“What about a snow plow?” Gary asked.
“What about it?” I asked, looking back at him in the mirror.
“Why aren’t we riding in one of those?”
I didn’t have a valid response. It made sense. A ton of sense. A few tons of sense.
“That’s actually an awesome idea,” Travis said.
“Will we all fit?” BT asked.
That also was a valid point. The truck was beyond its limit with the eight of us. I wasn’t sure about a plow, but it was basically a dump truck retrofitted with a plow. Really wouldn’t be room for more than three or possibly four. And I was not keen on splitting up.
“What about two dump trucks?” Tracy chimed in. I think she liked the idea of the bigger, much safer, vehicle.
“That’ll call for way more gas,” I said, although that idea was not completely out of the realm.
“What if some of us got in the back?” Travis threw in.
“Naw, that’s not safe. It’s all steel, and you’ll get tossed around like bowling balls,” I said. Travis was still thinking that sounded fun as hell. Youth is its own folly.
“Wait, wait! What if we built something we could anchor seats to back there?” Gary said, the light clearly shining above his head. “Hear me out before you say anything else. We could build a two-by-four framework inside the dump part; maybe even put plywood up on the sides for added protection. And it wouldn’t be all that difficult to mount a couple of bench car seats to that. It’d be perfect.”
“And what about inclement weather?” I asked.
“Can’t you just say ‘rain’?” BT asked. “Inclement weather,” he mocked, shaking his head. “It’s rain, Mike.”
“Well, it could be hail too.” I tried to defend myself.
“Tarps,” Gary chimed in, “we could have tarps pulled over the whole thing. Maybe even mount a couple of battery lamps inside so we can see.”
“Sounds like an RV on steroids.” I had meant it in jest, but the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. “Who gets to tell Ron we left his truck by the side of the road?”
“NOT IT!” Gary shouted.
I don’t know if they planned it that way, but just about all occupants in the truck save myself responded simultaneously with ‘Not it’. Even Henry punctuated this with a well-timed burp that, if listened to slowly, could have the potential to have sounded like ‘not it.’
“What’s one more truck in the grand scheme of things?” BT asked, shrugging his shoulders at me. “It’s not like he’s not already expecting it.”
“Okay, first off we have a lot of things going on. We have to find a plow and then the appropriate supplies to retrofit it.”
“Talbot, we’re in the Northeast. How hard do you think it’s going to be to find a plow?” Tracy asked.
“Is that sarcasm? Because everyone needs a smart-ass. It’s my ass that’s on the line here. Gary, assuming…” I stopped to look at my wife. “Assuming we find this plow, how long are you thinking it will take to modify?”
“We’ll need tools, and some torches for welding, but I think with some help I could have something pretty good to go in two days, tops.”
“Man, I don’t like the idea of having to hole up for two days, but the idea of that rolling tank…I’m not going to lie, that sounds pretty enticing. And that two-day deadline is pretty firm? It’s not like that time you promised your friends you would build them a pagoda for their wedding?”
“It was short notice,” he intoned.
“How short?” BT asked.
“Six months,” I told him.
“Have you ever seen all the angles on those things? It’s as bad as doing geometry,” Gary said, trying to diffuse the stares being directed at him.
“That’s kind of funny, Uncle Gary, because it’s exactly like doing geometry,” Travis said.
“Yeah, well…no one told me that.”
“Yet you promised your friends this?” Tracy asked.
“Hey, their wedding was just as beautiful in the tent,” he said in his defense.
“Okay, we’ll try this. Two days, Gary, that’s it. We’ll find a DPW in the next town, I’m sure they have a garage with plenty of tools. You figure out what we’re going to need, and a few of us will go out and grab it.”
“Mike you know how I feel about this splitting up stuff,” Tracy said nervously.
“It’ll just be a few hours, in and out, I promise,” I told her.
“You know nothing’s easy any more, right? It’s not like shooting over to Starbuck’s for a latte.”
“Iced Caramel Macchiato,” I said.
“What?” she asked, exasperated.
“I don’t like lattes I like Iced—”
“Yeah, Talbot, I get it. That’s not what’s really important here.”
I was going to argue with her that it MOST assuredly was important. I’d had an addiction to the damned macchiato. But perhaps it wasn’t the appropriate time. “Hon, for the foreseeable future, this is how it’s always going to be. Just taking a crap is a dangerous proposition right now.”
“Eloquent,” BT chimed in.
“You mind if we have a moment?” I asked him.
“We’re crammed in here like sardines, and you want me to ignore the only thing going on? You must be crazy.” BT said.
“Thanks, man.” I told him.
He grinned.
I continued after I directed a nasty glare at BT; he cared little. “These are the chances we are going to have to take. There just isn’t a way around it. I’m not thrilled this is the way it is, but maybe finding Doc will change it. This reward is worth the risk.”
“I know, I know. I’m just always afraid that when you walk out that door, some or possibly all of you won’t be coming back.”
“Honey, you know that isn’t going to happen. How many times have I tried to leave BT behind, and he keeps coming back?”
“Fuck you, Talbot,” he said, reaching over to try and sideswipe my head.
“I’ll put this thing in a tree if you keep swinging at me,” I told him as I ducked away.
“And that’s different from your normal driving how?”
“Hilarious. Alright here’s our next town.”
“You couldn’t pick a different place?” Tracy asked.
“What’s wrong with Salem?” I asked her. “There were witches here not zombies.”
“If we were battling aliens, I still wouldn’t want to go to a haunted house,” she said.
What kind of argument can you make against that? I took the off-ramp leading in any way. We stopped at the town hall. BT and Gary had gone up and into the building while the rest of us set up a defensive perimeter.
“Five Jefferson Avenue,” Gary said happily from atop the steps.
“Yeah, because I know where Jefferson Ave is,” I mumbled.
“Be nice, Talbot,” Tracy said out of the side of her mouth.
“We follow this road for like a couple of hundred yards, take a right, and we’ll be on Jefferson, and then it’s just about right there,” BT said, looking at a map that had been ripped from a phone book. “It’s quiet here.” BT looked around.
“The witches cast spells to keep it that way,” I told him.
“Makes sense,” he said, coming down the stairs.
“You can kiss my ass, Talbot,” Tracy told me.
“I don’t know why you say that to me as if I’m going to take offense,” I told her. “I’d do it gladly.”
Salem really did look as if it had been relatively untouched. That did little to make me feel good though. The last place I thought had been untouched by the zombie invasion had merely been a time bomb waiting for an unsuspecting food supply to walk by, and Cash had paid the penalty with his manhood. I cringed just thinking about it. That’s it, next chance I got, I was going to get a metal male chastity belt. Yeah, right now Bennett, Colorado and Salem, Massachusetts had just about that same feel. Although, I’m pretty sure Bennett didn’t have any witches, but I could be wrong.
The DPW building was much like the rest of this place—undisturbed. And it was creeping me the fuck out. Battles, mayhem, and destruction I understood. Where was everyone? The gate was open, which was a good thing, because the chain that was wrapped around the left side of the sliding fence looked like it could keep King Kong penned up.
