Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“Just count yourself lucky. It was no bargain on my end. I would have much rather preferred a newscast letting me know what was going on as opposed to living it.”

She prodded me for more information, which I reluctantly gave out in bits and pieces. The vast majority of my recent memories were still sticky, pus-oozing sores, and I had no desire to peel back the scabs to see if they smelled of rot or not. After a few hours of the sanitized, abridged version, she realized she wasn’t getting much more and let me stew in everything she had made me stir up again.

I was not sad to see the Pennsylvania state sign become a distant milestone as we cruised into the Garden State. It was a damn shame that it took a zombie apocalypse to make the state not smell like a fermented garbage pail.

The beauty of youth , I thought concerning Azile. She’d been through a lot in the last few days—maybe as much as me—plus she was driving and looked like she could go at it for days. I was fading fast; the mile markers were putting me into a trance. I knew she carried a severe hatred for all things Eliza, but did it burn so bright inside of her that she couldn’t rest?

“Are you sure about this, Azile? I know I asked before, but if you just helped me to find a new ride and turned this rig around there’s a decent chance you could have some sort of life somewhere.”

She didn’t say anything for nearly a mile. “I had no life before, and I can’t imagine finding one now. When Eliza killed my mother, the state awarded me to my uncle.”

I told her I was sorry when I figured where this might be going.

When she understood the origins of my apology she spoke. “No, no it’s nothing like that. It’s just that he was twenty-four and had absolutely no desire to take care of a kid. He was always decent to me, never did anything inappropriate. No…probably my biggest complaint was that he just didn’t know what to do. There I was this emotional wreck, crying all the time, looking for comfort, and he would leave me alone. He just didn’t know how to handle it.” She looked over at me to gauge my reaction.

“Raising kids is hard when you’re planning for it. Being thrown into the mix without a clue has got to be brutal,” I told her.

“He tried. He bought me more stuffed animals than he could afford, and that was another thing, he worked at a video store and was barely paying his bills before I got there. He had a one bedroom apartment and he gave me the bedroom when I moved in. He tried, he really did, but we both knew I was a burden. He didn’t bring dates home or go out with his friends that much either. He was always afraid to leave me by myself which was kind of funny, because he always left me alone in his room while he sat on the couch.” She finished with a faraway look in her eyes.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Bonneview Memorial Cemetery. The night I turned eighteen he went out and celebrated with his friends. He wrapped his twelve-year-old Honda around a tree six houses down from his apartment. Funny thing is…I heard it. I was laying in bed thinking about my mother and how much I missed her when the explosion of metal and glass crashing into oak shook my window. I didn’t know it was him, but I did. Does that make sense?”

I nodded.

“On some level I knew it was my uncle, he had finally won his freedom I guess.”

“Do you blame yourself for it?” I asked.

“I did…for a while, but it didn’t make sense to. Everything traced back to Eliza. She killed my mother, my father, and my uncle and she should have killed me. In a way, I guess she did. There are parts of me that will never function properly, starved of nurturing as they were. Is that too dramatic?”

“Not at all, if that’s what you feel.”

“So back to your original question, Eliza’s death is the only reason I hold on to this life. Until I kill her, I don’t think I can find peace. So yeah, I’m sure I want to come with you.”

“Fair enough. Most people I have this discussion with don’t normally have as much insider knowledge about Eliza as you do. I’m glad you’re coming if only so I don’t have to drive this thing.”

“I think it was your driving more than anything that got me out of my stupor.”

“Great, another smart ass, just what the world needs.”

She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth at me.

“What’s your family like?” She sounded genuinely curious, or she might have just wanted to while away the time as she drove. It wasn’t like she could turn the radio on and listen to America’s Top Forty .

That side thought hurt a little more than I wanted it to; I’d loved music since I was a kid and my parents had bought me a Realistic transistor radio. I think the first song I ever listened to on it was While My Guitar Gently Weeps , the Beatles version. I knew I was hooked from that moment. Music had been a constant component of my life, from the hundred or so concerts I’d attended, to listening to it while I worked—my desk job and my construction one—during the commutes to and from work or errands. It would be safe to say that I listened to more music on average per day than I watched television. And now my life had another little void in it where music once filled it.

“Mike?”

“Sorry I have a tendency to lose focus every once in a while.”

“Your family?” she asked again after waiting a polite amount of time for me to continue.

“Yup, sorry, completely spaced it. Well let’s start with my dad, Tony. He’s a World War Two vet, saw a lot of action. Sometimes he’s as tough as nails, and at other times you can see he’s on the edge. Wait…not the edge…that sounds wrong. I don’t mean of breaking down or anything like that. If you look long and hard at him when he’s quiet, you can see what his stint in the war did to him. It fundamentally changed him, and at times I think it’s a daily vigilance for him to have it not affect him. My mom passed a couple of years ago. I miss her, but she was far from the easiest person to love. She had great difficulty expressing concern for anything that did not revolve around her.

“Then there’s my oldest brother Ron. He’s all that a big brother should be, always looking out for his siblings—sometimes more than we would care for, but always appreciated. I know he’s kind of grooming himself to become patriarch of the family as our dad passes the torch, but I’m not sure if he’s relishing it right now. The stress of keeping your family safe weighs heavy. He’s married to Nancy, great lady, she can make a can of beets into a soufflé. Don’t ask me how, it’s like fucking magic.”

Azile snorted.

“They have four kids, Melanie, Meredith, Melissa and Mark. Melanie hasn’t been heard from since after the first day of the invasion. Ron went and looked for her once, and so did Meredith—both times almost compounding the disaster. Then there’s my brother Gary, he’s a twin with my brother Glenn who again we haven’t heard from since the start. I have my reasons to believe he’s since passed. Gary is the free spirit of the group. Of all the people I’ve ever met in my life, he’s easily the most comfortable in his own skin and some of that passes off to you when you’re around him. There’s my sister Lyndsey. She could easily make cheerleading an occupation. She’s not that crazy bubbly ‘rah! Rah!’ crap. She just genuinely enjoys life and lets everyone know about it. She’s married to Steve, kind of a reserved man, almost as quiet as my sister is talkative. They have a son Jesse, good kid, always willing to lend a hand.

“Then there’s my wife Tracy, the love of my life,” I said with what I imagine was a faraway stare. “I cannot wait to hold her in my arms. This time I will never let go. She is my strength and the reason I continue on when all seems lost.”