trying to save them rather than be safe and sound while they were in danger. As for saving those I didn’t know, I don’t know what skewed version of me you have, but I don’t do it because I want to be written about in textbooks. I do it because it’s the right fucking thing to do, you asshole. It’s not my fault your expensive college degree isn’t worth too much in this new world, not my fucking fault at all. Speaking of which, Ron, how much did that degree cost? I don’t seem to remember you having to repay your college loans like I did. Was that a gift from Mom and Dad? You know what? You can shove your truck and your gun up your ass. I’ll walk out of here. I’ll get your wife and your kid back here, and then I’m leaving. I honestly didn’t know you thought so fucking little of me. I’ve always looked up to you. I should have realized you were looking down at me.” He reached over; this time it was my turn to leave the room.

“Shit.” I was outside Ron’s storage area. I truly meant what I’d said about walking out of here. But I still needed a rifle and a ton of ammo, and there really wasn’t a way for me to ask for it.

“Hey, Dad.” Travis came up by my side.

“Hey, Kiddo.”

“You all right?”

“I’m good,” I told him, putting my arm around his shoulder. “I’ll be better when we have you mom, brother, and sister back, and I guess nephew now. Hey, while you’re here, I don’t think your uncle will have any problem with you maybe getting that rifle over there along with those magazines and that can of ammo.” I pointed to places all over the room that I didn’t dare enter. When we went out to the driveway, BT was behind the wheel of a brand new Dodge Ram.

“Just because he thinks you’re an irresponsible, immature, capricious, thoughtless, harebrained individual doesn’t mean he feels the same way about me.”

“Feel better now?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I’d beep the horn if I didn’t think the zombies would come.”

Mad Jack’s head popped up from the other side of the truck. “Magnets!” he said excitedly.

“Okay? Should I be happy about that?”

“Oh very much so. I’m sticking the boxes all around the truck.”

“Could you maybe not put it there?” I asked as he stuck in on the little door that covered the gas cap.

“Oh that would probably be a good idea.”

“How can you be so smart and so oblivious?”

He didn’t seem too happy with my observation.

Tommy had two large duffel bags, one of which was suspiciously moving. At first, I thought it might be Henry, then I saw smoke leaking through the heavy material.

Tommy shrugged. “He said he couldn’t be seen entering the truck.”

“So you carried him in a duffel bag? Now you’re just being an enabler.” I told him.

Tommy shrugged again. He did, however, toss both bags up into the bed of the truck like he was a disgruntled airline employee.

“Hey, man. I dropped my jay!” came muffled through the bag, then there was a harsh coughing scream. “I’m burning, man! I’m burning, man!” Then a pause. “Wait … am I at Burning Man or am I a man burning? That’s deep!”

“I can’t take this.” I strode over and unzipped the bag. I backed away, quickly fanning clean air to my nose. “Nope, you’re definitely burning. So that’s what old patchouli smells like when it cooks. Damn.”

“This is my best shirt!” Trip sat up and was quickly patting down the front of his Hawaiian print shirt that looked like it had been made before the small island chain became the fiftieth state.

“Why is he here!?” BT roared, stepping out of the truck.

“He’s why I couldn’t be seen,” Trip said in hushed tones.

Now I got it.

“He’s just going to screw everything up!”

“It’ll be all right. He knows what he’s doing. You ride up in the front, Trav, with BT. Me, Tommy, and Trip will hang out in the back.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. We got the boxes. Oh hey, MJ, what’s the battery life on these things?”

“If they don’t burn, about an hour. Considerably less if they do.”

“Great. Where’s the on off switch.”

“Switch?”

“Fuck. BT we have to roll while we can.”

“I’m not happy about this, Mike.” The truck dipped down as he got back in.

“When’s the last time you were happy?”

“The minute before I met you and every minute before that.”

“He’s funny,” Trip said.

“Trip, what the hell isn’t funny to you?”

