Alive in a Dead World

Zombie Fallout V: Alive In A Dead World

Mark Tufo

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Mark Tufo

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Editing by:

Teri Gibson

teri@editingfairy.com

Cover Art:

Shaed Studios, shaedstudios.com

Dedications:

To my wife who makes all of this possible and still puts up with me! (Even if she didn’t like that one scene with the sc…oh wait you guys haven’t read that yet…never mind) Honey I love you, I write it even though I know written words cannot truly express the meaning.

To the men and women that serve our great country, I will always appreciate the sacrifices you perform on a daily basis, a salute to each and every one of you.

To the New York Giants (2012) YES!!!!

To my most awesome of readers, without you folks I am merely someone poking at a keyboard with two fingers if you’ve ever contacted me you already know how I feel about all of you! To those that signed up to be mentioned here, good luck in finding your name! (So just remember I typed as CAREFULLY AS I COULD no editor went over these, if I misspelled your name please let me know!) - Martin Munro and his pups Skye (West Highland Terrier) Keila and Belle (both Border Terriers), Stacie Shular, Michael Martin, Matty O’Shields, Matt Heaps, Adeline Becker & Ray Westerman, (Kids) Wyatt, Adeline Grace, Damien, Claire (Dog) Tara, Cindy & Steve Snitily and Noah Bingham, Tammie Holloway, Tiffany Barnes, Mike Markham, and his Border Collie children Sassy and Sammy, Jennifer Honemann Carroll (she loves pop-tarts), Elizabeth Briscoe or Liz (but not Eliza!), Jimmy Phillips and his 9 month old daughter (future zombie lover) Kensley Grace Phillips, Hillare Lafond, and her Jumping Jack Russell Jenna, her big goofy Boxer Zoe and an old Mamma Lab Sushi (stay sane!), Allen Gurganus, Gloria Bean, Adam James McKissock (Love the Scots!), Duncan Sheedy (doesn’t want in, but really does), Christopher Scott Caldwell and Lisa Marie Williams (he’s my pusher!...of books), Jen, Jerry, Damien and Taylor Turpin (he’s teaching his kids young about zombies…good call!), Jesus Echevarria & Rosie Lorenz, and their faithful war dog Gunner, Christy Peery, Vix Kirkpatrick (fluffyredfox), Hunter, Bobbie & Scott Warren and in remembrance of Maggie their deceased English Bulldog, Jerome Lim (that’s an English Jerome and not a French one!), Kat Stone Olsen, Joleen Gerardo, Chris Blackburn, Susan Cornwall, Jason Lifsey, Marty Boren, Cindy Sawyer, in memory of her boxer Make-a (thank you for telling your friends!), Gareth John (good luck on your book!), Elaine Byrne, and her dogs Bailey & Buzz, Natasha Pena and her Westie Ezio (good luck to you also on your book), Marty Boren, Matthew Clark, Wes Harding and a shout out to his Beagle Demon dog Karma…she’s a bitch!, Peter Mckeirnon, Jason Waugaman and he thinks his mom Cheryl Graff wants in too!, Rob Cook, Rob Caddell & Megan Waggoner and Fatty the old English Bulldog! (I love that name), Lorna & Randy Rankin and their wonder mutt April, Rottweiler and Weimeriner mix, Zadik, Zane, Jason, Roseann and Chelsea Thorne and their beautiful boxer Astro, Jacci Hatton, Carol Brereton in memory of their beloved dogs Finn & Sheena, Gordon Fellis (GGIHHTPTT), Becci Barlow (now prepared for the zombie apocalypse!), Linda Bouyea, Paul White, Ashleigh Riddlestone, Samantha Swetman Cato, Emma Hinks, Crystal Drumheller (pre 5/20/12) Crystal Scattareggia (after! Congrats!), Jamie Gledhill from Scotland!, Ronnie Srdchiko Pacheco in loving memory of Kiko his dog, Martyn McNeil, Andrea Piper, Jackie Davis, Carolann Carlile and Shivers, Tim Root and his 12 month old daughter Alexis Root, Donna Powell, and Poppy the dog, Chuck Stultz, Nick Reed, Michelle Harper and Mr. H., Paula Best, Suzanne Meaney, Damon Boyle, Gavin & Debs Tor, and Zowie the Zombie Hunting Hound!, Daz Hull, James Fenwick and Dan Wybrow, Joe Hallett, Elaine Moyies, Mark ‘Yammers’ Powell, Paul Gosling and his daughters Milayna and Lorien, Rob Horowitz, Wanda Ivette Guzman, Tamalyn Roberts, Robert ‘Galv’ Galvin, Grant Tillie, Zombie Slaying Scotsman!, Don ‘DShizzel’ Shelman, Renee N. Moore, June Brown, June Wells and her goldendoodle Bella, who may be spastic but is the sweetest thing ever!, Dean & Janice Window and their beloved H, Doug and April Ward, Edward Gemmell (I had to look up ailurophiles-and they most certainly do not rule!), Suzy, Corrin & Katie Anderson (Mini Zombie Hunters in training!), Kathryn Fiel, Charles Pittaluga, Ray OConnor and Nandi the Bulldog, Kalon Barrett Carnahan (Ka-Bar), Melissa Beck, Jill Smith, Melissa Buker, Danielle & Andy Farnham and Saffi the Labrador, Debbie Dangos, Paul & Claire-Louise Harpham, Wanda Martin, Christian Wallner (from Austria…awesome!), Charleigh Deane, Kristi Winston, Matt Disney, Colleen Bendzlowicz, Isabella Roxby and Dottie the Dalmatian! (get it?), Paula Baca and her dog Dogo Argintino, Ignacio. (Her 100lb pup!), Shannon Durkin-Wade, Joyce Lewis Irwin, Pauline Milbourn, Ernie Hembree the humble magnificent, Micki Basile, Stephen Deese, and Ug (I love that name too!), Tori Kurtz and Ash, Robin Mahaffey and Duchess the Dalmatian may she rest in peace, Kelly Green, Dawn McDonald, Jordan Morgan, J.H. 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Laufer – Civil Rights Lawyer for the Undead, John Planker, Shawn Breen, Harvey!, Elina Menendez-Kelley, John Harrington, Diana Johnson, Jessie Rideout-Murillo, Thomas Alex Brown, Gina DiPaolo, John Timothy Harrington, Kyle Sell, Michelle Olson Post, Luke Whiteman, Jennifer Iuliano Haskins, Debby Zeman, Edward R. 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Smith and his dog Thora!, Ben Owen-Raymond and his Black Lab Scooby, Steven Morecroft and Bruce the German Shepherd, Lisa Draughn, Scott McConnell, Darlene Thompson of NY in loving memory of Buster their dog of 12 years, Harriett Gibson and her demon cat Sammy (who may just be misunderstood), Joy Buchanan (I ate all the cake!), John Jarsma, Joey Perez and his dawg Skittles, Shawnda Picraux (fellow author), Mike Giardina and Wynnie, Steven Conte, Patty (or Party!) 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Shelman, Joshua Kolak, Cathy Harris, Brian Battaglia, Courtney Beam, Ken Vervoorn and his bearded dragon Eddie, Mark Hassman, Steve Carlisle, Brandy Stangland and her dog Rambo a husky, shar pei mix, Gloria Marin and her dogs Maddie and Molly, boxer/lab mix and a boston terrier, Jerry Whitt, John Salinas, Simone Dover and her son Quentin Moore, who may be my youngest fan at 6!, Amber Allaman and her soon to be hubby’s pit mix Mocha, who would need to get past Riley to have a fling with Henry, Tina McLeod, Mike Yuhas, Vernon Gainey Jr. and Winston the bulldog, Felicia Kilbane, Richard Nelson (yes I love the Army, but as a former Marine I also must dog every other service!), Donna & Aaron Macdonald who hail from Port Moody BC Canada with their kids, Asha (13) and Kael (10), Aidy Fellows (from Australia!), Doug Waterfield (who wants in with some bacon smothered brains, is it wrong if I think that sounds good?), Sarah Ayala, Michael Reed, Gem Preater UK, Bob Mains, Debbie Watkin, Brandy Collins, Frank Sherman, Katherine Coynor and Chelsea Coynor the courageous dachshund that has never met a fight she couldn’t run away from!, Andy Swanton, Tina Hargrow, Chef Jim Zipko, Mo Patching and her faithful mutts Poppy, Schmoo, Scamper and Katiepup, Vikki Hammond, Thad Putnicki, Brian Barakis Kielbasa, Jim King, Deb Yarborough (avid fan!), Kat Stone Olsen, Tim Kareckas, Amber Sudduth and her precious Italian Greyhound/Jack Terrier mix Kalee!, Faith Grogan & Brandon Grogan, Bobbi Bradshaw

King Henry

Riley

Foreword

Hello Dear Reader,

If you find this journal, let us start with the basics. My name is Michael Talbot; I am/was the owner of the material you now hold in your hand. My life has been one living hell after another since the age of around eighteen, when I tripped on some bad mushrooms and cursed to the gods about my lot in life. Since then, I have been relegated to alternate horrific realities. In some I am younger, some I am older, some I live through and some I don’t. (I still have a hard time writing down that I have died on no less than three accounts.)

The only constant is that I am aware of what is happening, but the people I encounter along the way are not. Some are threaded throughout my lives and show up constantly, like my soul mate, Tracy and my best friend, Paul. Some appear in one reality but not another for some reason, like Mrs. Deneaux (thank God for that, at least). Some enemies remain the same, like Durgan, others not so much. I have been hunted down by zombies, aliens, ghosts and a few other creatures from the depths of a mad god’s deranged mind.

I can’t imagine that the Big Man has taken any interest. My guess is that I have pissed off one of the lesser gods (imagine that), one of the Greek or Roman deities who have been relegated to paganism since Christianity took hold. I’m not even sure if the true God is aware of my plight and if he is, why does he not rein his wayward children in?

So I write these journals down, mostly to keep my mind from addling and to keep my multiple horrors compartmentalized. So when you feel the need to complain about your lot in life, be careful who is listening and be very specific on what changes you would like to have made.

Each misadventure that I have, in no way reflects on the other. They are not a continuation of any other story. One does not need to read my Zombie Journals to know what happened on Indian Hill or even at The Spirit Clearing, but they should be aware that the main person (me) is always present. I do not know when this god will tire of his plaything, if ever. For me, the nightmare has been going on for decades. For him (or her--it wouldn’t be the first female I’ve pissed off), it may only be seconds. I look forward to one day having a normal life, if such a thing is still possible. So if you find this and you are a pious person, I would welcome your prayers to whomever you deem a higher authority. Maybe your entreaties will not fall on deaf ears like mine have.

Chapter One

“What now, sister?” Tomas asked.

“We kill Michael Talbot, his family, and his friends and then we rule this world,” she said absently as she fingered the locket around her neck.

“You’ve gotten more than you could have ever asked for, Eliza. Why not just leave him alone?” Tomas asked with chagrin.

“Why, dear brother, are you concerned for him? Do you still carry some vestiges of your humanity? Do not worry; that will fade with time,” Eliza said with a sneer, her canines flashing menacingly.

“You have it wrong, Eliza, it is not him I am concerned about. It is us, he has shown over and over that he is unwilling to yield to death.”

Eliza struck so fast, Tomas did not have time to defend himself against his sister’s slap, and it rocked him on his heels. “He is a pathetic human,” Eliza spat. “I will never fear him or any of his kind again! Do you understand me?”

Tomas nodded, dumbfounded.

“You, Tomas, are now the reason that we have something to fear from him; without our help, he will never die. Once his family dies and is ground into dust, we,” Eliza said, pointing to him and to herself, “will become his sole mission in life. He will blame us for every one of their deaths. No, we must kill him while he still has weaknesses walking on this planet. You, Tomas, have prevented Michael Talbot from eking out the rest of his existence in relative peace.”

Tomas knew his sister’s words for the lie that they were, but still they stung. “Eliza, break the stone,” Tomas said pointing to the blood locket. “We can leave this world like we were supposed to lifetimes ago.”

Eliza looked at Tomas long and hard before she began to laugh, much like a wolf laughs at the rabbit before devouring it. Cold, cruel and with no mirth. “That’s rich, Tomas, for a second, I almost believed you. Not that I would have done it, mind you, but I almost believed in your sincerity. How cunningly perfect of you! I break the locket, you rule the world unimpeded.”

“I do not want the world, Eliza, I want my sister,” Tomas begged.

Eliza’s laughter encompassed his soul as he spun on his heel and walked away.

Tomas was about a city block away before the echoes of her laughter faded.

“Tomas,” came so clearly in his head, he stopped and looked around for the source.

“Mr. T?” Tomas asked.

“Tommy?” came the question.

“He’s in here somewhere, Mr. T, he…I…we’re so tired.”

Michael’s heart sank, hearing the pain in his adopted son’s voice. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Kill my sister so that I can be released.” Tomas could “hear” the gasp from the other end of the connection.

“I never thought I’d hear those words from you, Tommy. Does it work like that? Will all those bitten by her revert back to their former selves, like in the movies?”

“No,” Tomas said, shaking his head silently and conveying that gesture to Mike. “But it will release me to join her.”

Michael got the message. If Eliza were to die, Tomas would join her in the afterlife. “Where do us soulless ones go, Tomas?” Michael asked, his fear shining through the words brightly.

“Nowhere near the garden, Mr. T. It is a lonely, dark place we are destined for, but even that is preferable to the hell I walk in now.”

“How charming,” Eliza said as she approached Tomas. “We will have to talk, Tomas, about your choice of friends. I do not think Mother would approve.”