“What do you think, Mike?” BT asked.
“I was thinking I’d maybe like an ice cold beer while I’m sitting on a recliner in some ski chalet. Maybe a good football game on, and I’ve never had a pedicure in my life, but that sounds like a good idea as well.”
“How long have you known him?” Gary asked.
BT just shook his head. “I mean about this place, Mike.”
“Then you really should be more specific,” I told him. We were still sitting in the truck staring at the small building that was DPW headquarters. “Gary shut the gate,” I told him as I pulled all the way in. “Wrap the chain, too.”
I did not take my eyes off the building. It only took us a couple of minutes to do a complete sweep. We couldn’t even find so much as a trace that something bad had happened. Besides a bunch of dust and cobwebs, the place looked like it was waiting to open up. Salem had three plows, one of which was in the garage in more pieces than a jigsaw puzzle. The other two were all geared up with large plows and a full dump of sand.
“Pick one, brother,” I said, handing him the keys that I had found on a pegboard next to the receptionist’s desk. A large plume of black smoke shot from the exhaust pipe, the diesel engine was incredibly loud in the still of the day.
“Dump the sand and shut that thing down,” I told Gary as I jumped up onto the runner.
If whoever was still in the town hadn’t yet known of our visit, they sure did by now. It took Gary a few minutes to figure out how to work the lift, and he damn near died for it. He’d—hell all of us really—forgot to unlatch the tailgate to the truck. So, as the dump portion began to raise up, the sand couldn’t escape. Gary’s front wheels were six inches off the ground and threatening to hurtle him and the truck into the air and onto its back before I shouted at him to let it back down. Luckily, the learning curve had already been traveled and he knew how to do it quickly. But it was more time that the loud engine was thrumming. I undid the tailgate, Gary raised the truck back up and, when all the sand was out, he popped the truck into gear. When he stopped a short ten feet away, the tailgate slammed into the rear of the truck with enough force to sound like a Howitzer had been fired. And then he did it again.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed at him. It wasn’t a quarter of the volume of the still echoing cannon-shot.
“Getting any sand that was stuck in the truck bed loose.”
“It’s loose! Drop the damn thing!” I told him.
“He’s your brother,” BT said to me.
“Yeah, but we’re in this together,” I retorted.
“We’re alright,” Tommy replied. He was off in the far side of the yard and had one hand cupped to his ear. He seemed to be listening for something none of the rest of us could hear.
The resuming quiet once the truck was off had a calming effect. If man was ever able to scrape himself up off the sidewalk, it was going to be difficult getting used to our noise pollution again.
I went back into the office and rooted around until I found what I was looking for.
“Gary, give me a list of what you need,” I told him.
“I’d rather go with you in case I see things I could use.”
“You need to make sure that thing is mechanically sound. BT and I will go grab supplies.”
“Wonderful, do I get a say?” BT asked.
“No,” I told him forthrightly.
Gary was furiously working on his list like it was a timed event.
Tracy was giving me a decent version of stink eye.
“You can almost see the hardware store from here,” I told her. “It’s less than a mile.”
“Talbot, we’ve been over this before, I hate separating.”
I knew she was right. I’d been breaking the damn unwritten horror rule for pretty much the entire invasion. Never Split the Group! Eventually, it was going to bite me in the ass. The town was quiet; there was no denying that. I didn’t think it was because all of the zombies had gone on vacation though. My guess was stasis, and as of yet, we had not discovered the giant lair. I felt like a blind man walking down a street full of sinkholes; eventually I’d fall in.
“Fuck it, you know what? You’re right. I probably should take Gary so he can get exactly what he needs. We can fit everything and everybody in the back of the truck.”
“Really? You’re really agreeing with me? Are you alright? Is the disease you have terminal?” she asked in mock horror.
“I’m flexible,” I told her.
“Yeah, just like wrought iron,” BT said.
“Or ceramic,” Tracy added.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” BT said. “Because it’s brittle.”
“Kiss my ass. Gary, you think you can drive this thing without tossing the people in the back all around?”
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said with a smile.
“Wow that is so not comforting.” I said.
Gary was driving, and of course Henry got to ride up in the cab. I put him up there before I could get any objection from Tracy. Tracy went up there as well because, after the big dog took up his space, she was really the only other one that could fit. That left me and the boy’s club to hold on for dear life in the back of the truck. I made sure we were all holding onto the edge of the bed as Gary pulled out. Even completely expecting it, I almost did extensive damage to my dental work as my head bobbed and almost slammed into the steel.
“He drives as good as you,” BT said, holding on for dear life.
Tommy was actually perched on the roof like an antenna; the swaying and jerking of the truck having completely no effect on him as if he had his own internal gyroscope. I noticed that his rifle was in his hands, and he was scanning the buildings as we passed. It was not a comforting feeling. If he knew something, though, he wasn’t sharing. Justin and Travis seemed to be enjoying the improvised carnival ride.
“What’s up with Tommy?” BT asked, nodding his head to where the boy was sitting.
I shrugged. I didn’t know. “He’s feeling a disturbance in the force.”
BT looked at me for a few seconds, a questioning furrow developing in his eyebrows. “Is that a Star Wars reference? I told you, I’m not into that geek shit.”
“Geek shit? Star Wars changed my life.”
“Did it get you laid?”
“I was twelve when I saw it.”
“I’m talking later in life. Did you ever tell a woman you were a huge Star Wars nut and she just wanted to jump your bones?”
“Well, no, nothing quite like that.”
“Point made.” He smiled.
“So you equate life altering with getting laid?” I asked.
“Don’t you?”
I paused. For the second time that day, I’d been presented with an argument I could not dispute. “Well, it was still a great movie,” I blustered, doing my best to save face.
“Friggin’ nerds,” I thought I heard him mumble.
Unlike the rest of the town, the hardware store had been hit. The front windows were smashed out and what looked like long ago dried blood was pooled up all over the front sidewalk. From who or what was impossible to tell. The brown stains on the cement were the only remnant left from what had happened.
“Tommy?” I asked.
He shrugged. Gary was idling in front, the sound echoing off the store and making everything that much louder. Without any prompting from me, he shut the truck down. The resulting quiet wasn’t any better.
I climbed up and over, placing my feet carefully as I descended down the side of the truck, finally finding the tire. When I was confident I was not at an ankle turning height, I jumped down. I immediately had my rifle at the ready. “We should have walked.” I said taking stock of my bumps and bruises.
“Isn’t there another hardware store we can try?” Tracy asked as I came up alongside her window.
“Probably, but I heard these guys were having a sale,” I told her as I advanced cautiously.
“I’ve got the coupons.” BT rushed to catch up.
“You guys should take your show on the road,” she replied.
Tommy slid down the roof and hood and silently landed next to us.
“Impressive,” I told him.
“I’ve been practicing.”
“For what, a Starsky and Hutch remake?” BT asked.
“You’re giving me shit about Star Wars and you like Starsky and Hutch?” I chided him.