Travis opened up the small window. “Uncle Ron is on the deck.” Travis waved. I didn’t turn around. My wave would have included a couple of universally offensive gestures and maybe a few newly invented ones. We were rolling along at a blistering five miles an hour. We were all locked and loaded, even Trip. Tough to take a man serious with a joint hanging out of his mouth, but he looked all business, right now. Zombies started flooding out of the woods and directly onto our path as we rolled closer.

MJ’s boxes might work just fine, but I’ve always been a bigger fan of eradication rather than deterrent. “Kiss my ass,” I said, lighting a sparkler fuse. I jumped when I felt something brush up against my hindquarters. “What the fuck, Trip. I didn’t mean literally! And definitely not you, man!”

“Oh, he knows what he’s doing. It’ll be all right.” BT was mimicking me.

I’ve been proven wrong plenty of times, but usually not so quickly. Didn’t have too much time to worry about it, though, as the bomb exploded off to our front. Luckily for us, BT was going slow, because the truck veered to the side, almost putting us in a ditch.

“What the hell!” he shouted. “Who throws bombs and doesn’t tell people!”

“Maybe if you were paying more attention to what was going on in front of you rather than watching a grown man have his ass kissed, you would have known about it.”

He grumbled a bit but didn’t say anything else.

“Yo Daisy, I’m throwing more bombs.”

“If you are referring to Driving Miss Daisy, she was his passenger. The chauffeur was Hoke Colburn.”

“Never saw it. Just figured you looked like a Daisy.”

With the truck still rolling, BT got out. I mean all the way out.

“What are you doing, man?” I got over to the far side of the bed. Trav reached over to grab the wheel.

“I’m doing something that should have been done a long time ago. I’m gonna beat your ass.”

“Wait, man, this is crazy, we’re in the middle of zombies and….”

He wasn’t listening. He was still coming closer. I jumped out and ran to the front of the truck, making sure to keep as much of the truck between us as possible.

After a few attempts at trying to catch me and a slow rolling approach to the zombies who seemed mighty interested, BT finally got back in the truck. “You’re lucky you’re fast for a white guy.”

Oh, I had all sorts of responses, but I wisely let them sit and stew in the sarcastic batter of my brain where they belonged. The beast had been sufficiently poked. I quietly climbed back into the truck. BT reached behind him and pulled the window shut.

“That guy’s crazy,” Trip said, swirling his finger around by his neck. He was also rolling his eyes, sticking his tongue in and out, and rubbing his belly.

“Yup, he’s the crazy one, Trip.” I guess at least Trip hadn’t jumped out of a moving vehicle with zombies all around us to seek revenge. I didn’t throw any more bombs, although the zombies seemed to have gotten the picture or MJ’s boxes were working better than expected. Fifteen feet was still entirely too close; seven miles would have been better. We’d just turned off of Ron’s small approach road when I smelled burning paint. At first, I thought it had something to do with the sparklers and maybe Trip had inadvertently lit one and now we were sitting on a rolling bomb, then I saw the smoke coming from the side of the truck. I leaned over.

“Shit.” I tried to kick the flaming box off, but MJ must have used superglue based magnets because the thing didn’t move, and I was afraid to keep hitting it for fear my boot would catch fire.

“What is that? What is that?” BT screamed. It didn’t sound the least bit muffled through the glass, and it sounded like it came from a bullhorn when he slid it open.

I didn’t say a word. It was Tommy who spoke. I think even Trip knew he was on BT’s short shit-list and figured he might not be fast enough to get away should BT charge again. “Mad Jack’s box is burning a hole through the quarter panel.”

“Not a phosphorous grenade, my ass.” I watched as paint and steel dripped down onto the ground.

BT slammed his hand down so hard on the steering wheel, he bent it. “I promised him I wouldn’t wreck the truck!”