“Eliza, the pleasure I receive when I finally sever your head from your body will only be trumped by the look of shock on your fa…”

And, like an old AT&T operator, Eliza thought she severed the connection.

“I will kill him, Tomas, and you will help if I have to drag you kicking and screaming through the blood and guts of the mortals.”

“I’ll be there, Eliza, but it will only be to witness your demise,” Tomas said heatedly.

“We are family, Tomas, you and I. Is this how you would treat one of your own?”

“Mr. T and his family are my true family!” Tomas shot back defiantly.

“Blood!” Eliza said fairly quaking. “Blood is the thickest bond, Tomas. It is something which you share nothing of with that mongrel!”

“I do now, sister. Remember? I bit him.”

“You are a fool, Tomas. You jeopardize everything we have and everything we can attain, for what?”

“Love, Eliza, for love, the most basic and strongest of all human emotions.”

“Hate, Tomas, hate is a much stronger emotion because it can burn longer, it can span generations. I’ve watched it spread across borders for no other reason than there were people on the other side of an imaginary line in the dirt. Love lasts for a few years between individuals, hate spans millennia among the populace.”

“If that is the case, then let him have his few years of love. There will still be time for hate afterwards.”

“You still don’t understand. There is no fun in defeating an opponent once everything he has is lost. Much like a fine wine, it can be savored as we pull him apart, piece by piece.”

“Hey! I’m still here. I can hear everything you’re saying about me and I’ve got to be honest, I’m not all that pleased,” Mike said, trying to inflect some levity in his words.

Tomas could not help but smile, shielding it somewhat from the raging form of his sister.

“How?” Eliza demanded.

“Not sure. I guess it’s some sort of party line, looks like we’ll be able to stay in touch a lot,” Michael said. “Maybe I’ll be able to sing you some lullabies or read you a bedtime story; you seem to get real cranky without enough sleep.”

Tomas had to turn so that his sister could not witness his delight, although the rising and falling of his shoulders was a dead giveaway.

Chapter Two – Mike Journal Entry 1

“You alright, Mike?” BT asked with concern.

“I’m fine. Why? Do I look bad?” I asked him with the same concern. I didn’t want to start turning into that pasty-looking version of Tom Cruise in “Interview with a Vampire.” He always looked anemic, although how that was possible after drinking all that iron-rich blood, I’ll never know.

“Well, to be honest, you’ve looked better, but that’s not why I’m asking. You were just standing there and then this shit-eating grin spread across your face. You looked like you had maybe just taken a shit in your pants and you didn’t want anyone to know. That sort of thing.”

“That’s pretty graphic, my friend. I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh no, why do I ask? Why God?” BT asked as he turned his head up to the heavens.

“What’s going on?” Tracy asked. The activity of the last few days was weighing heavily on her shoulders, fearing for her children and now for her husband. Tracy could not gauge if BT were wailing to the heavens or merely jesting for Mike.

“Your husband has an idea,” BT said seriously, never pulling his gaze from the clouds that flew by overhead, oblivious to the prayers that drifted through them, seeking a higher purpose.

“Mike, we’ve gone over this time and time again,” Tracy said, placing her hand on BT’s shoulder in commiseration.

“I know, I know,” I told them. “But this time, it’s going to work.”

“Heard that before,” Gary said from twenty feet across the parking lot of the Big 5 Sporting Goods store they were in the midst of ransacking. Most everything of any value was long gone, but there were a few small caliber rifles and bricks of .22 bullets, some camping gear, a few packs of dehydrated food and, for some abnormal reason, pallets of knee-high socks. It looked like the World Cup was coming to North Carolina soon.

“No, I’ve got insider information now,” I told them.

Tracy’s head bowed as she realized I was talking about Eliza. It was one thing to know about her, completely another to be linked to her.

“She’s coming for us,” I told them.

BT threw his hands to his face. “Shocker!” he exclaimed.

Tracy punched him so hard in the arm, he actually stepped back a few inches.

“Damn, woman! If I could crane my neck far enough down to see you, I’d swat you away like a fly,” BT bellowed.

“Hey, this is pretty cool, I’m usually the one in the middle of the shit storm.”

“Shut up, Talbot!” BT and Tracy said in unison, and then they high-fived. Well, to be fair, Tracy way-high-fived and BT went way-low, but it was the same thing, sort of.

“Okay, no shit, we all know she’s coming. But I know when and how. I think it’s time we went on the offensive.”

“I’m listening,” Brian said, carrying his third load of socks to the car. “What?” he said as he dropped them in the backseat. “I like to have clean feet; it’s an Army thing.”

“So you gleaned all this info from her?” BT asked, reluctant to use her name.

I nodded, maybe just a little too enthusiastically.

“Close your mouth when you’re nodding, Talbot,” Tracy said, “You look like the village idiot.”

“Any chance she fed you some misinformation?” Brian asked.

“First off, I think she’s probably too arrogant for that,” I said. “I think she’d tell us willingly what she planned on doing, probably thinking there was nothing we could do to stop it,” I told the growing group. Gary and Justin nodded in agreement. “But no, I’m pretty sure she had no clue I was eavesdropping on her.”

“Whew, buddy,” BT said, rubbing his hand over the top of his head. “This isn’t like solving the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune.”

I stopped him there. “BT, don’t tell me you watch Wheel of Fortune?”

“What in the hell is wrong with Wheel of Fortune? Vanna White is a goddess.”

I shrugged, I had to agree with him there. She might be a few revolutions of the globe past her prime, but who amongst us had never fantasized about her turning our letters on? Okay, poor sexual innuendo, but it gets the point across.

“So you were saying?” Tracy asked BT as she pushed me to wake me from my Vanntasy. (See? That was much better!)

“No offense, buddy,” BT said, “but your ideas suck ass.”

For the second time in a matter of seconds, I found myself agreeing with BT. “Granted. But I’m sick of running, I want her to re-think her strategy, I want to bleed her this time,” I said with anger.

“You are not talking that ‘last stand’ shit again, are you, Talbot?” Tracy flared. “Because if you are, I will drag your sorry ass out of here by your balls, upside down!”

BT, Gary, Paul and even MJ, who was not paying us any attention covered up their privates in a mutual shared sympathy.

Justin nearly split his side laughing. Travis was shaking his head from side to side, in disbelief that he had just heard those words issued from his mother’s mouth.

When I felt I could safely remove my hand from my nether regions, I continued, although I have to admit I had turned a slight degree or two away from Tracy, so as not to give her easy reaching access to my cherished jewels. “No, no I promise no John Wayne stuff. I want her to feel some of the trepidation that we do every waking second. I want her to think that maybe her next breath might be her last.”

“Mike, vamps don’t breathe,” Gary said.

“Analogy, brother, just an analogy.”

“Gotcha,” he said, clicking his tongue and pointing at me with his index finger.

Well, let’s get this part out of the way, I thought to myself. “Tracy, I still want you and Meredith and the boys to head back to Ron’s. The sooner you can get MJ back there and working on his wonder boxes, the better; and this gambit should buy us plenty of time.”

She looked at me coldly with her battleship-gray eyes. I waited silently for the tempest within to be unleashed. It never came. “You swear to me, Talbot, that this is not one of your do-or-die stunts and I will do as you ask.”

“Really?” I asked incredulously. “I honestly wasn’t expecting that.”

“The window of opportunity is closing,” she said forcefully.

“Yeah, yeah yeah,” I said quickly. “No, it’s not any sort of final encounter.”

“Then you teach that bitch that messing with the Talbots means you have hell to pay!”

“Sweet,” I told her. “Who wants to stay for the fireworks show?” I asked the growing crowd.

“’Bout fucking time,” Deneaux replied, clapping her hands together and rubbing them briskly.

“You’re in?’ I asked her, unconvinced.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she told me, dead serious.

“Huh. What a weird friggin’ day,” I said, shaking my head.

“What do you need and what’s the plan?” Brian asked.

Like the vast majority of my plans, it was long in thought and very short on words. As I write that, it doesn’t make much sense. Suffice to say, it basically boils down to an ambush, followed by the death of a bunch of her henchmen. If we’re really lucky, Eliza catches one in that tainted melon of hers.

“Mike, as the only black member of this dysfunctional group, I’m truly amazed that I’m still alive. I mean I’ve watched almost every horror movie ever made, and without fail, if a man of color is in the movie, he dies first. In recent years, however, it has gotten somewhat better. Now, we sometimes make it to second killed, after the ditzy blonde, but I’ve got to imagine that a brother’s life expectancy in any horror setting is generally a couple of hours, at most.”

“I agree with your movie assessment, BT, but how does that apply right now?” I asked him.

“Alright, hear me out… So me still being alive bucks that trend, right?” I nodded in agreement. “But damn, Mike, you keep breaking the cardinal sin of all flicks.”

“The splitting up, I know, I know. I feel like the idiot that says, ‘Yeah I’ll go down to the basement alone to check out the breaker box, and I only have this one wooden match to light my way. Oh, and did I mention that we heard suspicious sounds down there only moments earlier?’”

“Yeah, like that, so you know what I’m talking about.”

“Sure I do. I’m usually the one asking the characters on the screen what the hell they’re thinking.”

“Well, what are you thinking?”

“Well, it is dark and the basement does house the breaker box and my match is the extra long, barbecue-style.”

“I wonder if I could catch up to Alex?” BT wondered.

“I want my family out of here, BT. If only I could I’d send them to some lonely outpost on the moon to get away from this crap. Their safety means everything to me. They’re the air I breathe, the food I eat, the…”

“I get it, don’t go getting all soft on me.”

“Too much information?” I asked him sincerely.

“I’m starting to see under all that Marine Corps veneer. Are you sure it wasn’t the Peace Corps? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“I wonder if Alex would come back and get you.”

“You think he’s alright?” BT asked.

“I don’t know, buddy, but he keeps breaking that cardinal rule too.”

“He sure does,” BT said as he walked away.

“Paul, are you sure about this?” I asked my best friend for the better part of three decades. Damn! That makes me sound so old. And then the realization of my eternity slammed into my chest. My best friend, with whom I had shared so many experiences, would be a distant memory as I strode through the world, unencumbered by love. Would I bother with humanity at that point? The only reason I still interacted with people now was because of my wife and kids. If she were to be gone, then what? Would God forgive me? Would it even be considered suicide? I had already made my bed when I traded my soul for my family’s safety. I was pretty sure I was on the top of God’s shit list and I can guarantee that is not anywhere you want to be, just ask the ’04 Yankees. They’ll tell you the same thing.

But what of Nicole’s baby? I would have to stay alive long enough to make sure he or she was able to find their way through this world. And then if he/she had kids, what then? When would I stop? Would I follow them through millennia, much like Tommy had followed his sister? Each passing day would push me that much further away from the inevitable death I was so seeking. Banned from the Garden, the alternative was excruciatingly painful, if only because I had glimpsed the beauty of it all.

“Talbot, we’re leaving,” Tracy said, stroking my cheek, and wiping away a tear. “You alright, husband?” she asked tenderly. “You haven’t changed your mind on this, right? No Rambo stuff?”

“What?” Gary asked from the entrance to the Big 5.

“Rambo!” Tracy yelled. “Not Gambo!”

“Gotcha,” Gary repeated with the tongue clicking and finger pointing gesture.

“I’ll be glad if just to get away from his new mannerism,” Tracy said, smiling.

“I’ll miss you, wife, but I promise this will be only for a couple of days, max.”

“She’s that close?” she asked. “She’s relentless.”

“That’s one word. Mine would be much more colorful and would end up being all those funny symbols you see in the Sunday comics when Al Capp swears.”

“Al Capp? Nobody reads Al Capp anymore, Talbot. What’s wrong with you?”

“You’d think you would have figured it out after all these years,” I retorted.

“You know you’re nuts, right?” she asked me.

“That may be, but what does that say about you for staying with me this long?” I asked her snidely.

“Oh, I plan on publishing a thesis about you when this ride is over,” she told me seriously. “I’ll be famous, I’ll be up for Sainthood.”

“Tell God I said hi when you get there,” I said in jest, but its meaning had so much more depth than the way I had originally intended it. Tracy’s smile evaporated.

“Oh Talbot,” Tracy said, falling welcomingly into my arms. “What are we going to do with you?” she said, burying her face into my shoulder.

“There’s always the rodeo,” I told her. It was the first thing that came to my mind.

She wiped a tear from her eye and looked up at me. “You rarely think before you speak, don’t you?”

“What? I think I’d be great, those guys that get in the barrel and everything.”

“You know those are rodeo clowns, right?” she was telling me.

“Clowns? I hate clowns. They are the root of all evil in this world,” I answered.

“You honestly believe that, don’t you?” Tracy said. “There are zombies and vampires roaming this world, but clowns rule as the supreme evil being in your world.”

“That’s rich,” BT said. “You never cease to make me wonder what the hell is wrong with you.”

“I thought the phrase was never cease to amaze?” I asked him.

“Nope,” he replied dryly.

“Hey, Mike,” Paul said, walking away from a very angry spouse. Why the hell he was exposing his flank to a pissed-off wife was beyond me and they called me the crazy one.

“Hey, buddy. Hey, Erin!” I yelled over his shoulder.

She semi-waved, but it looked more like she was flashing me the finger as she turned away.

“I take it you’re staying for the extracurricular fun and activities?” I asked him. He nodded in return. “And you told Erin to leave with the advance party?”

“Right on both counts.”

“She’ll get over it when she sees your smiling face in a couple of days.”

“You think?” Paul asked, looking over his shoulder at his wife’s back.

“I’m an old pro at this; you’ll be fine.”