“Now a 1975 souped-up Ford Gran Torino will get you laid,” he said, referring to the car in the popular TV series. Again the bastard was right. “Can’t really drive an Artoo unit around, now can you? And if you could, you sure couldn’t find room for a date.”
“I liked it better when you didn’t like me,” I told him as I advanced on the store.
“What makes you think I like you now?”
“There are machetes in there,” Tommy said, brushing by us both.
“So?” I asked, following him. I wasn’t planning on visiting the rain forest anytime soon.
Tommy had already entered the store. BT and I were hard-pressed to keep up.
“Take the sheath off,” Tommy said as he tossed me a large bladed machete. He didn’t say it loud, but there was definitely a sense of urgency implied. He did the same to BT.
BT looked over at me. I shrugged, but he was also ripping off the wrapping that protected curious little kids from being able to wield a dangerous weapon. As all of you know, ‘child-proof’ applies to adults as well. I was struggling with the damn thing.
“Put your gun up,” Tommy said, rubbing his thumb along his now exposed blade and nodding in satisfaction.
My first thought was to tell him to ‘fuck off’. Then I shouldered my rifle. Tommy spun away from me.
“Oh fuck!” I said, hurriedly working on my blade as I peered down the aisle. A zombie was peering at us, his head cocking from side to side like it was assessing something—or more likely us.
“No shots,” Tommy said, getting into a defensive posture.
“What?” BT asked, finally looking up with a look of victory on his face for being able to conquer the damned wrapping.
“How’d you do that so fast?” I asked, sweat breaking out on my brow.
“Because I’m not a…” And then he stopped. He must have caught a glimpse of the thing looking at us. “Shit.”
I smacked the blade hard against a shelf, the force shattering the plastic wrap It also had the un-added benefit of getting the zombie to move.
“Leave it to you, Talbot,” BT said, getting his blade up.
“I didn’t make him materialize.”
Tommy was swinging, and if not for the speed he possessed, I think the zombie would have sideswiped the blade; as it was, it was pretty close. The blade clipped the top of its head about an inch from the edge. The speed and the torque with which Tommy delivered the blow sheared off the left side of its face. It fell away like a sliced piece of bologna from a dropped package. Had I seen it in a movie I would have thought the effect was as cool as hell. Live and personal, it was horrifically disturbing. For the briefest of seconds the zombie just stood there, his brain, eye and teeth all exposed on that side. Then he fell away, the weird part was he landed almost perfect in conjunction with his sectioned face like he was trying to reattach it by proximity.
“Behind you,” Tommy breathed without actually looking.
I came up with the standard “Huh?” Luckily, BT had taken his morning coffee.
“Mike,” came his reply.
By the time I was turning, his blade was already in motion. He lodged his midway through the zombie’s neck, the head lolling to the side. I wasn’t having the easiest time with these disturbing images. There was a reason I didn’t like melee weapons.
Upset stomach or not, I needed to get into the mix, because I could guarantee I’d be more sick if I became a meal. BT almost killed me when he wrenched the blade free—the flat of it striking me in the top of the forehead. I staggered back, blood pouring into my eyes, probably split my skin open like an overripe peach.
“Sorry!” he shouted, his blade once again moving forward.
Another fucking reason to hate close combat. I quickly wiped my sleeve across my face, mopping up the worst of it. A zombie had closed to within a couple of feet. I didn’t have enough time to swing so I jabbed the thing like a spear, catching him directly in his open mouth. I cringed as the blade struck and, at points, stuck against his teeth. Fingernails on a chalkboard had nothing on this. I drove the point through the back of his neck, and yet he still kept coming forward. I brought my right leg up and kicked against its belly, driving him backwards enough to extract my weapon. This time I took a solid swing square on the top of its skull. The bones held out as long as they could before they caved, sending splinters into its fucking diseased brain bucket.
I didn’t have time to revel, nor did I want to. Zombies were coming in from both sides of the aisle. Tommy was like a ninja behind us, I could hear his blade whistling through the air. He was practically a food processor. ‘For all your zombie mixing needs!’
BT could have been swinging a fly swatter and still would have probably stopped the zombies; he was putting that much force behind each blow. The three B’s were constantly arcing up and around us each time he would remove his blade from whatever he had hit. I’m talking blood, brains, and bone bits. Is that four B’s? I was going to tell him he should use a little more finesse, but the moments could not be spared, and I don’t think he would have appreciated it.
The battle was mostly silent. I don’t think anybody outside even knew what was going on. Besides the occasional grunt and resulting thud of a fallen zombie, we were all too busy concentrating on the task at hand to talk. I wanted to call out for some reinforcements. The boys would certainly come in guns blazing, but for some reason, Tommy was against it and I’d have to defer to his judgment for now. However, if we started to lose more ground, I’d have to suffer with whatever those consequences entailed. Dying was dying anyway you sliced it.
“The shelves,” Tommy said. I won’t swear on it, but the boy sounded a little winded, and if he was winded, then odds were that BT and I were exhausted. How long could the adrenaline hold out? And what about the damned shelves?
“Oh.” I mouthed when I had a spare millionth of a second to check. Zombies were peering over at us; some of them were even in various states of climbing. “What in the hell is going on?” I swung, taking off an arm right above its elbow.
“Mike, fight is up front,” BT said with a slight edge of panic lacing his words. “Is there a sale on lawn ornaments or something?”
“Party crashers.” I told him, slicing Lefty across the face from his cheek through one of his eyes.
BT was backing up, and I was getting caught in the middle between him and Tommy. Maybe, if they pressed hard enough, I’d shoot up in the air like a burst pimple. It’d be safer up there. Unless of course an industrial-sized fan was spinning and then all bets were off. Tommy pushed by me and was now side-by-side with BT as I sliced up Lefty who had finally made enough headway that I could get a kill shot. It wasn’t long before another took his place. I’d been so focused on the one in front of me that I’d almost failed to see that the entire twenty feet of shelving had climbers.
“BT, help me!” I yelled as I pushed up on it.
I’d love to be able to write and say that I was able to push it over on my own, but it was definitely BT’s bulk and strength that sent the thing toppling with a loud and resounding crash. Most of the zombies that had been coming up where pinned under the bulk of the metal. Of the ones that weren’t, they were strewn around trying to regain their footing. We pounced on them. I could see the boys out of the corner of my eye racing in; the crashing noise had gotten their attention.
“NO GUNS!” I yelled. I had swung with a sideways twist of my arm. Again I caught a zombie in the mouth, this time no teeth as the blade cut through his lips, into and through the muscles of its jaw and then finally the jawbone itself. I tore through, coming out below its ears. The top of the head flopped onto my boots; of course, brain side down. There was another set of footwear I’d never wear again.
BT was hacking away at the zombies pinned to the ground before they could get away. Two zombies had gotten up and were heading towards my boys.
