Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“She sounds very special. You’re lucky.”

“She is and I am, and she lets me know it at every opportunity.”

“That’s funny, do you have kids?” she asked.

I let out an involuntary gasp of air, just thinking of my kids knocked the air out of my solar plexus. Why the fuck did I risk my life on this journey when I should have been with them?

“I do,” I continued when I thought I had composed myself enough. “My oldest, Nicole, is pregnant. Her fiancé Brendan died saving my stupid ass from another of my hair-brained ideas. I guess that’s not entirely fair, he had been bitten before he came…long story that I have no desire to revisit. My daughter reminds me so much of my wife. I hope that someday she’s able to raise a family with a man that is deserving of her. My middle son Justin is a good kid, hell of a shot, he would do anything for anybody, he’s had a tough go during this whole thing.”

“How so?”

“He was scratched by a zombie.”

“He lived? I’m sorry was that callous?”

“That’s alright, and yes, he’s alive. It was touch and go for a while, and a lot of the time he had to battle constantly to hold onto himself. Eliza invaded his thoughts and sometimes he didn’t even know which team he was playing for. Then my youngest, Travis, it’s hard for me to see him any older than the seven-year-old boy that he was when we would build Lego castles together. But that boy has got me out of more scrapes than I care to count. Sometimes I’m afraid this world is going to harden him to a brittle shell of himself and at other times the scared boy shows through. Well that’s the condensed version of my family,” I told her as I wrapped up. I really didn’t want to dwell on it anymore. I still had to contend with telling my father that I had no idea where Gary was. Last I had seen him he was alive, and that was at the point in which I was going to stop pondering his fate. There was no way BT would let anything happen to him.

My thoughts turned sour instantly as I began to think of the loss of my lifelong friend Paul. I had always considered him my fourth brother and his death was a tangible hurt. I could touch it, it had so much presence. How I was going to walk in that house and tell his wife Erin was beyond me, the tears cascading down my face would be all she needed to know as I hugged her. There would never be a reason why I would tell her how he had met his fate. And what of Cindy and Perla? They would always hold me responsible for what happened to their significant others; no matter that I had nearly begged them not to come with me. Much like I had asked Azile, maybe I should just kick her out of the truck, or better yet, maybe I should just hop out. No, that wouldn’t work. She knew where the convoy was going.

I was still thinking as the uncaring sun began its descent on the horizon. It had shined when the earth was nothing more than a caustic stew of magma. It had shined down for hundreds of millions of years as dinosaurs ruled. It had heralded in the dawn of man and it would once again rise on our plunge into extinction. Zombies would be the dominant predator for a while, but if the tree huggers thought the average man was an earth destroyer, they would change that tune after the stripping of life the zombies incurred. As horrible a beast as they were, why they weren’t cannibals was beyond me. Did they have that modicum of a moral compass? I sat up quickly when that thought came to my head.

“What?” Azile asked. It looked like I had taken her out of a state of road hypnosis.

“You look half asleep.”

“I’m fine,” she replied while also stifling a yawn.

“It’s not going to do us any good if you crash. Find a good spot. I’ll take the first shift while you get some sleep.”

She looked like she was going to protest, but that was right before her next yawn. “Sounds good. We’re going to need some diesel soon, too.”

“I hate gas stations.”

“We’ll worry about it in the morning.”

“Oh I can guarantee I’ll worry about it all night,” I told her as she pulled off the highway. It looked like some sort of industrial park and she found the oldest, dilapidated piece of corrugated crap to park behind. Seemed perfect for what we wanted, but on the flip side, it looked like the setting for ninety percent of every horror movie. It was four stories of scrap metal; meth heads would have avoided the thing it was so far gone—even they had standards. Sleep would not easily be forthcoming.

It wasn’t three minutes after the engine noise stopped echoing through the abandoned building when I heard the rhythmic breathing of Azile. I’m glad she pulled over when she did. There was a slice of moon in the otherwise cloudless night; the stars were beginning to make themselves known, although I did not think they would honor my wish. My gaze alternated between the brilliance of the night sky and that damned building. The broken windows with panes of glass hanging out of them looked like eager jagged teeth that wanted nothing more than to kill what was left inside of me. I heard a bottle skitter along a concrete floor somewhere within the structure. I peered at the windows, willing myself to evolve a few millennia further when man could finally see in the dark. It wasn’t working. Then I fell into the trap that every—and I mean EVERY—person in movies, literature, and real life situations fall into.

I waited and expected more noise, another hint or clue to what had made the original sound. When it was not forthcoming I tried my best to rationalize it away, reasoning that it was most likely a rat, or the wind, or even a ghost. But never once thinking that it was truly what it was, something out to kill us. Wouldn’t something with nefarious reasons that had just given itself away with some blundering move, immediately try to become a black hole of sound? Unmoving, ultra-cautious? It only made sense.

How many times have you been in bed, and in the middle of the night you had been awoken by an unexplainable sound? You sit up rapidly; your heart is crashing against your breast plate. You struggle to adjust your vision to your surroundings. Alert for danger from any quarter, ears trying to pick up the minutest of sounds. When you realize that the threat is not immediate, you begin to relax, starting to find rational causes: the over-stacked dishes in the sink toppling, the dog knocking over the trash can, maybe even a particularly heavy gust of wind causing the drapes to push over a lamp. Never once believing it to be the man right outside your bedroom door holding an eight-inch curved blade, but he’s patient, he knows he should have been more careful when he knocked the family picture off the small table in the hallway.

He’ll wait until he hears your soft snores before he slowly turns the handle on your bedroom door, when he hits that creaking floorboard right next to your bed, it’ll be to late as you catch a glimpse of the steel glinting in the sliver of moonlight shining through your window as the blade is drilled into your neck, severing you carotid artery. Screams will escape you as he places his gloved hand over your mouth. Thoughts of your children in their rooms will fleet through your mind as your life slides away.

I sat up, there was a malevolent force in that building, and it was staring at me I could feel it’s gaze upon me like a physical presence. I brought the M-240 up to rest on the windowsill. I would light that fucking building up like the Times Square Christmas tree if given half a reason. Azile was young enough that she probably wouldn’t have a heart attack when that first round went down range.

“Show yourself, fucker,” I whispered. I was calm, mostly. I was hoping I wasn’t making any mind phantoms. There were enough demons and monsters running around without the need for me to create mythical ones.