“I haven’t gone yet, Talbot,” Tracy said from her car door as she loaded an extra clip of ammo. “I can still kick your ass before I go.”

I was going to comment on how good someone, who only a few short months ago hated firearms, was now loading a clip. But then, the reason of why she was so proficient at this new skill struck. I would rather she remained inept than have to deal with this walking abortion we’re calling life. I reverted to, “Yes, dear.”

Chapter Three – Mike Journal Entry 2

I actually did not feel bad when Tracy, the boys and the rest left because I knew what we were doing was right and it felt good. We would finally make a stand, sort of. No more retreating and firing blindly over our shoulders as we ran for our lives. We were taking the fight to her and it gave me goose bumps just thinking about it.

“This is a great set-up,” Brian said, coming up to me as I surveyed the highway below us. “Plenty of clear firing lines and ample opportunity for escape.”

“You ever killed a human?” I asked without turning.

“I’ve killed dozens of zombies,” he responded.

“I didn’t say zombies,” I told him, now turning to look him in the eyes.

“What are you talking about Mike?” he asked with a “what the hell?” expression.

“I’m asking have you ever killed an air-breathing human with thoughts, feelings and a hope for the future before? In the Army?”

“More times than I’d like to count,” he told me solemnly. “Why?” he asked cautiously.

“Well, not that I consider the stupid bastards that hooked up with Eliza to be much above the zombies, but she has at least a hundred or so human sympathizers that help move her horde around and give her nourishment when she runs a little low on fresh stock.”

“Are you shitting me, Mike?” Brian said, looking like he was getting a little green around the gills.

“Not at all, and those are the ones I want to target.”

“I wasn’t sure what to expect with this, but I guess this wasn’t it. I was really kind of expecting a giant mob of zombies to be coming down the highway and we would just let gobs of lead fly.”

“Oh, we’re still going to let gobs of lead fly, just a different target than you were expecting.”

Brian walked away, maybe now regretting his decision to stay behind, but I was glad he was here.

“How much time do we have?” BT asked, sitting on the rear hatch of one of the new trucks Ron had given us. New in years, not in looks.

Ron was going to be pissed. The one he had given me had been blemish-free; this one looked like we took it through an industrial flaying machine, whatever that would entail. Bowling ball-sized divots creased the hood, the moose damage nearly lost. Well, that was one positive.

“Are you putting on new socks?” I asked him, shielding the sun from my eyes.

“Yeah, Brian gave them to me. They’re real nice.”

“They make socks in your size? I just figured you used old canoe covers.”

“Have I told you lately how funny I think you are, Talbot?” BT said, muscling his left sock over his foot, stretching it well beyond its capacity.

“You’ve got those things stretched so wide, they look like fishnet,” Gary said as he walked by to set up a tripod with a spotting scope.

“Two Talbots, half the fun,” BT roared.

To answer your question, we’ve got maybe two days,” I told him, turning back to the roadway. I was almost able to see the leading edge of the evil that was coming.

“You know, I love me some good plinking, but don’t you think we should maybe up our arsenal a little?” BT asked as he put his shoes on. The image of BT wearing fishnet stockings gave me a smile that I made sure to hide before I turned to talk to him.

“Yeah, the Big 5 didn’t pan out quite like I had hoped. If this one is dry, it’s a good chance that everything in this vicinity is pretty much tanked.”

“So I hate to ask, but what’s your plan?”

“You’re not going to like this,” I told him honestly.

“Again with the shockers today.”

“House to house.”

“What! Are you insane, Talbot?” Wait, don’t answer that. I’d rather not know the answer. You know that’s a good way for us to get our heads blown off.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Mrs. Deneaux said. She had been resting in the front seat. “I’m nearly out of cigarettes.”

“Great! I’ll grab the Camels under a hail of fire!” BT yelled.

“That would be wonderful, dear,” Mrs. Deneaux answered him in all seriousness.

“You two deserve each other!” BT said, pointing between Mrs. D and me.

Deneaux winked at me. I was two parts amused and one big part scared shitless.

BT stormed off, digesting my words.

“He’s very dramatic for such a large man,” Mrs. Deneaux said, looking at his retreating back.

“I thought I was the only one that didn’t think before they spoke,” I laughed.

She “pahhhed” at me, but she had a merriment in her eyes that I had never seen before from her. Strange times we were living in.

Chapter Four – Mike Journal Entry 3

“Hello occupants of this house!” I shouted. “We are friendly!”

“Very convincing,” BT said sarcastically from the front seat of the truck. I didn’t want him to come out. Just the sheer size of the guy made him look like hostility incarnate.

“I’m trying to establish a repertoire, BT,” I yelled to him.

“Bullshit, I bet you can’t spell the word and probably don’t even know what it means.”

“I most certainly know what it means,” (He was right on the spelling part though.) “You’re a pain-in-the-ass,” I told him.

“Hurry up and get your ass shot at, will you? I need to get out of this truck. My leg is starting to cramp up on me,” BT said.

“Hi occupants.”

“What are you? Junk mail?” Gary asked.

“Really?” I asked my brother, who was standing next to me, looking at the windows to see if any of the drawn shades moved.

“I just think that you could use a more personal touch,” he suggested.

“Give it a go,” I told him.

“People of Seventeen Georges Road!” he shouted.

“Much better,” I told him. He nodded in agreement.

“We are here looking for supplies, only from unoccupied homes. If you are home, please let us know and we will move on to the next house. We do not wish any sort of confrontation. Again, we are only looking for supplies,” Gary finished.

It sounded reasonable, but would anyone believe us? I wouldn’t, I’d be thinking they were looking for people. I’d no sooner open my door for strangers than I would a pack of zombies. This was more dangerous than taking Eliza head-on, yet here we were on both counts.

“I think I saw the shade move,” Gary said to me, I think he was full of it, but we turned around and addressed the next house.

“People of Eighteen Georges Road,” Gary said.

“How much time did you say we had?” BT asked, stepping out of the truck.

“Oh, will you shut up that racket!” the person from Seventeen Georges Road said. “Been trying to sleep in a little bit and then you band of idiots comes traipsing through the neighborhood. Should have brought one of those stupid ice cream trucks with the music going too!” he yelled out from his front screen door.

He stepped out and appeared to be in his late fifties, early sixties, plaid pajama bottoms, old brown slippers, and a threadbare terry bathrobe, that had filled more than one moths belly. The perfect picture would have been if he’d had a pipe in his mouth and an over-under shotgun in his hands. Both elements were noticeably missing.

“What do you need!?” he yelled. “The sooner you dolts get what you want, the sooner I hope you’ll get out of here.”

I was a little dumbfounded. It was not often these days when I got berated. Shot at? Sure. Dressed down? Not so much.

“Damn! I thought Deneaux had crotchety all sewn up. She’s got nothing on him,” BT said. Then he sheepishly turned around, realizing that Deneaux was only a few feet away. “No offense,” he said to her.

“None taken,” she said as she stepped from the cab. “We need cigarettes,” she yelled right before she began a coughing fit I was sure would dislodge a hot, blackened lung from her thin chest.

“Plenty of those,” Crotchety said. “More than I could smoke in this lifetime. Never smoked before, but when I was in that empty convenience store, it seemed like something I wanted to start. Smoked one of them damn things when I got home and realized I couldn’t stand them. Didn’t really see a need to bring them back.”

Mrs. D was already on the move.

“I’ve got some food, but I’m not in the sharing mood. Plenty of other houses you can get that from.”

“Sir, we don’t need any of that, we’re looking for guns and ammo.” I told him.

“What do you need that for?” he asked in all seriousness. I thought he was dead panning a killer joke.

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked him when he was still looking at me for an answer.

“I have never carried a gun, so I saw no sense in starting now. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those bleeding heart liberals; just always afraid I’d kill myself figuring out how to use them. I have a knife, but I only use that to cut open packages of stuff.”

“Wait,” Brian said, not believing a word he was hearing. “You’re telling us that you’ve survived all this time not having to shoot or kill anything?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that I didn’t kill anything. About a week back, had this mean old raccoon trying to get into my basement, threw a brick at him, but he didn’t get the message. Took two slugs with the shovel before he finally died.”

“You’re…you’re playing with us, right?” Brian asked, still not believing a word he was hearing.

“I don’t know you from Adam, son, and I’ve never been known to play.”

Mrs. Deneaux pushed past the man and into his entryway.

“They’re in the cabinet in the kitchen next to the fridge,” he told her, pointing back into his house. A few seconds later, I could hear what could only be described as a cow getting its milk-fattened udders caught in multiple mousetraps, it was that unsettling.

“Is that Deneaux?” Gary asked, placing his hands over his ears.

“I guess she found the cigarettes,” Crotchety said.

Brian was shaking his head, walking around in small circles. He was mumbling to himself. “No guns! The world is caving in on itself and this crazy old bastard doesn’t even have a gun.”

“What’s wrong with your friend?” Crotchety asked. “He looks like he has distemper.”

Deneaux pushed past the old man, her arms stacked high with cartons of varying smokes. She looked like a schoolgirl that just got a fully paid shopping spree to the mall.

“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Would you happen to know where we could get some guns then? So that we can be on our way.”

“You look like you’re planning trouble,” Crotchety said with scrutinizing speculation. “I don’t like trouble. It tends to get people killed.”

“Listen, old man!” BT bellowed. “See this man here?” BT said as he placed his hands on my shoulders. “If trouble were the rarest element on the planet, my good friend, Michael Talbot,” BT tousled my hair for effect, “would have the entire market cornered.”

“Thanks, man.” I appreciate that.

“No, this man needs to understand. If trouble were a fine thread, Mike could weave it into a three piece suit.”

“I think he gets it.”

“No, I’ve got one more.”

“Fine, go ahead.”

“If trouble were a drop of water, Mike could fill a swimming pool.”

“Oooh, that was the best one,” Gary said.

“Hilarious, guys.”

“And you stay with him. Why?” the old man asked.

“Because for some damn reason, he always finds a way to stay one step ahead of it,” BT said proudly.

“One step isn’t a lot of cushion, son,” Crotchety said.

“I’d be six feet under, if it wasn’t for him.”

“Understood. Three doors down, dipshit named Greg Hodgkins, Nascar fan and all that implies was shooting through his window for hours it seemed when the zombies first came. That very same night, I heard his screams for help. The more he shot, the more zombies came. Now I’m no genius, but it almost seems that if you leave them alone, they tend to do the same.”

“Yeah? We haven’t had that kind of luck,” I told him.

“No,” Gary said over-exaggeratedly as he shook his head.

I looked over to where this great battle had waged, but except for a few splotches on the curb, I didn’t see much evidence. “Where are the bodies?”

“We waited a few--” he started.

“We?” I asked.

“Sonny, do you really think I’m stupid enough to answer my door in my sleeping gear without a little back-up?” he asked as he pulled a small walkie-talkie from his pocket. He must have seen the look on my face. “Relax, no one has you in their sights, just yet. We just kind of keep an eye out for each other.”

“I completely understand.”

“So we waited a few days until any of the zees that could move on their own power left, and then we piled up the rest of them and had a huge bonfire. We gave Greg a proper burial, although I’m not sure he deserved it. He was kind of a prick, you know the type. Has two pit bulls and lets them roam the neighborhood. Kids were scared to go out and play.”

“Nobody else wants anything?” I asked trying to be as nonchalant as possible as I did a three-sixty trying to ascertain where his “friends” might be. It was possible he was bluffing, but the situation didn’t necessitate me seeing his cards.

“Those of us that are left want for nothing.”

“Thank you…” I wasn’t sure how to address him.

“Occupant works just fine, and just so we’re clear, you’re welcome to rummage all you want in his house and no other on this street. Are we clear?”

“Not a problem, thank you for your hospitality.” And for once, I meant it, not a note of sarcasm in my voice. I’d like to say I’d help a stranger, but I think I’d be fooling myself.

Deneaux was busy opening multiple cartons of smokes, smelling individual packs as if they were fine wines, while the rest of us walked down to Greg’s former abode. Except for a few busted out windows, his home looked in fairly decent shape. Two rusted-out hulks of cars sat on cinderblocks on the side of the driveway.

“Holy shit,” BT said, “it’s the living embodiment of a cliché.”

“Okay, to make this perfect, he’d need to have an old school, giant, television box, but it has to be broken and have a small, thirteen-inch black and white sitting on top. I answered him. “First gun choice bet?” I asked him.

“You’re on,” BT said, fist-bumping me.

“Dammit,” I said as I walked into Greg’s den and found myself staring straight at what appeared to be a mammoth, sixty-five-inch flat screen TV mounted to the wall.

“Now I might not be the most intelligent man, but my guess is that isn’t thirteen inches. Do you want me to round up a tape measure to make sure?” BT asked, smiling.

“Find the guns, ass,” I told him as I went into the kitchen, where an H&K 9mm sat on the kitchen table. “How do you feel about 9mms?” I shouted to BT. I was thinking this was going to be a treasure trove and I wanted his first dibs selection off the board.

“That is a weapon of choice of the common thug and I want no part of it, especially since I am looking at a fully auto AK with a drum magazine.”

I ran out of the kitchen to see what BT was holding. It was a sight. And I would have loved to have gotten it, that was of course, until we figured out that that was what Greg had been using before his demise and he had not saved even one last round to take himself out.

“Hard luck,” I told BT, smacking his shoulder as we tore apart the house for fifteen minutes, looking for anything to change the gun from its status of dangerous looking paperweight.

“I can still swing this thing,” BT said. He was pissed because after that, I came across a riot shotgun, which I laid claim to, plus about a hundred deer shot rounds. Besides the other arms we found, he had an AR, but it looked like he had run over the lower receiver with a tank. There would be no rounds going down range in that thing.