“I don’t fucking think so,” I said angrily as I tore into a zombie, the blade catching it in the hollow of its neck and slicing all the way down her back. The glistening of her spine was going to be another thing I added to the nightmare catalog of the day. She fell over as her head canted to the side. She wasn’t dead, but her lack of locomotion meant I could deal with her later. The next one I caught up to in a few strides. I launched from the ground, machete raised high and brought it down just as I landed, opening its head like a butterfly from hell.
“Talbot!” Tracy cried, exiting the truck quickly. I spun, thinking there were more zombies coming. I was confused when I didn’t see any. Tommy and BT were also coming out.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, searching to find the threat she was so concerned about. Blood whipped away from my head with the centrifugal force of it. I’d forgotten completely about my head wound.
“Sorry…my fault.” BT came up beside me. His hands were on his knees as he leaned over, catching his breath.
“Are you hurt?” Tracy asked as she came up to me.
“BT tried to kill me,” I told her.
BT almost fell over as Tracy shoved him. “If anyone is going to kill him, it’ll be me!” she told him.
“Sure, sure,” BT said, ambling away.
Gary was directing the outflow of materials from the hardware store into the truck. Tracy was working on my head which had finally stopped bleeding. She had me wrapped up like you see in those old Revolutionary posters, all I needed was a fife and I’d be all set. At least BT had given me a valid excuse from doing any heavy lifting. He’d come over every once in a while to apologize to me. I had a sneaking suspicion he was doing it more to appease the missus.
“Will there be any problem with the blood?” Tracy asked.
I knew what she meant. BT had just pulled the blade out of an infected skull and then thwapped the crap out of my forehead.
“I should be fine. The transmission seems to be through saliva.”
“And what about Justin’s scratch?”
“Maybe whatever that zombie had eaten was finger-lickin’ good.” Horrible pun and I wished I could take it back. Tracy gladly didn’t respond at all. Although I think I saw her face pale a little.
“Mike, we’re still going to need to get some lumber,” Gary said once he was satisfied they had everything of use they could get out of the hardware store.
“I’d love to be able to help, I’m still a bit woozy, though.” I was actually doing much better, the splitting headache was merely a memory of itself, but there was no way I was going to not malinger, especially since I now had a valid excuse. No one save me and probably Tommy knew how fast my body could heal itself, and he wasn’t saying anything. The kid was nearly silent as he went about his work. Looked like he was figuring out algorithms he was so lost in thought.
“Why no guns?” I asked when we got back on the road.
“We were surrounded by three zombie dens and they were huge,” Tommy told me. “They’re honing in on sounds that only humans make. Rifles and engines being at the top.”
“They’re distinguishing?”
“Resources are low.”
“So then the truck brought those zombies?”
“I guess. I think that was a patrol.”
“A zombie patrol? Tommy, I’m not liking this at all. Did they send a runner back for reinforcements?” I asked. The implications of zombies with tactics was fucking scary. I can’t think of a better way to describe it. An idea flashed in my head like a strobe. “So somehow you knew the dens were there. Could you find them?”
“No, Mike, it’s too dangerous,” Tommy said, alarmed.
“So you can.”
“Mike, what are you doing?” BT asked.
“Be vwery, vwery quiet, I’m hunting,” I said in my best Elmer Fudd voice.
“You’re certifiable and somehow I’m stuck with you.” BT moved to the far side of the truck bed. “Lord, I haven’t asked you for much, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never done anything in my life heinous enough to deserve this.” He was quiet for a moment. “Is this a test? Is that what this is? Am I promised a spot in Heaven if I can get through this? Probably a Sainthood. I could deal with that, Saint BT. Patron saint of dipshits.”
“I can hear you,” I told him.
“I’m not talking to you,” BT said.
“Alright, first we get Gary’s wood, then me and you are going to reduce the zombie population,” I said.
Tommy did not look nearly as happy as I felt. Normally, I’d let sleeping zombies lie, and maybe this was as bad as the Japanese waking the US into World War II, but they’d come out the other side an economic power house. It’s all well that ends well, I kept telling myself. I refused to remember anything about the atom bombs and the shit-storm Japan had been for a while.
The lumber store went worlds better than the hardware store, and I was still able to milk my injury. I grabbed a couple of ten-foot long two-by-fours and then rammed them into everything around me. BT felt so bad, he had snagged them out of my hands and insisted I sit down. So I did.
“You’re a horrible actor,” Tracy told me. She was standing guard.
“Good thing then that BT’s not a critic,” I told her.
We were halfway back to the DPW shop when I shouted at Gary to stop for a second. He’d almost sent the lot of us hurtling into the front of the truck.
“What’s up?” he asked, looking out and up as I struggled to regain my feet. I told him to wait.
“You need help, Mike?” BT asked.
“I’ll be right back.” I jumped out of the truck. I thought I heard him tell Tommy that ‘I looked fine now once all the hard work was done.’
I was breaking all my rules today as I walked into Anne’s Bike Shop. Number one was having to fight zombies with a bladed weapon; and second was using a mode of transportation that was unprotected. I grabbed a couple of bikes and then handed them out to the boys. I went in and grabbed a couple of more. Plus a few flat repair kits and some spare tires.
“What are you doing, Mike?” Tracy asked.
“Going green,” I told her as I hopped back up.
“What’s with the bikes, Mike?” BT asked, not at all pleased with the wheeled machinery by his feet. “You know I don’t know how to ride, right?”
“It’d be interesting to watch for sure…almost like a circus act.”
“I’m sure I could wrap one of these things around you, though.”
“Zombies like the sound of engines. I’m removing that from the equation. Tommy and I are going to wipe out a few dens.” I told him.
“This your idea?” he asked, looking at Tommy. “No, of course not,” he answered before the boy could say anything.
“Listen, I’m not doing it because I’m looking for any more trouble than we already have. Just hear me out. It doesn’t look like zombies will die on their own. Neither time or starvation seem to play a part in their physiology. Fuck, they’re like Styrofoam coffee cups, they’re never going anywhere.” BT nodded. “And now it looks like they are starting to tap deeper into the brains they infest. Day by day they’re getting smarter. I mean, I don’t know if it’ll come down to it, but what if they start to figure out how to wield weapons or shoot guns. What then, man? We’re already swimming in a pool of shit and now they want to try and drown us in it.”
“Fairly graphic analogy…but probably fitting,” Tommy said.
“The stasis time is going to be our best chance to take out as many of them as possible,” I told him.
“On one level, Mike, I’m completely with you. On the other…what are the odds your wife is going to let you do this?”
“I’m not telling her,” I said without skipping a beat. “And neither are any of you.” I pointed to Travis, Justin, and BT.
“Tommy and I are going to head out tonight and see if we can make some Z’mores.”
“That’s fucking gross,” BT said. “If you’re not telling her, then we never had this conversation.” He pointed back and forth between us.
Gary had us all doing things while he welded different supports and brackets to the truck. Most of it I really didn’t have a clue what they were going to end up doing, but when he started cutting out gun wells with the acetylene torch, that I knew. It was brilliant! He was making a homemade tank. And then I had to revert back to ‘What the hell took so long?’ There were two ports on every side including the front. He also cut out a large window that let the folks in the cab see into the back and vice versa. He welded a couple of runners and then slotted through a good-sized piece of Plexiglas so that we could slide it back and forth.
