Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

She again looked over at me—this time a little longer as we had finally found our way out of the station. She was right; we did not have any company…at least for the time being.

“Listen, I came here with someone, I left him sleeping by the side of the road.”

She looked at me incredulously. “He’s sleeping while you’re navigating your way through enemy territory looking like your blind momma dressed you?”

“Once you meet him you’ll understand.”

I directed her to where John was. He was still snoozing deeply when we pulled up. The girl—I guess young woman—helped me to put him up in the cab and finally the sleeper in the back. The truckers at the rest stop were watching us but none were in pursuit. I could only think of one person (I mean thing ) that could put that much fear into people that they wouldn’t even act.

I went with the direct approach. “What’s your involvement with Eliza?”

The truck which had just started rolling came to a quick halt. “Did you hear the trucker’s talking about her?”

So my suspicion was confirmed. I could have done without that little affirmation. “Let’s just say I’ve had my own encounters with her.”

“Mike…as in Michael Talbot?” she asked. “Well, I can see by your reaction I got that right. She believes you’re dead.”

“Oh, if I had a nickel for every time someone thought I was dead, I’d have a quarter.”

“You really are Mike?”

“One and the same.”

She looked disappointed. “I expected more,” she said as she got the truck rolling again.

‘Well fuck you, too!’ I wanted to say. “Who just got your ass out of that jam?” I asked in defense.

“Me.”

“Okay, you drove. Who gave you the ability to do that?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry, let’s start over. My name is Azile,” she said as she stuck her hand out for me to shake. I gave it a couple of pumps before she had to use it to shift gears. “We heading to Maine?”

“Are all those trucks heading there?”

She nodded tersely.

“Shit, Philly first.”

“Are you sure?”

“I promised John back there that I’d look for his wife.”

“You love your family?” she asked.

“What kind of question is that?” I asked hotly.

“Eliza and her band of idiots are heading there soon. I would think that you would want to do all in your power to get there first and help them.”

“I promised John. Philly is on the way, she’s there or she isn’t.”

“You know what the odds of her being alive are.”

“I do, that still doesn’t negate the promise I made to him.”

“Is your moral compass always stuck tight in the upright position?”

“Yeah, it’s a character flaw for sure.”

“Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

“Are we going as fast as this rig can go?” I asked Azile.

“As much as I want to push it.”

“That’ll have to do.” I held the offending Yankees hat out my window. I was hoping the wind would shred it, no such luck. Now I had to hope that, as I released it into the wild, that a pack of hyenas would stumble across it, tear it up and eat it and then crap it out over an active geyser, or volcano—either would work in this scenario. Then I pulled my hand with the cap back in. As much as I dreaded the hat, it still beat out the tin-foil, not by much mind you, but it was close. “Shit,” I muttered as I put the damn thing back on.

We had been driving a couple of hours. Azile and I had not spoken at all. The concern I felt for my family was placing a giant pit in my stomach. I was delaying getting to them on nothing more than the pipedream of a man who had long ago lost the majority of his reasoning abilities to a wide variety of recreational drug use. We were passing a fair number of abandoned cars, and more than once, I thought about telling Azile to let me off so that I could get one and go.

I kept turning around to the slumbering form of John. He may have tried to kill me a couple of times, but he saved me a couple of times too. I owed it to him to keep the promise I had given. And I didn’t trust Azile to do it, there was something about the woman I could not put my finger on. She played a part in the drama for sure, but whether it was a cameo, supporting, or starring role was yet to be determined. I thought I had enough of a bead on her that if I left her to her own devices she would kick John out shortly after I left and would then be on her own merry little way to parts unknown.

I could hear John moving about behind us. He sat up and stretched. “When’d we put a bed in the Gremlin, Mike?” he asked, looking over at me. “And who’s the girl?” he stage-whispered.

“Her name is Azile and we’re in a tractor trailer now,” I told him. I was concerned it might freak him out a little, I needn’t have been. He scooted up so that he was sitting at the edge of the bed almost between me and Azile.

“This is much better than the car,” he said, never once asking how our driver came into the picture or how we came to be in the truck.

“We’re about an hour out of Philadelphia,” I told him. He didn’t say anything, but his hands wrapped tight around the lip of the bed. “It’ll be alright, Trip, we’ll find her.”

Azile chose that very moment to let loose with a heavy sigh as if the whole event was an exercise in futility.

I shot her a glance that she completely ignored.

“What are we hauling?” John asked, possibly as a way to avoid Azile’s negativity if he noticed at all.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said, looking over to Azile.

“Don’t look at me, I’ve been a prisoner for longer than I can remember.”

I thought that was a strange response but I didn’t ask for her to elaborate. Now I was really curious as to what we were hauling also.

The truck began to slow down and finally came to a halt.

“Go check,” Azile said to me.

I had my hand on the door and had just opened it, I could hear John coming up behind me, he was curious too.

“Relax, I won’t leave without you.” She said smiling.

“That really doesn’t make me feel any better. If you were the type of person to leave us stranded, you sure wouldn’t care about a little lie to make it happen,” I told her.

“You’re probably right,” she said as she looked at her side view mirror. “Why don’t you go check before someone decides to see who we are?”

“Wow, man, she’s a mean one. Where’d you find her?” John asked me as he stepped down.

“You do know you’re less than six feet from her,” I told him.

“Do you think she heard me?” John asked in all seriousness; in response, Azile bleated the horn.

“Probably not,” I told him.

“Good,” he said as we walked to the back of the rig.

I kept looking for something to hold onto if she did decide to leave. There wasn’t anything I would trust life or limb to. I stared long and hard at those rear doors. I was remembering what Eliza liked to put in her trucks.

“What’re we doing out here?” John asked.

That was about all the catalyst I needed to get moving. I placed my hand on the latch, John had moved closer. “Hey, Trip, why don’t you move back a little. If any of the funky people are in here, run back up to the cab.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked as he took a couple of steps backwards.

“I’ll be right behind you.” I was thinking we were safe, I didn’t hear anything moving back there…unless they were packed so tightly that they couldn’t move which meant they would start spilling out the moment I opened the door. But the bigger piece that had me pretty convinced we were safe was I didn’t smell anything either. If there were that many zombies this close, the stink would have had a physical presence.