“Not bad, it’s a start,” Brian said as we loaded the truck.

“I don’t care what old Occupant Seventeen said, but that house was ransacked,” BT said, still completely irked about his lack of rounds.

“Maybe if you just wave it around aggressively, people will get scared,” Gary suggested.

“Talbot you had better rein your brother in,” BT snarled.

“He’s my older brother, BT. He isn’t going to listen to me.”

“Nice pistol,” Paul said as I was looking it over, trying to figure out the cocking mechanism, safety and every other moving part. “You should give it to Deneaux.”

I looked at him like he had just snorted some weed.

“No man, I’m not kidding. The lady can shoot the balls off a gnat from across the room,” he told me.

“Paul, I love you, man, but I think all those years of drug use finally caught up with you.”

“Well, if they caught up with me, they sure as hell snagged you too.”

“Fair enough, but I’m not the one suggesting we give Deneaux one of the few guns we have right now.”

“Listen I know you’re a great shot with the rifle, no doubt. But she’s unshakeable with the pistol. I watched her, man, she was like the pistol champ of 1908 or some shit.”

“1908 huh? What’s that make her? Like one hundred and thirty?”

“She could be,” Paul said, looking over to the cab. “Doesn’t matter though, she’s freaking amazing with that thing.”

“Fine. I’ll take your crazy ass word for it.”

“You are not giving that old bat that pistol are you?” BT challenged me.

“She has to guard her smokes somehow,” I told him.

“We had an understanding, you and me, Talbot. I would hang with you, if and only if, you didn’t get any fucking nuttier,” BT told me.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” I told him. I walked over to the cab of the truck.

Deneaux was barely visible from the dense cloud of smoke she was producing. I rapped on the window with the pistol. “You want this?”

She rolled down the window only far enough to grab the proffered weapon. “H&K P2000 V3 9mm,” she said, putting the cigarette she had in her right hand in her mouth so that she could grab the pistol. I just want to note that she already had one in her mouth, which I can only assume she was holding with her left. “Nice weapon,” she mouthed around the butts. She pulled the slide back and looked in the chamber. “Clean too, how many rounds?”

“Fifty-ish.”

“I’ll take it. We done?” she asked, looking up at me. I nodded, but before I could complete the gesture, she rolled her window back up.

“Always a pleasure,” I told her. She waved me off and began to load the clip. “Who wants to drive?” I asked.

“I’d rather run behind the truck now,” BT said and he probably would have too if my emergency field surgery on his shot leg hadn’t left him with a pronounced limp.

“Hey, you’re the immortal,” Gary said. “You should probably drive, all that second-hand smoke would be bad for the rest of us.”

“You guys suck,” I said. We all got back into the truck I made sure to honk for an extra long burst as we pulled away from Seventeen Georges Road, I waved enthusiastically for his hospitality. What can I say? I was feeling a little dour. Seventeen gave me the finger as we rolled away. We couldn’t keep doing this house to house crap. Eventually, we were going to come across someone that didn’t want company and we didn’t have the numbers or the arms to get into a firefight from an undefended position.

I was thinking of scrapping the whole idea of punching Eliza in the eye and just racing to catch up with Tracy. I’d rather spend my last few days with her anyway.

“I’ve got an idea,” Brian said from the backseat where the smoke was only minimally better. Gary and BT had thought it a better idea to sit in the truck bed, it was a balmy fifty degrees out and the sun was shining bright.

“I’m listening,” I choked out through the curtain of carcinogens.

“If you can find a hardware store, we’re going to need some tools.”

I drove back by the Big 5. If I remembered correctly, I had seen a Home Depot somewhere in the vicinity, I hadn’t really acknowledged it then, as I wasn’t planning on building a catapult at the time. “Hey, you’re not planning on making a trebuchet, are you?”

“A what?”

“A catapult-looking thingie.”

“I should have sat in the back with the other two,” Brian complained.

Paul had his sweater up over his nose, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Shit, Deneaux, could you lighten up a little on the cigarettes? I can barely breathe.”

“That’s the problem with you young ones today, no longevity. You are like all the products of your time, you’re not built to last like us old timers are. Probably would have asked for your HR generalist before you landed on the beaches in Normandy. We weren’t called the greatest generation for nothing.”

I almost put the truck up on two wheels when I realized I was just about to miss the entrance to the giant, box hardware store.

“Talbot, you just about made me fall out!” I heard BT yell.

I waved my apology to him, I was beginning to pass out from the oxygen loss. Brian, Paul and I raced to be the first to spill out of the cab. I think Brian won, but it was a virtual three-way tie without replay.

“How much room you got back there?” Paul asked after his coughing fit was through.

“Enough,” BT answered in sympathy.

“What are we doing here?” Gary asked.

“Brian has a plan,” I told him.

“Okay just so we’re clear. All you military types don’t think alike, right? I mean when he says he has a plan, it doesn’t involve some crazy stuff, right?” BT asked.

“Hell if I know. He didn’t tell me. Let’s lock and load insofar as we can,” I told the group.

Mrs. Deneaux came out and rubbed her half-smoked butt on the side of the truck so that she could smoke it later. “Oh come on,” she said to me when she saw me watching her in amazement. “You’ve already beat this truck into submission. Your brother won’t even notice this,” she said, pointing to the new, black burn mark.

“You have like five thousand cigarettes; why are you saving that one?” Gary asked.

“I plan on smoking every last one of them,” she cackled.

“Yeah, and most likely in the next few hours,” I answered. “Alright, let’s keep our eyes open for any of the squatters.” That’s what we were calling the zombies in the sleeping packs. “Any of those and we’re out of here, no matter if you got what you need or not, Brian.”

“Understood,” he said, nodding his head tensely.

I went through the door first, feeling totally inadequate with my .22 rifle. I had left the shotgun in the truck. It had some damage and until I could ascertain if it worked, I wasn’t going to risk our lives with it. “This sucks,” I mumbled.

“You say something, hoss?” Brian asked as he came up on my left flank.

“Just wishing I had something a little more potent than this pea shooter,” I told him.

“Bet that’s what you’re wife says,” he said. He stopped. “Sorry man, battlefield humor, helps ease the tension.”

“Not for me,” I said and he laughed. “Wow,” I said softly, the store didn’t look like it had even opened for business yet. It was virtually picked clean, except for a few scraps of lumber, haphazardly scattered on the floor. “Is this worth it?” I asked Brian.

“Maybe. What I’m looking for wouldn’t garner much attention. I wouldn’t think.”

“Alright lead on.” The five of us stayed in a tight-knit group, keeping eyes on every angle of approach. The stench of death was present, but it was impossible to distinguish if it was from dead people or walking dead people. Funny, but now I was wishing Deneaux was smoking to quench some of the stench.

We started to head down an aisle, but I didn’t like the idea of us being this tightly grouped, I was envisioning zombies flooding in from both ends. “Hold on,” I told the group. “Let’s do some reconnoitering. Gary, could you go up to the end of the aisle and make sure we’re not going to meet anyone we wouldn’t want to?”

“Is this about that time I told Mom when you snuck out of the house?”

“That was you?” She always told me that she had gotten up in the middle of the night because the dog had barked. “I got grounded for a month because of you?”

“Well what the hell were you thinking, leaving your bedroom window open in November?”

“I needed to get back into the house, didn’t I?”

“Well, how would I know you snuck out? Mom was up, getting a glass of water in the kitchen, I told her your bedroom window was open.”

“Do you have any idea how much she scared me when I got back in and turned on the light and she was sitting at my desk?”

“Oh I bet that was pretty scary,” Gary said empathizing with me.

“If I was any older, I probably would have had a heart attack.”

“If you were any older you wouldn’t have had to sneak out.”

“Boys,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “This is really fascinating, but I have a cigarette with my lip marks on it that I’m dying to get back to.”

The thought of anything with Deneaux’s lip marks on it gave me the shudders, apparently Gary too because he went to the end of the aisle without any further delay.

“Nothing up here!” he yelled.

“I thought you said he was in the military?” Brian asked.

“Air Force,” I told him.

“Oh,” Brian answered.

“BT? Can you, Paul and D stay here?”

“You got it, Mike, but this place does not feel right. I think we need to get going sooner, rather than later.”

“Understood, we’ll make this quick.”

“What could possibly make such a strapping young man as yourself afraid?” Mrs. Deneaux asked BT.

“You, for starters,” he answered, looking over her head for any signs of trouble.

“I’m going outside to finish my cigarette.”

“Shit,” Brian murmured as we looked in the tool section.

“What are you looking for? I can help,” I told him.

“Bolt cutters,” he told me almost simultaneously with Gary’s words.

“Movement!” Gary shouted.

“I am so sick of zombies,” I said aloud, but not really directed to Brian. My next sentence was, though. “You want to hear something sick?” I asked him.

“Not really, I’d like to get the bolt cutters and get the hell out of here.”

I ignored his entreaty completely. “I secretly wished something like this would happen. Yeah.” I continued when he looked over at me strangely. “I was sick of my boring ass life and my shitty job. It all seemed so pointless back then. I went to work, came home, ate dinner, said about five words to each of my kids, ten to my wife, went to bed, and then did the same thing the very next day. I mean, I don’t know if I was exactly thinking of a zombie invasion. A potential alien takeover or perhaps Chinese troops making a beach head in California would have worked just as well. I don’t know. I really didn’t care what the calamity was as long as my family was safe and I got out of my rut.”

“Couldn’t you have maybe hoped to win the lottery?” Brian asked me as he turned over a tool box laying on the floor.

“Maybe, but that seemed so farfetched.”

“More so than the world being overwrought with zombies and aliens?”

I noted that he didn’t discuss the Chinese because that was truly a potential threat. Hadn’t thought much about China since this crap started, but they must have close to a billion zombies over there by now. That was a mind-boggling number. I shrugged my shoulders.

“Two maybe three somethings coming this way, still can’t tell what they are though!” Gary shouted. He was backing down the aisle towards us.

“Probably safe to say if they aren’t talking, we know what we’re dealing with,” Paul answered as he went back to the front door to make sure our avenue of retreat wasn’t sealed off.

A shot fired from the top of our aisle.

“Did you get it?” I asked Gary as he came back to us.

“No, I was firing a warning shot.”

“Um, Gary we talked about this. Zombies don’t traditionally care about those kinds of things.”

“I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t see them through the aisles. You sure Glenn didn’t just maybe drop you out of the ranger station window that day at Blue Hills?”

I got the shivers just thinking about it. “There they are,” I said flatly, pointing to three of the mottliest crew of Home Depot workers to ever shamble along. They were a mess--torn, blood-stained clothes, at least two had suffered some sort of gunfire damage. The third, an old man of about eighty, looked like he had a foot and a half in the grave before this started. Surprisingly, the only things that were relatively intact on any of them were their bright orange aprons. “You can ask them if they’ve seen any bolt cutters,” I told Brian.

He looked over to the zombies and then at me. “I wonder if I can still catch up with Alex. He seemed to have his shit together.”

“Only if you take Deneaux,” I told him as I put my pop gun to my shoulder.

“Fine, I’ll stay,” he said as he began to look with a little more fervor through the strewn tools.

“Throwing screwdrivers would be more effective,” I said prophetically as I pulled the trigger. The lead zombie paused for a fraction of a second as it absorbed the impact and then began its forward progress again. “Are you kidding me?”

“It looks like it wrapped right around its skull,” Gary said, looking over my shoulder.

“Do not tell me this is a new version of zombie,” I said, eyeing the zombie for any sign of it stopping.

“What do you mean?” Gary asked.

“Could they be growing thicker skulls as protection?”

“That’s impossible,” Brian said. “That kind of adaptation would take thousands of years. AHA!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Not the biggest pair, but they’ll do.”

“That’s what she said,” I said, just because that’s what men do.

“Bathroom humor, Mike? Here? Mom would be so proud.”

“Sorry, it’s who I am. And anyway, he started it.”

“I’ve got what I need. Let’s get out of here,” Brian said, holding the bolt cutters up and heading quickly for the exit.

I placed a well aimed .22 center mast on the zombie’s forehead. His head snapped back a bit, I saw the gleam of white bone which became immediately coated with a brackish gel that looked a lot like congealed blood. The third bullet finally pierced through and he stopped cold. “You planning on shooting?” I asked Gary as my rifle jammed.

“I was going to save my ammo,” he told me matter-of-factly. “What’s the matter? You’re doing fine.”

“I have a jam.”

“Well, fix it. They’re deaders anyway…”

I looked up. The two shamblers on the left had been playing possum and were coming full tilt. Well, one of them was anyway. The old man was trying to get his giddy-up going, but that passed him by two decades ago.

The first zombie plowed into me. I was barely able to put my rifle up in time to keep him from biting any part of me off. “Shoot him!” I yelled.

“You guys are all entangled. I can’t,” Gary said in alarm.

“A bunch coming for the doors!” Paul yelled.