I’d argued with Gary for a bit as the sun began to set. He wanted to throw on the generator to run some lights so he could see and also use some of the power tools that would have made the building process quicker and easier.
“Are you thinking this through?” I asked him. “You want to be the only place in the entire city lit up and making noise? Might as well throw on an ‘open’ sign.”
“I could just about finish tonight,” he begged.
“It’s looking great, man, it really is. We’ll work on it tomorrow. Plus we won’t have a hostile audience watching us.”
“We’ve got the fence to keep them out.”
“Zombies are starting to climb. Do you want to spend the next two days trying to defend this area and not be able to? Or do you just want to do what you need to do tomorrow and we can get out of here?”
“Well…option two sounds better, but option one gives me lights.”
“Funny guy, do what you can tonight.” And then I walked away to find Justin who was patrolling the perimeter. “I’m going to need you and your brother to have a late night tonight standing watch. You alright with that?”
“Whatever it takes,” he told me. “Unless mom comes looking for you…and then I’m throwing you under the bus as fast as I can.”
“That’s not being a team player.”
“I am a team player, just her team.”
“Fair enough, she always wins anyway. Seriously though, I want the both of you out here tonight. This isn’t just a matter of watching the gate anymore.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked in seriousness.
“Yeah, the zombies are using the resources available to them and I don’t like it one bit.”
I don’t know how the woman does it, either I’m pretty readable like a damn open book or a switched on e-reader, or she’s just plain psychic. I acted as casually as I could all night. Never checked my weapons or my ammo, never talked with anyone in hushed tones. I just went about my business, but I could feel her eyes on me constantly. She was looking for something. This was why, early on in our relationship, I’d learned to never lie to her. I just couldn’t get away with it. Now that’s not to say there weren’t times I didn’t use subterfuge, but never with the spoken word. All of my stuff was done with plausible deniability.
Like the time when the kids were young and she had to go to California for corporate training or some crap. I was supposed to be watching the kids, but Paul was having this party over at his house, with a band and everything. Now most guys would figure out this elaborate lie about why they had to drop the kids off at the in-laws. See, that involves too many questions. I just brought them with. Paul gave them a room with a TV and I brought some toys. And I would drunkenly check on them from time to time. Responsible parenting? I think not. But it sure saved me from trying to remember what I told her or didn’t. I almost got caught when she asked about the kids’ new toys, things I had bought for their silence. We all have skeletons. At least mine don’t have as much meat on them as some folks. Shitty rationalization tactic, but it’s how I cope.
This night of all nights, though, the woman would just not go to bed. If I could have found some sleeping pills I would have gladly slipped them in her drink. As much as I wanted to press her on the subject of how tired I was and that we should go to bed, I knew that this tactic would immediately send up a red flag for her. Once that was raised, I’d never get out without a proper grilling. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of one or two o’clock, not really sure, I didn’t have a watch. On a side thought—it’s amazing how quickly the man-created concept of time becomes significantly less important in an apocalyptic setting. At least, the preciseness of it. I mean, we were still using things like tomorrow or tonight which were generalizations that I have to believe all animals use. But as for 6:32 in the morning, well, that particular time can go fuck itself. (That was what I used to set my alarm for when I had to go to work.)
She fought it. She did…but when she pulled the third shift for guard duty, she figured she had to get some sleep. It was brutal acting this nonchalant. I was revved up like an ADD sufferer at a kaleidoscope convention. I just wrote that and I’m not sure if it makes sense. How about a six-year-old mainlining espresso? Yeah, that’s better. I waited until her breathing deepened before I moved. I wanted to kiss her forehead, but she’d know; not sure how she would, but she’d know. We were connected like only soul mates can be. And how was that still possible if I was a little light in that department? Concepts for a later time I suppose. Tommy was standing at the door to the office Tracy and I were staying in. He was quieter than a cat.
‘You ready?’ He asked in my head. I was about to tell him to be quiet when it dawned he hadn’t spoken aloud. I was not a fan of that mode of communication. I patted his shoulder as I moved past him, he followed.
“Heading out for some bread?” Came out of the shadows.
“Hey, BT,” Tommy said.
“Now where would you two be going at this hour of the night?” he asked, stepping out of the shadow of the building, the thin sliver of moon barely illuminating any of us.
“Don’t you have some busses to bench press or something?” I asked him.
“We’re off to destroy the hives,” Tommy told him.
“And I wasn’t invited? I feel like I’ve been left behind on the night of the prom.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t the case,” I told him. “You were probably the Belle of the Ball.”
“Careful, Talbot, how fast do you think I can get upstairs and tell your wonderful wife?”
“It’s not your size that repels friends, it’s your mean streak,” I told him.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“Plan?” Tommy asked as well.
“Not cool, Tommy,” I told him. He shrugged his shoulders in response. I’d been getting that a lot lately. “We’re going on bike, BT.”
He got the implication; his leg was not a hundred percent and might never be. The bullet he caught should have sheered his leg off, and my field surgery was anything but expert-like. Doc had undone a lot of the damage I’d done, but a bullet is a bullet. Our bodies aren’t designed to deal with the trauma they inflict. They do the best they can to repair the damage but it’s not a perfect science.
I saw it in his face, he was warring within himself. His pride was hurting. No one wants to hear there’s something they can’t do. He was also thinking about giving me a healthy ration of shit. How’d I know this? Because I know BT. Plus I would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed. I thought about adding that Tommy and I were faster than him, but then thought better of it, that would be more like rubbing salt into the wound while we were pouring alcohol on it.
“BT, I am concerned with how these zombies are behaving, I’d feel worlds better if you patrolled with the boys,” I told him.
“So I’m basically on guard duty while you two play hero commandos.”
“BT, I’m asking you to watch out for the things I hold dearest to me. I can’t think of a more important job. Plus you said it yourself, you can’t ride a bike.”
He looked long and hard at me to see if I was trying to appease him. Sure, a piece of me was, but the vast majority was sincere and he saw that.
“I’ll watch them, Mike, and I swear nothing will happen to them, but I really do want to blow some shit up.” He walked away.
“I didn’t think he’d go so quietly,” Tommy confided in me.
“Oh, I’m sure at some point this will come back around. I’ll have to deal with it at that point, I suppose. Let’s get out of here before Tracy figures out I’m gone.
Tommy didn’t even say a word, he knew better.
I felt like a damned ninja when I jumped up onto the fence. I’d almost cleared it not realizing my newfound strength. I think I sub-consciously tried to force down what part of me was. I very rarely used my new skills and just tried to march on as if all was as it was supposed to be. I truly hoped that the boys had not witnessed this feat. I launched myself up and over the rest of the way, landing softly on the other side. I paused for a moment, waiting for my body to react to the forces of gravity; for the bottoms of my feet, my ankles, knees, hips and back to scream their protests at jumping that distance and the more pain-inducing landing.