“At least you got it out of his sight.” I was being sincere. The look he turned back on me showed that he didn’t share in that sentiment. The box fell to the ground. A plume of flame and cloud rose, looking very much like a miniature nuclear bomb.

“You think that’s like Hiroshima to the ants?” Trip asked me. He looked pretty upset about that prospect.

“Let’s hope not. It looked like an unpopulated area.” He perked up at my words.

“We don’t have much time.” Tommy said, not sure if it was to me or not as he wasn’t looking my way.

“How do you know?” I knew what he was talking about.

“They’re actively looking.”

“Haven’t they been for a while?”

“Sure, but they’re a lot closer now, and that makes the link that much stronger. You should be able to feel it, too.”

“Hell no, I’ve been ignoring that half of me as best I can. How much time do we have?”

“Unsure. Vampires don’t live on the same time schedule as we do. They look at things in terms of decades where people look at things in terms of days. Soon though. That they already acted so quickly on my sister’s death speaks volumes of their curiosity.”

“And what of their intent?”

“Vampires aren’t very social creatures, Mr. T.”

“So we can reasonably assume it won’t be good?”

“That’s a fair assumption.”

One more box caught on fire before we got to town. BT started swearing again. I was just happy it missed the tire, or we would have had to stop to change a flat, and I was already feeling the pressure of our time constraints. A lot of the zombies had peeled off with me from my first escape and then again with the kids, but like the good little zombies that they were, there was still plenty of them to go around. The seventy or eighty that were outside immediately started running in our direction. Slowly but surely, the ones inside the building started to trickle out as well. I stood up and leaned against the cab.

“Loud noise.” I said just as I started lining up shots and pulling the trigger. I was so abundantly sick of zombies. I didn’t enjoy killing them. I just wanted them dead. I wanted them extinct like I wanted mosquitoes extinct. Just seemed that right now, at this very moment of the earth’s history, they were a part of the ecosystem and would be as difficult to get rid of as the damn pesky bug was. Tommy got next to me and started as well. After Trip lit another joint, he stood too, although I don’t think his verbalizations of bang, bang, bang, as he pulled the trigger on an unloaded rifle were quite as effective. Tommy and I were doing a decent job of slaughtering the zombies. But even so, without MJ’s boxes, we would have not been able to keep them at bay just by ourselves, and I think they knew that at first. That was why they kept coming. When they couldn’t make those last few tantalizing feet, they lost heart and began to disperse. I didn’t let them. Even though Tommy had stopped, I kept firing away. Cracking and splattering the backs of their exposed skulls like eggs. To let one go now only left an enemy for later, and that enemy could potentially spawn others.

I told BT to pull up as close to the broken down door as possible. He stopped and backed the truck up so that I was just about even with it. I poked my head in. Four zombies were huddled against the far side of the room, apparently feeling the effects of the boxes. The one snarling at me was the first to have his brains forcibly removed from his head. I jumped down out of the truck and into the building. When I went to kill the second, I realized my rifle was empty. Tommy handed me a magazine as he came in behind me.

“I’m going to get ahead of you on the kill total.” I said as I slammed the magazine home.

“You could do this every day for the next ten years and you still would not have killed as many things as I have. I’ll let you have your turn.” He walked over to the doorway that led down the stairs. I finished off the remaining zombies and joined him.

I wondered if he had a tally, and if he did … did I want to know? He said “things” and not people. Had he perhaps killed an elephant? A narwhal? Maybe even a yeti? Tommy smacking on the door pounded me out of my present thoughts.

“It’s me, Tommy!”

There was a muffled questioning of “Tommy?” on the other side. I heard the door locks being turned and, when the door began to slightly open, there was some crying, not tears of sorrow or joy, just the kind of crying infants make. I looked in as the door was opened all the way. Justin was first at the door holding a rifle making sure we were who we said we were, and behind him was my wife holding a baby.

“Say hello to Grandpa,” she said, smiling.

My first reaction was to turn around and look for my father. I’m pretty quick like that.