The zombie was an inch from my face, his breath was swoon-worthy, but I didn’t have the time for my inner diva to make a show. Its hands were making a clutch for the rifle. I simultaneously pushed him away with the rifle and let go. He could have the jammed piece of shit. I rolled to my right, a Philips screwdriver puncturing my side. The smell of the fresh blood got the zombie moving frantically. He let the gun go, his gray filmy eyes fixed on mine. I never took my eyes off him as my hands reached around the tools, looking for something zombie killing-worthy. I was having no luck as I first came across a rubber mallet and then a hacksaw. “Are you kidding me, God?” I shouted. And maybe he was, but then he guided me to a short-handled tool of some sort. I couldn’t tell what was on the end, but it had heft, and right now, I could deal with some blunt force trauma. The zombie had pulled himself closer, and I rolled onto my left hip and swung whatever the hell I had in my right arm as hard as I could. The safety-coated hand axe shone dully as it arced down and into the side of its head. My arm shivered from the impact, but the zombie seemed momentarily stunned. I kept rearing back and used as much leverage as I could, bringing my body up and slamming down with as much force as I could muster on each subsequent hit. I could hear his skull splinter with the first two hits, and the third finally broke through. My reward was a huge squirt of his creamy insides. I was repulsed as liquefied gray matter spilled forth. My feet were barely able to gain traction as I pushed away from the scene. Small white maggots wriggled around in the goop for a few seconds before becoming still. I might have decided to get a closer look, but Gary took this moment to put a bullet in its head.

“Little late to the dance, aren’t you?” I asked him. He put his hand out to help me up.

“Had to get rid of Papa Smurf and you looked like you were alright.”

“Kind of fits him, doesn’t it?” And it did. The old man had a white beard, was older than most craters, not to mention he had a significant blue hue to him.

“You might want to take the rubber off your axe,” Gary said as we moved back down the aisle to the doorway.

I grabbed a screwdriver and pushed the hair and bone covered material from the blade. “I wish it had a longer handle.”

“I wish it fired rounds,” Gary added.

“Well, that too.”

Paul was keeping the zombies at bay, more from the smoke screen his shots were producing than actually making a dent in their numbers. BT was down to a broom handle and was pushing the closest zombies away with it. He kept sticking it in their faces and sending them skidding backwards. They didn’t get the concept to grab the stick. Their arms were uselessly outstretched, trying to get a hold of their potential food.

“Mike! This is fun and all,” BT said with some effort. “But I really think we should get going.” A couple of zombies jostled into the broom handle, dislodging it from BT’s hands.

We had a window of escape, but it was starting to look like one of those fantastic, heavy-metal-doors-coming-to-a-close, Indiana Jones kind of escape.

And then Dirty Fucking Harry saved the day. Well, in this case, I guess it was Harriet. Mrs. Deneaux came in the front door, cigarette in mouth, cloud of smoke encircling her head, and one eye squinted. She took a quick assessment of the situation and flew through her magazine of rounds. Zombie heads whipped back before their bodies followed. Chunks of hairy, matted bone flew through the air. Eleven zombies dropped. What was going to be a narrow escape was now something we could drive a semi through.

“Thank you,” I told her breathlessly as we got to the door.

“If I were fifty years older, I’d marry you,” Gary said, kissing her on the cheek.

“I knew it!” BT shouted. “All white women are crazy!”

Mrs. Deneaux cackled loudly as we mostly carried her to the truck.

“I told you!” Paul said as we all got back in the truck.

“What happened?” Brian asked.

“Mrs. Deneaux is what happened!” I shouted. “She just might be the baddest ass person on the planet right now!”

Brian got the truck moving as a stream of zombies came flooding through the door. “Horrible customer service,” he remarked as we pulled out of the parking lot.

“Not bad,” I told him as I clapped him on the shoulder. My heart rate was finally coming down to something approaching “galloping horse.” A few more minutes, and maybe I’d get it to “hummingbird” status.

“Now what?” Gary asked.

“We find a storage locker facility,” Brian answered.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Storage lockers, I’m telling you they’re gold mines. My cousin does it for a living.”

“Does what, exactly?” I asked, not understanding what the hell he was talking about.

“He used to buy abandoned storage lockers and sell the contents for huge bucks.”

“Great, but I don’t think we really need an old record collection or furniture for that matter,” I told him, more than a little pissed that we had all just risked our lives for this half-assed idea.

“No, Mike, he said he always comes across guns when he does these.”

“Come on, who sticks guns in a storage locker?” I asked. It sounded like the most insane thing I’d ever heard. Sometimes I hated having my rifles in a safe at my own home because that would delay me getting to them. How much of a pain-in-the-ass would it be to tell the home invaders at your house to hold off while you put your shoes on and drive down to the storage facility to retrieve your weapons. I’m sure they’d be super understanding.

“I don’t know. Folks who only want guns for hunting season, or relatives who have passed and the kids stick everything in storage until they can go through it.”

“Or a sporting goods store that’s gone under,” Gary added.

“Maybe we’ll find Harry Potter’s magic wand too.” I said. “I don’t think the risk was worth the return, Brian,” I said, more than a little miffed.

“What do we have to lose?” he replied. “We either find something and punch Eliza in the mouth or we don’t and scramble to catch up with the others.

“Fair enough,” I relented, but I was far from placated. I did not want to go running into the night again with my tail between my legs.

Chapter Five – Mike Journal Entry 4

I found the rows of orange-colored garage doors to be more than a little unsettling. I couldn’t put my finger on it, the uniformity? Great. Was I developing a new phobia? Just what I needed. I did not like the fact that it felt like we were in an alleyway with limited avenues for escape, but I had to admit the zombie apocalypse had passed right by this place.

“See? I told you,” Brian said excitedly, almost as if he were listening to my thoughts.

“Told him what? All I see are garage doors,” BT said. “Mike, this is a waste of time. There are easier ways to go dumpster diving.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Let’s just give it a go. There’re no zombies here and little chance there will be. A small reprieve wouldn’t be so bad.”

BT growled, I don’t think he was seeing it the same way as I did.

“Where do we start?” Gary asked me. It was a daunting task; there had to be at least five hundred lockers spread out on this lot.

Brian went over to the one closest to the gate which we entered through, and with some moderate muscle power, cut through the cheap lock, opened it and looked around. “Zero for one,” he said with some enthusiasm. He grabbed his cutters and walked over to the next unit.

I went to see what was in the unit. It looked like whoever had this particular space had been saving newspapers since the mission to the moon. Yellowing, dry, cracked paper stacked floor to ceiling in most places all the way to the rear of the unit.

“Zero for two,” Brian said, barely peeking into the second unit.

There was one small, white kitchen trash bag full of oven mitts in this one. “Who the hell does that? Spends what? Thirty, forty bucks a month to store oven mitts?” I could see if they came from maybe a defunct oven mitt store, but these were used. Most had grease or burnt food on them; none of them were pristine, and yes, I checked them all. And no, I didn’t touch them, I ripped the bag open and kicked them around, just trying to wrap my head around the person that put these here.

Brian was somewhere around “zero for twenty-two” when he stopped counting.

“Talbot, we’ve been here for three hours. Surely there’s a better way to waste our time. Maybe a museum or something. I’d rather go look at something aesthetically pleasing than rummaging around other people’s shit,” BT griped.

“Whoa! Got something!” Brian shouted from pretty far down the alleyway.

“Holy crap! When did he get that far from us?” I asked. We would have been able to get there sooner, but we had to skirt around mountains of debris that had been pulled from previous lockers.

Brian came out of the locker, holding two giant rifles.

“What the hell are those?” I asked him.

“Firearms,” he said proudly.

“They look like they shoot grenades,” Paul said, looking down the barrel.

“Those are pretty useless,” Mrs. Deneaux said, coming up to us. “They’re smooth bore muzzle loaders, they need black powder, I’d say a .50 cal ball, and have an effective range of about seventy-five yards, at the most. And that drops off significantly, depending on who is shooting the weapon.” She finished off looking directly at Paul, who bowed his head. “Plus, even if we had everything we needed, they take close to two minutes to reload.”

“Brian, I don’t know how much more time we can stay here trying this,” I told him.

“There’s weapons in here. I know there are,” he said with a measure of desperation.

“There probably are, but look at all these lockers! We could spend days here trying to find them,” I told him.

“Leave me someone to watch my back. I’ll keep looking and you guys can try some stores nearby.”

“I’ll stay,” Mrs. Deneaux said, lighting a cigarette.

I looked over to Brian to see what he thought; it was his back that needed watching. “Sure,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Alright, we’ll be back in a couple of hours. If something happens here, go back to the Big 5 store.”

“Got it,” Brian said, already digging into the next locker.

Mrs. Deneaux was sitting on the bumper with her head tilted up, soaking in the sun as much as her lungs soaked in the caustic carcinogens from the cancer sticks.

“Doesn’t much look like she’s watching anyone’s back,” BT said as we walked out of the storage facility.

“We’ve got to get some wheels,” Paul said nervously. “I’m too old to run.”

“Buddy, remember we played on the high school football team together? There was a reason you were the quarterback and not a running back.”

“Not much of a scrambler then?” BT asked Paul.

“You both know what you can do with my ass,” Paul stated.

“Paul, to be fair, I watched a few of your games back then. I think you could beat Dan Marino in a foot race,” Gary said in all seriousness.

I started laughing. “Wasn’t he in the league for like seventeen years?”

“Something like that,” Gary answered.

“I think he had about seven yards rushing total for all those years. We probably should make getting a car a priority.”

“I like it much better when I’m not the object of ridicule. Should we talk about Mike’s first girlfriend?”

“Don’t you dare!” I said, spinning on my heel to face him.

Paul threw his hands up in mock surprise.

“Let’s just find a car,” I said, trying to change the subject.

We had walked about a hundred yards before anyone spoke again.

“So what about her?” BT asked.

“Paul, there’re lines in the sand and once they’re crossed, you can’t come back.” He didn’t seem fazed. “Should I bring up…”

Paul cut me off. “Mike, you swore on your word that you wouldn’t ever bring that up again.”

“We have an understanding then?” I asked him. Paul nodded eagerly.

“Damn! Just when this was getting interesting,” BT said, smiling, happy that he had just stirred the hornets’ nest.

There were plenty of cars abandoned on the street, most with the keys still in them, but the tanks were drained dry. These people had left in a hurry, not even bothering to shut their cars off. Some unlucky few had been eaten where they sat. Sometimes their bodies were half dragged out, snagged by their seatbelts as they were devoured alive. Some had telltale bullet holes in them and had been wholly left alone from the main predator that now prowled the earth; but the lesser scavengers still had to eat. Birds invariably went for the softer-tissued eyes; just one more reason to hate the flying vermin. Rats, I guessed from the droppings, were mostly concerned with chewing through whatever footwear the people had been wearing so they could get to the feet. The meat-stripped feet and eyeless dead, for some reason, were more disturbing than those that had been stripped clean by the zombies.

Gary was right behind me. He had one hand on my shoulder so that I could guide him as he kept his head pointed heavenward. His gagging had been non-stop since we had come across this snarl of dead in the center of town. The worst of the smell had long since passed and the bodies began to resemble something more along the lines of human jerky. But it was still no Yankee Candle store out here.

“What the hell happened here?” Paul asked.

“It looks like zombies came and whoever was shooting didn’t care where their bullets landed,” I said.

Gary took this moment to throw up on my back. “Are you kidding me?” I asked as I immediately handed my rifle to BT so I could take my light jacket off. I swear I could still feel the runny liquid rolling down between my shoulder blades.

“I…I can wipe it off,” Gary offered as he bent over to get the jacket I had just dropped.

“Leave it,” I told him. And that was right before he heaved all over it again.

“Sorry,” he said with a green-tinged smile.

“Is there anything on my shirt?” I asked BT.

“Aw, man,” BT said turning me around.

“Don’t fuck with me, man. I’m barely functioning right now thinking about this.”

“You’re fine,” BT said, laughing as he gently slid his hand down my back and mirrored the feeling of warm stomach bile.

I jumped away. “Paul?”

“You’re fine, man,” Paul said, smiling.

“I’ll tell them,” I said desperately.

“You’re fine!” Paul reiterated.

“You sure you don’t want this?” Gary said, picking it up by the right sleeve, just about the only part that wasn’t coated in his stomach lining.

“You bring that over here and you’ll be walking home.”

It was a few minutes and maybe a quarter mile later when we came across our first promising mode of transportation. It was an old Chevy Cavalier right at the outskirts of town. Both curbside doors were open and there were some personal belongings stowed in the backseat. A small house with the front door ajar was only a few short feet from the car.

“Looks like they never made it out in time,” Paul said with some sadness and regret.

“The keys in the ignition?” I asked Gary, keeping an eye on the doorway like I expected the occupants to come rushing out, demanding to know what was going on.

“No but there’s a box of ammo on the dash.”

“That’s promising, what caliber?”

“30-30.”

“Good hunting round,” I said. The door was intimidating. It was a black, gaping wound into a world I didn’t feel that I wanted to enter. It was a normal setting, overlaid with the surreal. “Something’s not right.”

BT did a quick three-sixty. “Nothing around, Mike,” he said in all seriousness.

“No it’s in there,” I said.

“Forget it then, let’s move on,” he said.

“There’s a car, which probably has gas because they were packing it to get the hell out of here and at least one rifle. We need both badly.”

“Gary, you’re going to stay out here and watch our backs.” It felt strange protecting my big brother, but that was exactly what I was doing.

“I’ll go in first.” I took a big breath and gulped down my fear. “We ready?” I asked BT and Paul.

BT nodded tersely; Paul didn’t even acknowledge my question, but he was right on BT’s heels as we entered. First, we were in the living room, which was stacked with suitcases and multiple bags that would have never fit into that car, even if there were no passengers. But I could tell by the toys strewn around the house, that would not be the case.

“Who cares about things when you’re trying to save your life?” BT asked softly. “They probably would have got out of here if they weren’t trying to save this,” BT said disgustedly as he pushed over a George Foreman grill stacked on a couple of the boxes that looked like they were getting ready to take with them.