I gingerly took a step, when I realized I was going to be spared all those pops, groans and potential breaks. For that, at least, I was happy.
“What about the bikes?” Tommy asked.
“I just said that to throw BT off.”
There was that constant underlying funk of the dead as we roamed the streets. None were around us but the smell hung like a low covering of ground fog.
“You know where we’re going?” I asked Tommy softly.
“You do know we can communicate without speech right?” he asked.
“Yeah, I know, it just weirds me out.”
“Weirder than getting eaten?”
‘Fine, have it your way,’ I said through our silent communication.
‘Another mile or so.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The smell is most of it, and if you stopped closing your mind off to it, there’s still a connection there.’
‘You’re giving me crap because I don’t want to talk with zombies?’
‘Good point.’
We turned a corner and realized too late we weren’t alone.
‘Miss that one?’ I asked Tommy sarcastically.
“No guns.” He pushed my muzzle down.
“Dammit.” I grabbed the machete from its sheath behind my back.
“Hear that?” Tommy asked, putting a hand up to his head.
On some level I did, there was this low grating buzz that I just figured was a brain aneurysm. I told Tommy I didn’t hear anything.
“He’s communicating.”
“With us?” I asked, genuinely concerned. The last thing I wanted was a heart-to-heart with Larry the Lurcher.
“Other zombies,” Tommy said in a tone that left no room for doubt that he thought I was nuts to think such a thing.
The zombie was actually wavering between running at us and waiting for his buddies to come. For a moment it looked like he was going to flee as I came at him with the large blade. Now that would have been something to see. A zombie running from me, I would have paid good money for that. Instead, I was witness to the slicing open of his head. Blood blew out in a halo. That incessantly irritating sound he was making stopped before he hit the ground.
“Did it work?” I asked Tommy, wiping my blade off on the zombie’s shirt. At this point I wasn’t sure if I was making the blade dirtier or cleaner, all sorts of disgusting things were ingrained on the material. Shit, I think I even saw mushrooms growing (and they weren’t of the psilocybin variety either).
“Yeah, cutting his skull worked just fine,” Tommy answered, not understanding my question.
“I meant the SOS; did he get it out in time?” Now there was very little chance I was going to be able to get away with this without Tracy finding out. I was covered in all manner of disgusting little tidbits.
“I think the range is pretty limited, but I’m no zombie expert. Still, I think it’d be for the best if we left this general area.”
“You sound a lot like my other son…Captain.”
The observation may have been obvious, but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t heed it. We moved over to the next side street, hoping that if any zombies were coming, they would be on a different approach.
We stayed in silence the rest of the way. I could sense Tommy’s agitation as we got nearer to the town’s gas station.
“Getting close,” he hissed, not even heeding his own earlier advice.
“What’s with the gas stations?” I asked. “Seems like they wouldn’t want to be around something so volatile.”
“The smell, the gas masks them.”
“I don’t know about that.” My own eyes were watering. “That sure does make them a lot smarter than I would like to give them credit for. Let’s get this done,” I said to Tommy.
I almost popped my knees out of their sockets when I attempted to thrust up from our hidden vantage point and didn’t move. Tommy had a firm grasp on my shoulder harness and I couldn’t budge.
“Guards.” He pointed to a small group of zombies milling about over towards our far left.
“Guards?” I asked. It just looked like a gaggle of the slimy fucks. “They just look like they’re hanging out.” And then I answered my own question. They were hanging out watching over their brood. “You have got to be shitting me. How can we possibly kill that many without one of them sending off a message?” There were eight of them that we could see from our vantage point and I had to believe they had more behind the station. “Will they go for bait and not call for others?” I asked.
“Mr. T, I have a tenuous link, I’m not the zombie whisperer.”
I looked over to him. “That’s funny, you know. I just thought you should know that. Alright, let’s give this a shot. I’m going to move over to their side and when they notice me I’m going to run towards here and hopefully we can kill them all.”
“Hopefully?”
“Hey, don’t give me shit. At least I made a plan this time.”
“Not really much of one,” I heard him mutter. I backed up so I could move around quietly.
Zombies were predators plain and simple. Why would they call for help if a meal was on the line? I mean, why share all this delicious meat with forty or fifty of their closest friends when eight should be sufficient to get the job done? At least that was my hope. If we got the whole den in on the action, we were going to have to leave in a hurry.
I was perpendicular to the front of the station. I had been so intent on being quiet that they had not noticed me yet. When I got within thirty or so yards, I started whistling All My Love by Led Zeppelin. I have no idea why that song sprang into my head, but it sure as hell got their attention.
All nine heads swiveled in my direction. Nine? I looked quickly in the direction I needed to go; it was about a football field away—maybe a Canadian Football field. I licked my lips, hoping that my flight would trigger their instinctual need to pursue. No worries on that front, they were already coming.
“I did this voluntarily?” I asked as I started to run.
If I didn’t have some of Tommy’s blood in me, I wouldn’t have made it, plain and simple. The zombies weren’t running to a spot where I was, like they had been, but rather where I was going. They were on an intercept course and they had a better angle. Getting a touchdown was going to be difficult.
“Coming in hot!” I shouted to Tommy when I was within a few feet.
“Like I can’t see you.”
Tommy stuck out his hands, absorbing my speed and helping me to slow so I could turn and help him fight the enemy. Nine, even for Tommy would be pushing it. The zombies fanned out once they saw that I had stopped and was standing my ground with another. Their hasty approach became one of slow and steady caution as they began to stalk us.
“This is unreal,” I said referring to their being able to adapt to the situation and act accordingly. I honestly didn’t think the use of basic weapons was too far out of their grasp, so to speak. “I’m thinking we should attack before we’re completely surrounded.”
Tommy barely waited for the reverberations of the words to stop before he moved to his side, his blade whistling through the wind. I was mid-swing when I heard a head strike the underbrush. We moved in a fluid dance of death, spinning clockwise to our center. The black steel of the blades quickly becoming covered in all manner of what was once human detritus. I’d killed three on my trip around the merry-go-round while Tommy doled out the ultimate punishment to five. The ferocity with which he dispatched his impartial judgment was awe-inspiring and quite frightening at the same time. He had more of his sister in him than either of us would have liked to admit.
I did the math quickly in my head, three plus five is eight, we were light a zombie. Then I noticed one was hauling ass back towards the building.
“This sucks. I like stupid zombies just fine,” I said as I hurtled over two dead ones.
I caught him just as I felt that niggling feeling in my skull. The tip of my blade sliced straight down his neck and back, parting the skin and giving me a perfect view of his spine. I watched the compression of his disks as he kept running before blood began to well up in the one inch wide opening. He quickly side-stepped, my next slice catching him low in the neck, more towards the collar bone. The blade was lodged deep into bone, so much so that I completely stopped his forward momentum. We both nearly went down with my wrist attached to the machete by a heavy hemp cord.