“You, Talbot, this is your grandson. Wesley Mike Talbot. Remember him? It hasn’t been that long. Maybe you should stop hanging around with Trip.” She held him up so I could get a better look. I went toward them in a slow-moving daze. The women folk were beaming. The boys looked like they’d seen every cootie a girl had to offer. Nicole was on a bed, she looked relieved and happy to have had the baby. My baby had had a baby; my heart skipped a few beats.

“You want to hold him?” Tracy asked tenderly.

“Umm... fuck no.”

“You’re not going to break him.”

“Have you seen me not break anything?”

“Hmmm, you’re probably right. Maybe I’ll just hold him a little longer.”

I thought I was going to melt into a puddle of man goo when he wrapped his tiny hand around my pinkie finger.

“He’s so little.” I moved in closer.

“Tracy, say your last words to your husband. I’m going to kill him!” BT boomed, coming into the small space. Wesley cried out in alarm and fear. I turned to watch BT’s eyes grow wide. His mouth opened even larger. He shook his head and immediately left the shelter.

“Well, maybe I’ll hold him. If an infant can scare that man, then he should be all right if I hold him.” I was smiling like the village idiot with the baby in my arms. The baby’s wispy eyebrows furrowed while he searched a brand new database for some information regarding me. He was coming up woefully short and probably would for many years to come.

“Whoa.” Trip said as he came to a sliding stop. “This seems a little early; does this baby have blue eyes or brown?” he asked as he came closer.

Tracy intercepted him. He seemed to get confused for a moment. Stephanie came over and lifted him up easily. She would have spun him around like a top if she had the space. She kissed him a few times before placing him back on the ground. “I missed you.” She brushed his hair back from his face.

I waited for him to ask who she was. That wasn’t an unreasonable response from him. What he said gave me chills instead. “Wherever I go, whenever I go, I guess is a better way of saying it, you’re there and you’re always as important to me then as you are now.” He kissed her. Then in an instant, he changed the tone. “Did you pick up my dry cleaning? I have an important meeting on Thursday. And, oh yeah, the funkies are getting closer.” He said when the cobwebs lifted from his mind.

“Hour, my ass. MJ and his machines, everyone up.” I handed Wesley back to his grandmother. Gotta admit that was truly weird. Was it going to be weird having sex with a grandmother? I’m a little ashamed that thought went through my head at that moment, but not really. Then she turned to help Nicole, and I realized I was not going to have any problem with calling her granny. She was more fit and toned than when we got married. Everything was going to be A-okay.

“You have a funny expression on your face. Are you high?” Trip asked.

“What? No,” I told him.

“You wanna be?”

“Is it easier holding a head up with no brain in it?”

“You should know,” he shot back.

“Wow, can’t say I was expecting that from you. Good one. Come on, let’s help everyone get out of here.”

He smiled for a sec, and then I could watch as he forgot completely why he was smiling. He looked around, maybe hoping to rediscover why. I couldn’t decide if Trip was blessed or cursed. How awesome would it be to forget all the bad that happened in the world? I’m thinking pretty damn good, because the man was everlastingly happy, but that could be because he was unendingly high.

“Good job,” I told Justin as we shoved everyone into the truck. Nicole, the baby, and Tracy were in the cab with BT. The rest of us were stuffed in the back of the bed. Tommy, Travis, and I stood to make room for the others. Travis and I leaned over, holding on to the roof of the truck. Tommy stood straight up as if he’d been rooted to his spot. The zombies were within five feet of us when BT pulled away. I think, at first, he was afraid someone was going to fall out, but he wasn’t even going fast enough to outpace them. He sped up when I yelled at him. I think he was hoping that if anyone fell out, it would be me.