To be fair, it looked like one of the top-of-the-line models, but I’m not sure when they thought they were going to get a chance to cook a hamburger, or worry about the fat they would end up eating because it wasn’t draining down into the little drip pan. Don’t get me wrong, there were possessions that I absolutely cherished when the world was still spinning somewhat on a normal axis. But life and the preservation of it top the list. I have yet to come across a Star Wars Astromech figurine that could ever replace the love I have for my kids, my wife or my Henry. But since they were all safe, I did have a pang of remorse that I had not been able to save at least one of the little R2 units I had.

“I see legs,” Paul said, moving over to the far side of the room. He was looking down a narrow hallway. “They’re not moving,” he added as we rushed to his side, rifles at the ready.

“Is that blood?” BT asked, looking over my head.

The hallway was in the shadows and the rug that was down may at one time have been taupe-colored, but years of use had left it something closer to brown and now something stained it even darker by the doorway where the legs were jutting out.

“My guess is yes,” I said. A cloying stench clung to the walls of this house; a blinding dose of claustrophobia struck quickly, lingered for long seconds and then began to diminish. “Wow, that sucked,” I said. Paul and BT, who had suffered no such attack, looked at me questioningly.

“I’ll go,” Paul said, trying to bolster his nerve.

“I’ll do it, this was my stupid idea.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” BT said.

The five steps it was going to take me to get down the hallway were worse than at Fitzy’s house. At least, this time there wasn’t any techno music. But maybe that would have helped drown out the sound of my heart trying to blow through my rib cage.

“Talbot?” BT whispered from the end of the hallway.

I threw an A-OK sign over my shoulder although it really meant shit. Something bad happened here, even above and beyond what you might think in this situation. I kicked what I figured were a man’s legs judging by the clodhopper boots he (it) was wearing. No movement yet, I waited a few ticks more, making sure this wasn’t the newest brand of sleeper we’d been encountering more and more of. I moved in a half step further, my foot coming down on the hardened rug--the blood, barbecue sauce, and ketchup having completely dried. “Keep telling yourself that, Talbot,” I said as my foot sunk into the sticky fibers.

I turned the corner into the bedroom, wholly unprepared for what I witnessed. God had died, pure and simple. Dad had blown the left side of his head completely off. It looked so clean, like it was one of the cut-aways you used to see at the doctor’s office. “Here, kiddies, is what the inside of your brain looks like when you place a high velocity round up and through the soft palate. See the separation in tissue as the bullet travels through the jelly-like material of your thoughts?” But this was just the beginning of the nightmare.

Across the room lay a crib. I said a silent prayer to a silent master, and all I received was a silent response. A small, blue fist reached up, the fingers not yet deft enough to do much more than clench and unclench in an unending struggle to reach a food source it could not attain. I glided across the room like I was on a moving walkway.

“Whaddaya got, buddy?” a nervous Paul asked. I could hear him approaching.

“If you value anything that resembles sleep for the rest of your days on this planet, Paul, do not come any closer,” I told him. I would swear I could hear his boots screeching in the carpet in an attempt to halt his forward momentum even faster.

“It’s a kid, right?” BT asked. “Aw, man, it has to be a kid. Is the kid dead, Mike? Did the dad eat it? This is horrible. Let’s get out of here, man,” BT said, very subdued.

The baby, an infant of maybe four or five months, was emaciated. Small bits of one of his parents lay scattered around him, but this thing hadn’t eaten anything more than some errant bugs since December. Its eyes, which seemed sallow and sunken, snapped open when it saw me leaning over its small bed. One small tooth poked through the upper gum. It must have latched on for dear life to be able to break through skin on whichever unlucky parent it had gotten a hold of. It began to rock back and forth, trying to get closer to me, strange gurgling noises bubbling forth from its lungs.

“What is that?” BT cried. “The kid is alive?” I could hear BT coming.

“It’s not alive,” I said flatly, my eyes fixated on the baby’s.

“I…heard…him,” BT said haltingly. “Oh sweet, sweet Jesus,” he finished when he realized what I was in the room with.

A feeling of intense hunger raked across my head, but that was the furthest thing from my mind. But not the mind of the one you’re looking at my subconscious piped in. “HUUUUUNNNNNNGGGGGRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” it said, latching on to the word I had associated with its feelings. Apparently, it was a two-way street. “HUNGRY!” it shrieked over and over. I blew four holes into its head before the echoing in my brain subsided.

BT was in the room within seconds, picking me up under my arms and pulling me out of there.

“It was talking to me,” I kept mumbling, long after BT had deposited me on the curb outside.

“You alright, brother?” Gary asked, sitting down next to me.

“I don’t think I even know what that word means anymore, Gary.”

“Bad in there?” he asked earnestly.

I was half a beat away from coming back with a sarcastic, “You think?” But why prove how much of a dick I already am? He was just trying to help.

“Got some guns,” BT yelled from somewhere in the house.

I knew in the grand scheme of things that was good news, but it did little to part the veil that I felt had slipped between my eyes and the rest of the world.

Gary got up. “Any ammo?” he yelled.

“Some,” Paul yelled out an upstairs window.

“Do you think God is getting me back?” I asked Gary.

“Huh?” he asked, trying to figure out what I was asking. “What would God be trying to get you back for?”

“I’m not sure I’ve been a great person, Gary.”

“We all have things we’re not proud of, Mike,” he said, turning back towards me.

“Did you ever chase Bible-thumpers off your property?” I asked him.

“Um no, but now I’m intrigued.”

“It was a Saturday morning, couldn’t have been much past nine a.m. and I had drunk to my liver’s content the night before.”

“Hung over then?”

“Understatement. I think I was still drunk.”

“Eww, that’s rough.”

“Tell me about it. Tracy and I had actually gotten into a good-sized fight the night before, something or other about me being drunk.”

“Go figure,” Gary said.

“I know, right?!” I responded, thinking he was agreeing with me, (but now that I’m writing this, I think he was actually coming down on her side.) “So I’m in bed, sleeping my drink off when the doorbell rings. I threw my arm over to the other side of the bed, looking for Tracy to answer the door, but she had already left with the kids to do some errands. I figured it might be some of the kids’ friends and they would get the message when I didn’t answer the door. So I shut my eyes, and not ten seconds later, they rang the doorbell two quick times.”

“What were they thinking?” Gary asked.

“I know, right?!” I was still under the impression he was siding with me, but looking at his written response takes on a whole new meaning. “So I’m in bed and thinking the little shits have one more chance at redemption before the wrath of God comes thundering down the stairs and gives them what for. I shut my eyes again against the hurtful rays of the sun, peeking around the shades. Another two blasts on the doorbell.”

“Kind of like the bells of Notre Dame.”

“Are you giving me shit, Gary?” I honestly asked because he was so dry in his delivery, I couldn’t tell. He shook his head vigorously. “But yeah, it kinda was like those bells, my head was splitting, my vision was blurry, I had to piss like a race horse, and my stomach felt like I had drunk a pint of bacon grease after eating chili dogs.”

“That doesn’t sound too good, Mike.” Gary said, starting to look a little green-tinged.

“Sorry, brother.” I had to remember Gary did not have the strongest stomach.

Go on, he motioned with one hand; he kept the other up close to his mouth.

So I ripped the door open, my gaze downward, expecting to yell at some little puissant about bothering grown-ups on their day off. What I got instead were two women and one man.”

“Were they selling vacuums?”

“What? What the hell would make you ask that?”

“I once bought a vacuum cleaner from a door-to-door salesman, one of the best vacuums I ever bought.”

“It wasn’t vacuums. Can I finish my story?” I asked him. But I think I had lost him for a few beats as he thought about his domicile super sucker. “So there they are at my door and this lady with a far-off stare and wild hair starts spouting about how I can survive the end of the world.”

“Did you listen? That sounds like some pretty good advice,” Gary said, coming back from the reverie of his vacuum experience.

“Who knew Jehovah Witnesses were so prophetic?” I said more as a statement.

“Jehovah’s? They’re like bedbugs--once you let them in your house, they’re damn near impossible to get rid of.”

“You sound like you’ve had personal experience.”

“I invited them in for coffee.”

“What the hell were you thinking? You just wanted to show them your new vacuum, I bet.” Gary bent his head slightly like I had hit the nail on the head. “How did you get rid of them?”

“It was getting late and one of them had to get ready for bed,” Gary replied.

“How long were they there?”

“Not very,” he said, avoiding the question.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“Fine, Mike,” Gary said, getting a little hostile. “They were there for close to twelve hours! I couldn’t get them to leave, I even started vacuuming so I didn’t have to hear them proselytizing. Did it for so damn long, I thought my arm was going to fall off.”

“Well, at least your carpet was clean.” What the hell else could I say?

“It was horrible,” Gary rued.

“Well, then maybe you’ll appreciate my story. I had no sooner opened the door when crazy lady number one started her spiel, then the second one tried to hand me a Watchtower. If I had had the presence of mind and knew who was at the door, I would have brought a lighter and burned the pamphlet as she held it. I started yelling at them, saying, ‘I’m an atheist! Do you want to talk about life free from religion?!’ They started to back up. I think the first lady might have actually even begun to cry a little bit, but what really put me on their ‘Do not solicit’ list was, as they were trying their best to get the hell out of there, I came out of my house and got all up in the man’s face. Reeking of booze, I screamed. ‘I’m one of the four horsemen, motherfucker! And if you don’t get the hell out of here, I’m going to ‘rapture’ your ass!’ They started screaming, running as fast as they could to their Ford Taurus.”

“Wow! Maybe you’d better hope the Big Man doesn’t favor their religion over every other, or you are screwed! And what’s with the Ford Taurus? Is that somehow relevant?”

“Not really. I just think that car is the preferred vehicle of religious zealots everywhere.”

“Mike, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t have a cabin in upstate Montana, all by yourself.”

“Would have, if I could have afforded it.” I stood up, feeling marginally better. I didn’t think God had anything specifically out against me, just mankind in general. Way better. Misery loves company.

Paul and BT were coming out of the house with a small cache of weapons. The pistol from the father’s hand was noticeably missing, which was fine with me. There was the 30-30 rifle with a beautiful Leopold scope, another damn .22 and a shotgun. My eyes grew wide, looking at the beauty.

“Twenty gauge,” BT said, deflating my spirits.

Twenty gauges were a blast to shoot, but anything bigger than a turkey and you’d have to be a foot away to kill it. Might as well be swinging a machete at that point.

“Damn, I was hoping for a little more,” I said, picking up the 30-30.

“There’s another room upstairs we didn’t check,” BT said.

“Master bedroom, most likely,” Paul added.

“You two both know there’d probably be more guns there, right?” I asked. BT and Paul shared a knowing glance. Of friggin’ course, they knew that. “Someone’s in the room?”

BT nodded. “My guess would be the mother.”

“Yeah? Why would this nightmare have any other kind of conclusion? I’m going in.”

“Why?” Gary asked me.

“This family deserves to be together.”

“You need a wingman?” BT asked.

“If I’m not out on my own in five, could you maybe pull me out? And I’ll take a bottle of Prozac, if you come across any,” I said, trying for levity. I think it came out more like a grumble mixed with a dose of grim determination.

“This isn’t necessary,” Paul said.

“You’re probably right, but if that zombie upstairs is somehow still holding onto a soul, I’d like to think that I’m putting her to peace and they can finally all be together.”

“Aren’t they already dead?” Gary asked. “They’re souls should already be gone.”

“I’m not dead,” I told Gary. He looked like he just swallowed a grapefruit. “Relax brother, I’m not mad. You would think not having a soul would be liberating,” I said. “I mean free from guilt, what more could a Catholic boy ask for?”

“I would appreciate you not talking like that,” Gary said, truly hurt.

“I’m the walking abomination, Gary. I’ll talk any goddamn way I want to!” I yelled at him.

“That ought to get you in his good graces,” he retorted hotly.

“My bad. Probably not going to make it through the pearly gates now!”

“I’ll send you to a neutral corner, Talbot, if you don’t shut the hell up. We all know this is a bad situation. You’re just making it worse!” BT yelled.

“Which Talbot are you talking about?” Gary asked as an aside.

“The other Talbot-hole!”

“That’s what I thought because he really kind of started it,” Gary said.

“Gary!” BT shouted, “You’re not making this any better either! You do realize you’re his older brother.”

“I’m good, I’m sorry,” Gary said, composing himself better and quicker than I was able to.

I had left the scene completely to go back into the house. BT or Paul had pulled the father totally into the crib room and shut the door. One more nightmare locked away tight. I looked up the staircase, wondering if salvation might lay up there. I had my doubts. All this talk of lost souls had me thinking as I ascended, about all those people that believed in past lives. Why would God reassign souls? Was there a finite number? But that would only make sense if there was a set number of people on the planet. There were way more people alive in 2010 than in say, Biblical times. And would God go green? I mean with the whole recycling thing? It just didn’t make much sense. To believe in reincarnation, you would have to accept one of two things: either only certain people got to get “used” souls or the vast majority of us running around didn’t have one. Or maybe there was a third alternative. Maybe the finite number of existing souls was divisible. That could explain why the whole world had become so corrupt and evil. As more of us were born, we each got less and less of God’s essence.

Maybe this whole damn zombie-pocalypse was just a way for God to collect back his broken pieces to finally make them whole, something Humpty had never been able to accomplish. But if that were the case, wouldn’t those of us still around be feeling “wholer” or “holier”? How many soulless people had I come across since this all happened? How could anyone with any allegiance to the Big Man align himself with Eliza? The new root of all evil. My thoughts were flawed…Well, there’s something new and unusual. I was at the top of the stairs and I couldn’t even begin to remember how I got here.