The blade popped loose as he struck the ground. He was staring straight up at me as I brought the heel of my boot down on the middle of his face. I turned my face as gore shot up and around my contact point. The next time, I stomped my whole foot down. I’d done it so hard that it sent shock waves throughout my entire body. I twisted my leg like I was putting a cigarette out, or maybe doing the funky chicken dance, you decide which analogy fits better.
I was breathing heavy; not so much from the exertion, but from the fight itself. I was disgusted by what I had just done; yet, in one sense, exhilarated. I’d defeated my enemy on the field of battle. It was them or me, and it always had to be them. This wasn’t dominoes; there was no margin for error. As Tommy walked up, we both watched the zombie’s legs twitching like the death throes of a cockroach. Now that was fucking disgusting.
“Did he get his message off?” Tommy asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
We waited there a few moments longer. Restless-Leg-Syndrome Rex had finally stopped his movements when we dared to move again. I had just opened the door to the station and taken my first step in when Tommy spoke.
“It could be a trap.”
“You don’t think you could have brought this up before I walked in?”
“Sorry.” He shrugged his shoulders.
It was possible the entire pile of zombies in here were waiting for us, but I didn’t think it probable, mainly because the zombie I was chasing had to have been calling for help. They would have come streaming out to aid, not lie in wait. At least that was my thought process going in. The stench was a physical presence pushing on all of my senses. I swear it was so thick it was like a translucent wall that I could reach out and touch.
“Is there any need to go further in?” I asked Tommy. That we had found a clutch of them could not be denied.
He shook his head. I think he had been smart enough to hold his breath. Why I didn’t think of that was beyond me. We had a little bit of luck on our side; the store section had three gas containers. Two were on the smallish side, maybe a gallon, and the third was two-and-a-half. I snagged them and went through the door that Tommy was thankfully holding open. I took a big breath when I got outside like I’d been underwater for three minutes. Tommy drove a tire iron through a gas tank and we were in business. A fair amount got on the ground, but enough got in the cans that we were going to be able to go forward with our pyrotechnics show.
“You cool with your end of this?” I asked Tommy once I laid my plan out.
“Seems like you’re getting better with the ‘thinking out’ process.” He told me.
“Yeah, I’m pretty fond of my skin and of those around me. You ready?”
Personally, I was petrified. The last time I’d messed with fire, I’d nearly died. Sure, I got to meet Trip, but the odds that another kindred spirit like that lived in this area was slim—or any area for that matter. I wonder how he’s doing? I thought as Tommy headed back in. I was right behind him, the murky light offered from outside barely penetrating the garage bay, but what little did shine in was more than enough to see the nightmare bedded down.
‘How are they not crushing the ones below?’ I thought-asked Tommy.
They had to be ten deep. They were stacked more in a pyramid structure rather than the traditional cordwood fashion we’d grown accustomed to. Another new development. Tommy was almost as silent as a ghost as he ran around the zombies, letting gas from the two cans spill around them. He almost made it undetected; right up until his hip struck the corner of a workbox sending a lone wrench spiraling to the ground. I watched the glint of it as it circled downwards. The noise it made in the silence of that tomb was deafening. I caught the milky eye-shine of more than a few zombies as they heard the solitude of their domain being shattered. That they were awake and alert that quickly was another something new. Tommy started tip-toeing back to me.
“Too late,” I told him. “They know we’re here. Let’s go!”
I pulled a grenade from my belt. The truckers at Ron’s had left a lot of little goodies, this being one of them. The pile shifted as zombies began to come down.
“Go, GO!” I told Tommy as I pulled the pin.
I released the handgrip and dropped the grenade into the gas can. I’d cut off the nozzle of the can just for this particular effect. I truly wished that I could stay and watch the show, or at least have a camera set up so I could play it back later. I tossed the grenade-laden can, hoping that I had timed it to go off just as it reached the apex of the rapidly diminishing pyramid.
Tommy was once again holding the door for me. As I reached it, he grabbed my shoulder and launched us both as a plume of flame pummeled us at nearly the same time the percussion from the explosion hit.
“Holy fuck!” I said as we came to a stop from our roll. I had to shield my eyes from the brightness that blazed before us.
“We should move further away,” Tommy said, grabbing me to help me up.
I don’t know what it is about watching large plumes of fire and ash that fascinate men so much, but I was so transfixed I didn’t even notice the stream of zombies pouring out of the station. A fair number were on fire or had some serious bodily damage as the explosion had ripped through them. But for every three or four burning or damaged ones, there was one that was in pretty decent shape and they all looked like they had revenge on the mind. Or steak…one or the other.
“Oh boy, they look pissed,” I said as we started running.
Tommy was heading back the way we had come.
“Tommy, not that way,” I said, steering him away. He immediately understood why. “Next time I think we need a bigger explosion.”
I saw him nod. I took a quick glance over my shoulder, actually happy that I only saw about twenty or so zombies. An accurate count was beyond my capabilities at the moment, but once we found a place that was semi-defendable we should be able to dispatch of them relatively quickly before another hive could get in on the action.
“Do you think Tracy heard that?” I asked Tommy as we ran. “Because you realize that, if she did, she’s going to know exactly who did it.”
“You sure do pick strange things to be concerned about at strange times,” Tommy said, not slowing down.
“Yeah, it’s no joke being trapped in this head.”
“It’s got to be easier on you than those around you.” He may have muttered or it could have just been the sound of his footfalls echoing off the houses as we ran.
He slowed half a step and smacked my shoulder lightly with his hand. When he got my attention, he pointed to a small apartment building. It looked more like a giant house segmented into ten or twelve units, seemed as good a place as any. We’d put some distance between us and our potential eaters, but we hadn’t shaken them. In hindsight, I guess we could have, but we’d wound them up. They wouldn’t be going back to sleep anytime soon, and I sure as hell didn’t want them stumbling across our DPW spot. That fence wouldn’t hold them back, and I didn’t want to be rolling around in the back of the dump truck like a super ball for the next hundred miles.
I ran up the stairs on the closest unit. I reached a small landing. I put my machete away and moved my rifle to my shoulder.
“Hold on, I’ve got an idea,” Tommy said as he pointed to another landing that was across a narrow gap. He stepped up onto the railing and with little effort he bridged the gap. He broke through the lock on the apartment and a few moments later he came back out the door. “All clear.” Then he came back to join me while getting his rifle ready.
The zombies that had been tailing us the closest knew we had deviated from the path, but they weren’t entirely sure where we’d gone. They stopped in front of the apartment and started looking around, raising their noses to the air in an attempt to pick up our scent.
“I’ll give them something to smell.” I felt the familiar push against my shoulder as I sent them a high velocity projectile. The lead zombie’s head disintegrated into a plume of blood. He hadn’t hit the ground before his posse advanced on our location. Tommy’s rifle joined in and we destroyed the front ranks of the zombies.
“Shit…how many made it out?” I dropped the empty magazine into my hand and switched out. The zombies made the foot of the stairway while I was reloading. “No sense in saving any bullets,” I told Tommy.
“Is that what you really think I’m doing?”