We were about halfway back to Ron’s when BT began to rapidly slow down. I stood up straight to try and get a better idea and view of what I was looking at. Even then, that didn’t help much. There were heads, dozens of them, young, old, women, men, children, arranged in perfectly formed rows across the entire two-lane roadway. They’d been whole zombies first. At least, I’m pretty sure, there were no tortured screams for mercy as they’d been twisted from the shoulders of their original holders. These had not been severed by an extremely sharp melee weapon. They’d been ripped clean free. Some heads sat askew with some spinal cordage still attached.

“We’ve been gone less than forty minutes. Who could have had the time to do this?” I asked no one. Of course, someone could have already had a bag of heads for some reason and now put them out there to screw with us, but these were fresh if the blood trails running down the slope of the road were any indication. I caught movement to the right side of the road an instant after Tommy’s head swiveled in that direction. A cartoon character pajama-clad boy of about five had his back to us as he dragged something through the brush. I knew what it was before it ever became visible. When her hair became visible, it only confirmed the nightmare. She was nude, save the oversized t-shirt she’d been wearing. Mother and son had been sleeping when whatever had come for them had indeed found them. He had his small fists wrapped in her long blond hair as he struggled to pull her onto the roadway.

The boy didn’t look our way until Stephanie gasped. He snarled, exposing impossibly long teeth and blackened blood shot eyes. There was a ring of red around his mouth, most likely that was from his mother. I didn’t need to be as smart as Mad Jack to figure out who had visited these horrors upon this family. The trio was close. This had been a small message to inform us of their arrival. It was Tommy that put a bullet into the boy’s chest, exploding his heart, and then before the boy could even fall over, he put one in his head. Even if I wasn’t shaking nearly uncontrollably, I’m not sure I could have pulled that trigger.

“Get us home!” I slammed a fist on the cab.

“The heads, Mike!” BT yelled back.

“Fuck the heads; get us home! They’re in danger!”

The truck lurched forward. BT did his best to skirt around, but they were unavoidable. The loud crunching was as disturbing as it was deafening. Not deafening in the traditional sense but rather it was the only sound that could be heard. Neither the thunderous roar of the engine nor Wesley’s cries could drown out that sickening resonance. For some reason I’ll never be able to discern, I turned around. It looked a lot like you would expect truck-crushed heads to look like, eyeballs, brain, blood, and skull fragments respite with tufts of hair littered the road behind us.

“I think I swallowed my jay.” Trip looked a little rough around the edges.

Travis had his head down, as did most everyone else; it could have been in silent prayer or in effort to hold down gorge. Either had its merits. BT had thrown caution to the wind. He was driving like Tracy now. If he hit anything bigger than a castaway nickel, then a fair number of his passengers would be airborne. Maybe it would be better to be left by the side of the road here rather than go back to what I perceived was going to be a slaughter at Ron’s. They had no idea what was heading their way. We were a mile out when we could start to hear the pop of faraway shots. Somehow, BT coaxed the truck a little faster.

“Mike, what do I do when I get there?” he yelled.

I knew what he was asking. I just had no way of knowing what to tell him. Should we crash through everything and let the chips fall where they may or did he stop for us to make a tightly knit killing formation move to the house?

“Wing it, man.”

“I’m not you!”

“Thank God.” Trip muttered.

“What?” I asked him.

“Oh, I’m just happy. I didn’t swallow my bone. It’s right here.” He pulled a still lit marijuana cigarette from his pocket. He had a crinkle of a smile pulling up the corners of his eyes. I knew he’d been talking about me, but right now, I’d have to give him a free pass. BT was going so fast the press of zombies didn’t have enough time to let MJ’s boxes take effect, if they even still worked, that is. Zombies and parts of zombies started coming up and over the hood. We all had to duck down to keep from getting rained upon. I thought Ron’s son, Mark, was going to pass out when a hand with three fingers landed in his lap. His mother quickly picked it up and tossed it over the side. She was not going to be able to get rid of the perfect blood outline left behind though. If we made it through today, those pants were going to end up on the burn pile.