The master bedroom was at the end of a hallway that wasn’t nearly long enough. I figured it was where I wanted to go because of the three doors up here, it was the only one not open.

I took a deep breath, and before I could engage my legs into moving, I heard Gary down at the bottom of the stairs.

“Wait, brother. I’ll come with you,” he said, taking the stairs two at a time.

I thanked him. This might singularly be the most difficult thing my brother had done to date and he was doing it for me.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “I said I’d come; I didn’t say I’d lead.”

I snorted, it was a little undignified, but he let it lapse. I could see the shadow play of someone moving in the gap between the door and the floor. Back and forth it moved rhythmically, at least it wasn’t banging up against the door, but we’d learn why in a few more seconds.

I slowly turned the doorknob. Gary’s rifle barrel was over my shoulder. At least, it was my right shoulder so I wouldn’t get hot brass in the face. As I pushed the door in, we both took a step backwards, weapons at the ready. We could hear groaning and moaning and the stink was excruciating, but there was no onward rush of zombies. The door stopped its inward movement about halfway through its cycle.

“I thought you were like super strong now?” Gary asked.

“You’re really giving me shit right now?”

He pushed his rifle past my head so that the barrel could be used to open the door the rest of the way.

Mrs. Dead Husband was straining against bonds Mr. Dead Husband must have put in place before he opted out. She was tied to the foot of her bed, which looked to be made of some stout oak. At least, we knew why she wasn’t eating us yet. Her hands were almost touching behind her back, she was pulling so tight on her bindings.

“Are those pantyhose tied to her?” Gary asked. “Didn’t know the things were so strong.”

Her head, which had been resting on her chest as she swayed back and forth, popped up much like her infant’s had. Her eyes almost had an intelligence to them. They looked predatory, not the mindless glaze of the undead. Her mouth gnashed in anguish at a food that was so close; the similarities to her baby were striking.

And then I crossed the bridge into insanity or at least my world had.

“Do me a wrong, you bringer of evil.”

Gary’s rifle erupted, but still the zombie’s words echoed in my head even as she dropped to the ground, dead.

“Did you hear that, Gary?” I fairly cried.

“Don’t know how I would have missed it. Even a .22 is pretty loud in a small room like this,” Gary shouted over the ringing in both of our ears.

“Not the shot, the zombie.”

“What about it?” Gary asked.

“She spoke.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She did, as clear as you and I are talking.”

“Mike, I wouldn’t screw with you on this. She said nothing and then I blew her head off. What do you think she said?”

My thoughts were in a tailspin. I’ve always felt that I was a pace or two closer to the edge than most, but at least, I could usually recognize the precipice and step back at the appropriate time. Seems like I misjudged and slipped completely over. “She…I mean it said something like ‘Do wrong, you bringer of evil.’”

Gary had to step out of the room apparently to gather enough clean air to fuel his laughter.

“What the fuck is so funny!?” I yelled, following him out.

“You’re telling me that zombie was quoting a Black Sabbath tune? I find that to be funny as hell.”

“What?”

“That line, ‘Sing me a song you’re a singer. Do me a wrong, you’re a bringer of evil.’ That’s from Black Sabbath, I mean not the Ozzy-led band, but the Ronnie James Dio version. Still an awesome song though.”

“Gary, she spoke to me,” I said. Gary looked like he was about to brush me off. “So did the baby.” That got his attention.

“Part of the new and improved Mike?” he asked.

“I’ve got to believe when those psychics talked about communing with the dead, this wasn’t what they were talking about.”

“No wonder why Eliza is so pissed all the time,” Gary said, reflecting.

“That doesn’t really help.”

Gary gathered himself and walked back into the room. “I know, let’s see if this little trip was worth it.” Gary gave a wide berth to Mrs. Dead Husband and went into the huge walk-in closet. “There’s a safe!” Gary said, sticking his head back out.

“Great, maybe we’ll see who he willed his gold watch to,” I said, looking at the zombie’s feet, which were still twitching. It was creeping the hell out of me, but at least she wasn’t wishing she had some Dr. Scholl’s or something.

“Gun safe, Mike.” Gary said as if I were Gary Busey. Does that need any further explanation?

“I know, brother, I’m looking at it too.”

BT and Paul had come up the stairs after hearing the rifle shot.

“What’s going on?” BT asked, stepping past the dead zombie and further into the room.

“She was…” I started, but Gary cut me off.

“Found a safe!” he said louder than he needed to.

“How big?” Paul asked from the doorway of the now crowded room; especially since none of us wanted to be any closer to Twitchy than we had to be.

“I never noticed them twitching so much. Do they always do this?” BT asked, looking down at her legs.

“It’s not like we usually hang around to find out, but I don’t think so,” I said.

“Do you notice something strange about her head?” Paul asked, leaning a little over the body.

“Besides having a bullet in it?” came BT’s wise-ass remark.

Paul was leaning a little closer.

This seemed like one of those moments in a horror movie where something jumps out of somewhere and scares the hell out of all the watchers.

“Something’s wrong, man, don’t get any closer,” I told Paul.

He looked at me questioningly, but he did as I said. “Wait a second. I’ll show you.” Paul rooted around in the nightstand until he found something he could use. Ended up being a wooden ruler.

“You going all Catholic nun on us.?” Gary asked from the entrance to the closet. “You guys heard that I found a gun safe, right?”

“Two seconds,” Paul said handing his small rifle to BT. He straddled the dead zombie and extended his hand with the ruler as close as he dared. “Gut check time,” he mouthed, unwilling to suck up any air through his mouth. He moved a five-inch section of hair still attached to the shattered skull underneath. It slapped wetly against the top of her head as he turned it over.

“That’s gross Paul, is there a point to this?” BT asked.

“Look at how thick her skull is. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think the average skull is about a quarter-inch thick. Hers is at least double that.”

“Can they thicken their skulls?” BT asked, turning to me in alarm.

“Oh yeah, good first choice, BT, I’m the one with all the answers,” I told him.

“I don’t think she’s dead,” Paul said. “Damaged, for sure, but not dead. I think by the time the bullet got through this thick-ass skull, it ran out of steam.”

“I hate to get all obvious,” I said, donning my captain’s hat. (Get it?)

BT finished her off. Once the smoke cleared, he spoke. “Any chance she’s some sort of anomaly, like a throwback to Cro-Magnon, you know?”

I was trying desperately to remember almost as quickly as I tried to forget how the scene with the baby unfolded. If I wasn’t over-thinking this, the baby was still moving after my first shot. I might have completely missed with my second shot, but the third shot hit home and the baby stopped moving. The fourth shot was mostly involuntary. I didn’t give a shit though. There was no way I was going back into that room to see if the baby’s skull was abnormally thick. Even if that were the case, it could just mean that genetically, Mom had passed that defect down to it.

“I don’t know for sure, but we’re going to have to keep this in mind, going forward. Let’s check out this safe and get out of here. The longer we stay, the more I wish we had all just gone to Maine and let the chips fall where they may.”

“The safe is open!” Gary said excitedly. “What’re the odds of that?”

“Pretty good,” Paul said from the far side of the room. He was looking out the window, keeping an eye on the street around us. “They were getting ready to leave and all.”

“Makes sense,” Gary said, continuing the conversation.

“Brother, just check out what’s inside,” I told him. I would have smacked him upside the forehead if BT hadn’t got past me and was now in my way.

“Damn!” Gary yelled.

“Grenades! Please tell me grenades!” I said, almost jumping up and down like a schoolgirl that found out the captain of the football team liked her.

“Yeah. Joe Homeowner in suburbia North Carolina has a secret stash of grenades. Get a hold of yourself, Talbot,” BT said. “Is it grenades?” BT asked Gary softly.

“Rossi Circuit Judge .45/410 revolver rifle!” Gary said as he held it over his head.

“Zombies could have on Kevlar helmets, it wouldn’t stop that thing,” I said.

“Big gun?” BT asked.

“Shoulder-mounted cannon,” Gary finished. “Only twenty rounds though.”

“Those bullets are probably a couple of bucks each, not something you go plinking with,” I said.

“No name 12 gauge and a snub nose .38, decent amount of rounds for each,” Gary said as he pulled stuff from the safe and around it. BT was shuffling it to the larger room. I grabbed a small duffel bag full of clothes and baby toys that was perched on top of the dresser. I spilled the contents onto the bed, careful not to spend too much time thinking about what the things were or who they belonged to. The pacifier, though, almost dropped me to my knees. I went back to the growing pile of bullets and gun-cleaning supplies and began to stuff them into the bag.

“Cats!” Paul said a little louder than I think he intended to.

“Is that some sort of new expletive?” BT asked him when Paul didn’t elaborate.

“No,” Paul answered, looking at BT questioningly. “There were cats running by.”

“Running?” I asked. Paul nodded.

“How many?”

“Ten, twelve maybe.”

“Let’s get this shit and be gone.”

“Not that I want to stay in here any longer than needed, but what’s the rush now?” BT asked me.

“Unless Mouser King just opened up around the corner, something has them spooked,” I said, grabbing the handles of the duffel bag and standing up.

“I hate it when you’re right,” Paul said. “Couple of speeders headed this way.”

“Well, it’s a good bet there’s a bunch of their slower brethren behind them and I am not getting stuck in here as my final stand. I hate this house,” I added.

“I’m outta here,” Gary said, pushing past BT.

“Don’t let me get in your way,” BT told him.

Gary was already at the foot of the stairs and not turning to respond.

I shrugged my shoulders and followed my brother.

The two speeders had blown completely past the house in pursuit of the cats. The twenty shufflers following had just shambled onto our street and seemed to redouble their efforts with quarry in sight.

The zombies were within thirty yards by the time we were all packed and ready to go. Not close enough for any immediate danger, but how close does one really want to get with one’s waking nightmare?

“Hey G, let me see that rifle,” BT said as he stepped back out of the car. He carefully placed five shells in the rifle’s cylinder.

“BT, make sure it’s tight against your shoulder,” I told him right before I covered my ears.

BT slightly rocked on his heels as he fired a round. Doesn’t sound like much, but it was the first gun I had seen that could even do something as much as that to the big man.

“OOOOOH WEEEEE!” he shouted. “It took three of them down!”

We all looked through the back windshield. Two were completely out for the count and the third one’s legs were still moving, but it was only doing circles in the pavement as its head was on the ground in an ever expanding pool of its own jellified blood.

BT was still celebrating when I tugged on his arm that he might want to get back in the car with us so we could go.

I had a flash of panic in my gut, wondering if anyone had deemed it necessary to check and see if the car actually started.

Paul turned the key in the ignition, a slow churning whirring sound quickly became the rapid tick of a dying starter and then it caught. The engine roared to life just as the first of the zombies banged into the rear bumper.

“That was close,” Paul said, looking in the rearview mirror at me and the zombies outside.

“Um, dude, it’s still close; we haven’t left yet,” I told him.

“Right,” he said as he placed the car in drive.

“How did he end up in the driver’s seat?” BT asked as he watched the zombies retreat.

The speeders up ahead turned when they heard us coming. They started running full speed towards us, the smaller cats completely forgotten.

“Run them over!” BT yelled.

“Don’t!” I yelled trying to match him in volume. “There’s a chance they could stop this car,” I said, thinking of Tracy’s long defunct Jeep Liberty.

“Bullshit!” BT said.

“Okay, how about crash through the windshield? You want one of those things in your lap? Just think where its mouth might end up,” I told him.

“Stay away from the zombies!” BT begged.

“Easier said than done, guys. The road is only so big and they’re fanning out,” Paul said as he slowed the car down.

“Do your best,” I told him as I braced for impact.

“Anyone want to switch seats?” Gary asked from up front.

Hitting at least one of the zombies in front looked to be a foregone conclusion. Gary grabbed the bag I had taken from the house and placed it in his lap. Not a one of us thought it wasn’t a wise move.

Paul wrenched the wheel quickly to the left and the car shuddered as the lead zombie smashed into the side view mirror. The zombie’s tongue left a saliva string down the entire length of Gary’s and my windows. I swear I could see the mega germs swimming in that toxic stew now eating through the glass. (Flair for the dramatic? Sure, I’m not above it.)

The car flung back to the right, but it was either too much or too little of an adjustment. I couldn’t tell because I was still transfixed on the zombie spit inches from my face. That was, of course, until the side of my head slammed up against Gary’s headrest. The impact, I think, brought the rear tires of the small car off the ground for a fraction of a second. My head was ringing from the smack. I was shaking the cobwebs away, but I didn’t think I was doing such a good job when I looked out the windshield. A zombie was halfway up the hood, his outstretched hands latched onto the windshield wipers, and he was trying to pull himself up.

“Get off!” Paul screamed at it.

Gary was frantically hitting buttons on the console. The static-laced radio shot through the speakers, the sound not a welcome addition to the pain blossoming in my head. At some point, Gary turned on the hazard lights, which was actually fitting, and then he found what he had been searching for. The windshield wipers began to sweep back and forth, the added strain of a one hundred and eighty pound zombie snapping them off in its hands. The zombie looked to me to be surprised as it slid back down the hood and thumped under the bottom of the car. The radio was still blaring, the blinkers were still clacking and now the twisted metal from the broken windshield wipers was etching a groove through the windshield. I turned, the first zombie was already up and running, while the one that had perched on our hood looked like its legs were crushed. He was out of the race and the third had already turned and was still entirely too close for comfort.

“Nice driving, Paulie,” I said in all seriousness.

His knuckles glowed a brilliant white where they made contact with the steering wheel.

“You alright, buddy?” I asked him.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” he answered a few octaves higher than normal.