I shrugged.
“Reloading,” he said, warning me. This was my cue to maintain a controlled but sustained rate of fire so I could keep the zombies at bay until he was back in the firefight. I was halfway-ish through my magazine, the zombies were close to midway up the stairs. We were going to have to employ our escape plan soon. Then my throat closed shut. I thought I was going to pass out from lack of air. I saw as the muzzle of Tommy’s rifle came back up and the tell-tale click as he released his charging handle.
I pushed the barrel down just as he fired, the bullet slamming into the cement landing right next to my foot sending fragments flying.
“Mike?” Tommy asked in alarm.
“It’s Melanie,” I said, my heart sinking.
“We have to go!” he shouted, getting up on the handrail.
My niece was less than five steps away.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” I said as I joined Tommy. He launched and I was right behind him. She was snarling and hissing at me over the gap. I could see her debating about making the move. Tommy was firing again as some of the slower zombies saw our new location and began coming up the new staircase.
“Mike?” Tommy asked. “You alright?” He would fire and then look over at me.
I was staring over at Ron’s daughter, wondering how I was ever going to tell him and Nancy. Except for the blue tinge to her skin, she looked very much like my niece. Her blonde locks were matted to her head and her cute pug nose was wrinkled up in a snarl, but other than that, yes, she still looked like family.
I held up the rifle. She was leaning over so far that I was literally pressing the muzzle up against her forehead. “Do it! Do IT! DO IT!!!!!” I realized I was screaming this; trying to ramp myself up to do the unspeakable. My firing pin clicked, nothing. I tried to pull the trigger again and nothing happened. I turned the ejection port towards me, a casing was stuck between the bolt and the port door. “FUCK!” I cried in frustration and grief.
Melanie growled at me. She was alternating her gaze between me and the staircase she was on. The zombies were coming up the one we were on now. I noticed she wasn’t budging, she was waiting. Probably figuring we’d eventually have to hop back onto her side and into her mouth. She was a particularly clever man-eater, always had been I suppose.
“Mike, I could sure use your help,” Tommy said, trying to shake me out of my reverie.
I pulled the charging handle back and dug the jammed brass out. I released the handle and pushed the forward assist sending the bolt home. I blew through my thirty-round magazine as fast as I could pull the trigger. They weren’t all kill shots, but it definitely clogged up the main artery.
“Let’s go!” Tommy grabbed my shoulder.
He pulled me into the apartment. I watched Melanie’s eyebrows furrow in anger and frustration as her dinner got away. Tommy was busy leveraging a couch and a dresser against the door. He had them sufficiently pinned against a support wall that would make getting through that door some doing from the zombies. I was too busy sobbing to take much notice of his engineering feat, although I would later wonder why there was a dresser in the apartment’s living room.
“Mike?” Tommy asked, placing his hand on my back. I was sitting on a chair leaned over, my head in my hands, tears free falling from my face.
“My niece is out there, Tommy. I held her when she was first born. I babysat for her. I may have even traumatized her when I made her watch Dawn of The Dead one of those times.”
“How old was she?”
“I think she was seven.”
“You let a seven-year-old watch Dawn of the Dead?”
“She was very adamant. God I love that kid. What am I going to do?” I asked, looking up at him.
“The Christian thing,” he said, surprising me.
“And what the hell would that be? Exorcise her demons?”
“Put her out of her misery. And then tell her parents so they can begin the mourning process.”
“Is there another decision tree we can pull solutions from?” I asked, trying and failing miserably to lift my sinking spirits.
“She deserves at least that,” Tommy said.
“A bullet from her uncle…yeah, that seems fucking fair,” I said softly, anguish crushing out my anger.
Tommy said nothing more. What could he say? Zombies were at the door to the apartment, luckily, his make-shift defenses were holding.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
“I’ll come with you.”
He knew where I was going and what I was going to do, and ultimately, it was our only avenue of escape. I went into the back bedroom, my boots pressing down on the soft pile of the rug, the sheer drapes billowing softly in a slight breeze. The bed was made and a couple of books were on the nightstand. At a time when I wanted my senses dulled, I was hyper-aware. Had I looked a bit longer I probably could have figured out the thread count on the neatly turned down sheet. I opened the window further, pulled the screen in and tossed it on the bed. I stuck my head out and reached up, grabbing hold of the gutter. The building looked new enough that I hoped the screws that held it in place would support my weight for the second or two that I would need.
I pulled my body out of the window and then swung my legs up and onto the roof. So far, so good. If it gave out now, I’d be heading to the ground head first. I pushed up with my right arm and then found myself atop the roof. Tommy looked much more graceful as he gripped the gutter with both hands and pulled himself up high enough that he was able to land on the roof in a standing position.
“Show off,” I told him.
Tommy had moved ten feet to my one as he headed towards the apartment front door and our ultimate destination. I was in no rush. This wasn’t like pulling off a Band-Aid. I wasn’t going to feel better once this was over. No, in contrast, I was going to feel infinitely worse. I was going to kill this girl and then tell her father I’d done so—deeper into the depths of hell I plunged. If getting my soul back had been hanging precariously on a ledge, I’d just sprayed lighter fluid all over it, lit it on fire, then decided to piss the flames out and kick it over the precipice.
I came up beside Tommy. He was staring over the edge and straight down at Melanie. “Do you want me to do it?” he asked.
I shook my head and thanked him silently. “She’s my niece.” I brought the rifle up and switched the safety off.
Her gaze shot skyward towards me. Above the din of the zombies banging on the door, she heard that small metallic sound. Of-fucking-course she did. Her once deep blue eyes were looking up at me; for a moment I almost saw the girl I knew. If I just stayed focused on them, I would have not been able to shoot. It was the rage contorting the rest of her features that made me realize she was gone and would under no circumstances be coming back. I never heard or felt the shot as my body rocked back slightly. I would, however, never forget the look of confusion on Melanie’s face as the bullet dug into her head and destroyed her brain. I’ll swear to the day I die, if that ever happens, that for the briefest of moments, she was lucid and knew that her uncle had betrayed her.
“Come on,” Tommy said. “We have to go before the rest of them figure out where that came from.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetie.” I turned to follow.
Tommy ran to the far side of the building and then just leaped. I was kind of in shock, and now I had to try and figure out what he was doing. I quickly got to the edge to see if he was alright. He was looking around and then up.
‘Come on,’ he was mouthing, moving his arm for me to follow.
“No fucking way. That’s got to be like thirty feet.” My body at this stage in my life could barely handle the shock of a five-foot drop.
“You can’t be this dense, you’re half a vampire you’ll be fine.” Shit, I thought as I steeled my courage to jump. I was in the air when he added. “And if you break something I’ll carry you.”
I hit the ground and rolled like I’d been taught in paratrooper school. It was probably a superfluous action, but I didn’t see the reason to take any unnecessary risks.
“I don’t think any of them saw us,” Tommy said as we headed out.
Tomorrow, when the zombies cleared out, I was going to go back and give her a proper burial.