The sheer press of the zombies was beginning to slow the heavy truck down. Ron might not trust me with his toys, but BT had set a record for time lapsed until complete destruction. Radiator fluid was blowing straight up like Old Faithful. Tires were hissing as the two on the left side were blown out from some foreign object. We were listing heavily. Those of us not smart enough to hold on for dear life were firing. It was a race to the finish line, our lives the prize. Thick smoke poured from Ron’s house, some from gunfire some from the burgeoning fire. The shit had started; it was all or nothing. The Talbot last stand was in full effect. Fire erupted from under the hood. Bullets blew from the cab and the bed as we tried to keep the zombies as far from us as possible. Hands slapped at us while we whipped by. Teeth bit down on air. Yelling and screaming was coming from so many directions I couldn’t even begin to track it. I did what I could do in my personal circle of hell. My barrel was beginning to glow a dull red as I tossed rounds through it at a rate it was barely rated for. Didn’t matter if the rifle made it through the day if we didn’t.

The war was on; the zombies were in it for the win. There was a line of Talbots on the deck and none of them were shooting in our direction. We had no cover. The threat to them was closer and more real. Somehow, we were the cavalry in all of this, and I didn’t think we were going to make it. At some point, Travis had grabbed the bombs; Justin and he were lighting multiple fuses. The truck rocked from the closeness of the explosions, we were now being pelted with debris, much of it zombie rubble. So much was going on, my mind was in hyper-drive. I had my zone of influence, and that was all I could control. I don’t know when the barrel of my rifle split or when fragments of the bullet splintered into my forearm, never even felt them. It was Trip who ripped it from my grip and sent it off into the crowd, where the smell of cooking flesh erupted when it stuck to the side of a zombie man’s face. He thrust his own, and a magazine that he had in a pocket, into my hands.

I didn’t even think to thank him as I hit the bolt release button and started savagely meting out justice again. There was no one in or on that truck, save Wesley and his mother, who was crouched protectively over him, not fighting desperately for their lives. BT even had his rifle resting on the doorframe while he pulled the trigger. Aiming was not necessary.

“Hold on!” I yelled when he approached the first zombie channel dug into Ron’s yard. I lurched forward, barely catching my head from bouncing off the roof. I left a bloody wake where my arm had hit. Tracy’s scream flared through my mind. I didn’t even think about what I was doing when I got on top on that roof, down the hood and jumped onto the zombie who had grabbed her hair and was trying to pull her from the window. I slammed the butt of my rifle so many times into the side of his head it collapsed under its own weight. He died with thick swaths of her hair in his hands. I’d bludgeoned him to death. The truck was still moving past, and I turned the rifle back around. I was yelling so loud, I could feel my vocal chords being shredded.

Nancy was ripped from the back of the truck.

“Mike!” BT yelled when he saw me.

“Go! Get them inside!” I launched, slamming my shoulder into the zombie’s head, pushing him over. Blood spurted from a bite-sized wound in Nancy’s cheek. Teeth cracked around my hand guard as the zombie bit down in an attempt to keep feeding.

I reached down, pulled her up, and tossed her into the outstretched hands of Stephanie, who was still within reach. Mark grabbed onto his mother’s side and helped to pull her aboard. I caught a glimpse of a wide-eyed Tracy in the side view mirror before she was obscured. Zombies pressed in from all sides. The end was nigh. Don’t listen to the fucking bell because it’s tolling for thee. Not quite the poem but fitting. I was out of rounds, my hands blistered as I grabbed the barrel, but that mattered little. Just giving the zombies a little char flavoring if they got to eat them. The rifle held up for the first half dozen or so smashes, then there was the unsatisfying crack of plastic giving way. Soon, I’d be swinging just the upper receiver, and that wouldn’t have enough heft to do the damage it needed to. I had just enough time to see a trio of women dressed in heavy gothic garb not more than fifty yards to my side before I was swarmed over.