“Gary, you think maybe you could take care of the radio and the wipers?” I asked him.

“Sure thing,” Gary answered. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn they had both found some helium, and had just moments before, been sucking some down. Gary was nearly as high pitched as Paul. But after some initial fumbling, he was still able to shut down the radio and the wipers. Curiously, his hand had hovered over the hazard button and he decided to leave them on. I could deal with the minor clacking, my headache and the possible concussion that I figured was going to ruin my entire day had already faded into obscurity. I could at least thank Tomas for that.

We had driven a few more blocks. The car was pretty quiet as the first of the fat droplets of rain began to fall. Paul, without any conscious thought, turned the non-existent windshield wipers on. I don’t think he even noticed the grating sound of metal on glass or that the rain, that was now coming in sheets, was not being pushed from his field of vision.

Luckily, the rainstorm did not last long. By the time we got back to the storage yard, it had dwindled down to something resembling an ant pissing on a flat rock. (Think about that for a second, it’ll come.)

“Are those zombies?” BT asked, sticking his head out the window and into the soft spray as the car came to a stop.

It was still difficult to see through the wet, streaked windshield so we all rolled our windows down to take a better look.

“Better yet, where are Brian and Mrs. D?” I asked.

“I’ve had better days,” Gary intoned.

“That’s like comparing whether or not you’d like to get kicked in the nuts or eat an ice cream sandwich,” I said to him.

“Ice cream sandwich,” Gary said, without even blinking.

“Wise choice,” I said as I got out of the car. The zombies immediately started heading towards us.

“Do you hear that?” BT asked as he placed his new rifle on top of the car door frame.

“Sounds like someone is banging on the locker,” Paul said.

“Canned zombie?” I asked.

“Hopefully it’s Brian and Mrs. Deneaux,” BT said as he aimed for the approaching zombies through his steel sights. The rifle blast rocked the car slightly as the lead zombie’s head disintegrated. It was the first zombie kill that actually looked like a movie prop. The head looked like someone had stuffed it with some C4 and just blew it up.

“That was disgusting,” Paul said, turning away.

Gary was already gagging.

It took me six shots with my .22 before the second zombie stopped. I may have missed a couple because he was running full tilt at us. But I watched the connecting hits. Its head would snap back a little, like it had got caught up momentarily on a small branch, and forward it would keep coming.

By the fifth shot, I could see BT in my peripheral vision. He was wondering if he should finish the thing off. The sixth shot dropped him like a penny from a skyscraper. Its knees just buckled and he went down, no skidding, nothing.

“What the hell is going on?” BT asked, still sighting through the rifle to see if there were any more targets to acquire.

“Zombie 3.0,” I said as I went forward to check out the increased banging on the orange steel doors.

“Brian?” I asked directly outside the banging door.

If he didn’t answer, would I have to open the door to see if it was them? Deneaux, I think, I could shoot without too many issues; Brian would be another matter.

“It wasn’t my fault,” a whiny sounding Mrs. Deneaux said.

“How the hell wasn’t it? You fell asleep,” Brian said. It sounded like I was interrupting a repetitive argument.

“You killed all the zombies?” Brian asked through the doorway.

“How many did you think there were?” I asked him as I pulled up on the handle.

Brian shielded his eyes from the light as he stepped out. Mrs. Deneaux sat in the shadows a few moments more, letting her eyes adjust slowly.

“That’s it?” Brian asked, looking at the two prone bodies. “I figured there were dozens,” he said, a little embarrassed.

“Wanna start from the beginning?” I asked him.

“I was looking in the lockers and Mrs. Deneaux was supposed to be watching my back.”

“I was, but I got tired of your repeated failures,” she interjected acerbically.

“You’re priceless. No wonder nothing ever took root in that cold, barren womb of yours,” Brian shot out.

“If it were you coming out, I would have made sure to wrap the umbilical cord around your neck a few more times,” she said, not missing a beat.

“Whoa, whoa!” BT yelled, “How long have you two been locked up?” he said, stepping in between them both.

“You’re lucky it was dark in there!” Mrs. Deneaux yelled, “or I would have shot you!”

“That would have been preferable to listening to you drone on or almost die from your carbon monoxide emissions.”

“If I could have smoked more in the hopes that it would have suffocated you, I would have!”

“Alright this is all very entertaining, but our day has also been less than stellar,” I said.

Brian was about to unleash some new verbal assault on Deneaux, but stopped when he looked around at the four of us and our hangdog expressions.

“Sorry,” he said to us, careful to make sure that Deneaux did not believe she was included in that apology.

“Any luck before they came?” I asked.

His bowed head answered before he spoke. “We’ve been stuck in that shed almost since you left.”

“Alright, let’s just find someplace relatively safe to hunker down for the night. I think we could all use a break from today’s festivities.” Nobody argued, at least that was a step in the right direction.

“Got any good ideas about that?” BT asked, “Because I’m a little hesitant about going into other people’s homes right now.”

“Oh come on, Mike,” Gary said as he saw me looking back at the storage space Brian and Mrs. Deneaux had just been liberated from.

“We’ll chain up the front gate and we’ll post a guard,” I said.

“Hopefully, one that doesn’t fall asleep while they say they’re watching your back,” Brian said for good measure, looking across BT at Mrs. Deneaux.

I smiled inwardly as the old crow stuck her tongue out at him.

“Come on. I’m sure there’s plenty of blankets,” I said.

“Tons of sleeping bags too,” Brian added. “I’ve found all sorts of camping gear.”

“I wish we had some S’mores,” Paul said. “Oh that’s right, you don’t like them, do you, Mike?”

“Isn’t that un-American? Not liking S’mores?” BT asked.

“They make his hands sticky,” Gary said, adding his two cents.

“Think of how many more germs you can pick up with sticky fingers!” I said, trying to defend my position. If making my opponents laugh was victory, then I had defeated them all.

“Didn’t you ever think to lick your fingers off?” Mrs. Deneaux asked.

I shuddered at the thought.

“Wash them off in a stream maybe?” Brian asked, trying to be helpful.

“Ever hear of giardia?” I answered.

“Come on, as a kid you were thinking about a parasite in water that came from the refuse of wildlife?” BT asked.

I nodded. “I read a lot as a kid.”

“Poor bastard,” he said, smiling. “I’ll take first watch. Won’t get much sleep thinking about your S’mores issue anyway.”

I didn’t tell him that since Tomas’ bite, I didn’t feel like I’d ever need to sleep again and could pretty much take every one’s shift without an issue. I decided I’d take the other watches after his. That’s what he gets for making fun of me.

Chapter Six – Mike Journal Entry 5

BT finished up his watch. The sun had long since departed. We had a small flashlight going in the corner of the ten by thirty foot-shed, but it did little to shield us from the darkness within. Every time I even contemplated shutting my eyes, images of the infant from earlier today crept in. I should have just let sleeping zombies lie, so to speak. BT raised the door as quietly as he could, which was still as loud as you would expect a metal rolling door would be. Paul and Brian immediately awoke, Deneaux slept on, snoring like a sailor, (which I guess is an unfair comparison to sailors everywhere because I don’t really know what they sound like when they’re asleep.)

Paul started to get up. “I’ve got it, bud,” I told him.

“You sure, man?” he asked even as his head was traveling back down to its resting spot.

“Can’t sleep anyway. No sense in both of us being up,” I said. He grunted something about thanks, in return, or he belched, sounding just about the same.

“Anything?” I asked BT, who was eyeing my bed longingly.

“I think I heard a couple of cars off in the distance and maybe some gunfire, but it was so far away, I can’t be sure.”

“Thanks, man,” I told him. “Enjoy your beauty rest.”

“You have any phobias about other men sharing your bed?” he asked.

I didn’t answer, I wanted to hold onto some secrets.

“Okay, so I know it’s not because I’m black. Is it because I’m a man?” he asked solemnly.

“BT, I don’t like my kids in my bed,” I told him truthfully.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Why would I? Like you need some new and improved reason to think I’m nuts?”

BT just shook his head and grabbed the scant bedding remnants not presently being used.

“No retort?” I asked him.

“Talbot, I am so damn tired and I really think I’m beginning to realize the depth of your illness.”

Oh, I doubt it, I thought. “BT, seriously, I’ll be lucky if sleep comes at all tonight, sleep in that bed (I couldn’t, as hard as I tried, say it was “my bed”.)

“You’re cool with that?” he asked. “You’re not going to try and slip in there with me later tonight, are you? I mean, Tracy did leave today.”

Was that just today? Seemed like a sanity ago.

“I think I’ll be able to restrain myself,” I told him.

“Even with this pretty face?” he asked, smiling as he got down onto the sleeping bag. “You’re alright with this?” he asked as he placed his head on my pillow. “Because you look like you’re regretting your decision.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told him as I tried to shut the door more quietly than he had opened it, with far less success.

The night had a distinct chill to it. I could register that fact, but I felt slightly removed from it. I was comfortable and I had the feeling, I could be running around naked or wearing seven different layers and I would feel the same. And for some damn reason, Pop-Tarts kept leaking into my thoughts, which was disturbing, but still better than splattered, baby zombie brain. (Unless, of course, we were talking about cherry-flavored Pop-Tarts because that might be the singular, most disgusting thing left on the planet.)

I walked the entire perimeter of the storage facility. But after thinking about it, I don’t think I ever looked out beyond the chain link fence. My head had been down and I was deep in thought or shallow in disregard. Either one works just fine, but I was paying absolutely no heed to the outside world. I could have walked into the waiting arms of a zombie and not realized it until he or she had bitten me.

My next lap I vowed to pay more attention, but I didn’t make it halfway around before I began to daze out again. It really does suck having the attention span of a coconut-laden swallow (whoever picks this journal up may or may not get that reference; it will be a slightly better world if you do). I started to think about life, a normal life, mortgage, taxes, death, pretty much everything that I would never experience again. How the hell is it possible that I’m now missing any one of those things? And then I kept circling back to arriving at Ron’s and seeing Tracy and the kids again. Was Nicole showing yet? And what the hell is in Ron’s false floorboards in his closet? After kissing my wife and hugging my kids, that would be my utmost priority. I was going to have to be careful though, I wouldn’t doubt it if he had a security system in place.

I would have completely missed the zombie pressed up against the fence if he hadn’t spoken.

“Eat,” it repeated over and over in my head.

“Why don’t you kiss my ass,” I told it back. It actually stopped for a beat or two, processing where that info had come from. I would bet the thing in front of me hadn’t had a real thought in its head since it became infected.

I had established that we could talk, but would it listen? “Dance, fucker,” I said aloud. It licked its lips. Okay zero for one, Talbot. What the hell are you trying to prove? I asked myself. Okay, so if I’m asking myself the question, what are the odds I’m going to know the answer? Not aloud, gotta get into its head. Dance, fucker! I screamed in my thoughts. I wouldn’t bet any substantial amount of money on this, but I would swear it picked up its right leg and dropped it back down. Maybe he couldn’t dance. It used to be a white guy, after all. “Where the hell is a black zombie when you need one? I really shouldn’t be left unsupervised for too long,” I said aloud and started to laugh.

I had effectively blocked the zombie’s repeating message, otherwise I would have just shot him in the forehead and ended this whole experiment. I was already a little antsy that I was this close to one of them and hadn’t dispatched it. I was pacing a few yards up and back trying to decide what, if anything, my being able to hear zombies could do to help us. Re-Pete (I named him that because of how he was following my every move; it seemed fitting) kept following, albeit a second or two behind, as whatever was left of his mind caught up and sent the appropriate message.

I walked to the left, Re-Pete followed. I turned and came back to the right, so did Re-Pete, his eyes never leaving mine. Re-Pete was starting to freak me out a little bit, STAY! I said in my most authoritative “in head” voice. As I turned to go back to the left, the only part of Re-Pete that followed were his eyes. I was looking over my shoulder the entire time, wondering when he was going to follow, but he never did. I did my complete small circuit and he never moved.

“Well, that’s interesting.” I said, scratching my head. On your knees! I screamed in my thoughts, convinced I was going to give myself an aneurysm. Re-Pete dropped to his knees like a choir boy promised a new bike. (You can go anywhere you want with that, I’m not getting any more descriptive.) His knees slammed hard into the pavement. I heard what sounded like his patella on his left leg cracking in two. Normally, I’d cringe, but the sense of power welling up in me was invigorating and I was thrilled I had hindered him in some way.

Was the next thing I wanted to try possible? DIE! I shouted over and over. I was concentrating so hard, my body began to sway back and forth. Sweat was cascading down my forehead. Re-Pete was looking at me like I had lost my mind.

“Talbot?”

My thoughts were snapped; how did Re-Pete know my name? I bent lower to look into its eyes.

“Mike!” An alarmed voice came from behind me. “What are you doing?” I heard heavy footfalls coming up fast. I was physically moved from my spot like a child might move his GI Joe, quickly and without regard for personal comfort.

“You alright, man?” BT asked me as he kept running. We were a good thirty yards away from the fence before he finally put me down. “Are you bit or scratched?” BT asked, trying his best to look me over.

I peered around him at Re-Pete who had gotten back up on his feet. “Well, he didn’t die?”

“What?” BT asked in alarm. “Who didn’t die?”

“Re-Pete,” I told him like he should know exactly what I was talking about.

“Mike, what’s going on? Is Eliza here? Is she in your head? Are you bit?” He kept rapidly firing questions at me.

I was still suffering from mild after-effects from the disconnection with Re-Pete. I guess that’s what you could call it. Wonderful! I wonder if they have any medications for postpartum depression resulting from the lost contact between man and zombie. It could open up a whole new market for the pharmaceutical companies.