Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“They still make Chino’s?” I asked holding the pants up to the near non-existent light. It was difficult to tell, but they looked brown from where I was standing. I turned so that I wasn’t facing Azile and quickly stripped out of the old and into the new.

I ran back to the truck much more comfortable than when I had departed. The brightness of the dome light took some time to adjust as I got back in my seat.

“Well you look good,” Azile laughed.

“My pants are purple,” I said horrified.

Azile was laughing, but she didn’t really let loose until she had me show her the back of my shirt.

“What?”

“It says you won a wet t-shirt contest.”

“Are you kidding me?” I pulled the shirt over my head, and dammit if she wasn’t right. For reasons known only to me, I looked at the care tag, ‘dry clean only’. “Why the fuck would they make a wet t-shirt, shirt, dry clean only?”

“You want to get different clothes?” she asked.

I did and I didn’t. Nothing happened and I didn’t hear anything in there, but that dry cleaners just didn’t feel right. Plus, being this close to my family, I just wanted to get there. “Let’s go,” I told Azile, taking one last look back.

“Last chance,” she told me.

I sat steadfast. When we took the final road before my father’s dirt road drive I had Azile pull over.

“It’s not far is it?” she asked as I ground the gears into drive, forcing rather than allowing. The truck was bucking like a bull with his balls cinched tight—although, if my balls were cinched I’d probably just be crying in a corner.

“You should hide,” I told her as I came up over a small rise. Trucks were lined up on both sides of the roadway, zombies were everywhere. Occasionally I would see a human, but for the most part, they were staying out of the way of the zombies. I eased the truck into the back of the last truck in the line. And by ‘easing’ I mean ‘tapped’ the bumper and by ‘tapped’ the bumper I mean did damage that would have entailed exchanging insurance papers in an earlier version of the world. The noise should not have gone unnoticed, but the sound of gunfire was prevalent. It didn’t stop the owner of the truck from coming out of his cab to investigate.

“Hey, you fucking nimrod, what is your problem?” he yelled as he hopped down, shying away as a couple of zombies checked him out, then moved on.

“I’m real sorry,” I told him.

“Oh, you will be, dipshit,” he said as he moved closer. “Get out here!” he shouted as he walked past the damage I had done to his rig.

“I’m trying…the seatbelt is stuck.”

“Let me help you with that!” he said angrily as he opened my door and hopped on the running board.

The light glinted off the silver of the chain he wore around his neck. I snatched it before he could react, then I pushed him with my hand on his face off of the truck and onto the pavement. Zombies swept in before he could sound the alarm. It was gruesome being this close to a person being eaten, the sounds of lips smacking and teeth cracking into bone. I hoped no one else would notice the zombie congregation as they knelt at the altar of flesh.

A few zombies looked up at me as I came out of the truck. I put the vial around my neck and they went back to the business of orally eviscerating my accident victim. I hastily walked to the back of my truck and moved the latch. Fritz was no longer clutching the cat, for better or worse, the vermin had decided it was better off on its own, I’m sure the stringy thing hadn’t tasted any good, but I won’t lie and tell you I wasn’t happy to see it gone.

“Oh thank God,” Fritz said. He was huddled up against the doors, nearly falling out as I opened them, snot, tears and the drool of the closest zombies covered him from head to toe. I ripped the chain from his neck quickly closing the door to his screams. The trailer rocked a little as Fritz became a late night snack.

I climbed back into the truck and handed Azile a necklace. “Take this,” I told her as I handed it into the back of the sleeper.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Do you really want to know?” I asked back. She accepted it without a response. “I’m going to see if I can find anything out.”

“What about me?”

“I’ll lock the doors. I should be right back, if I’m not, consider me lost.”

Her eyes got big at that statement.

“Azile, if that’s the case, unhitch the damn trailer and get out of here, just leave. If you do stay close enough to figure out what happened and you see Eliza leave, go west or north, just get out of here. If not, come back. Whoever is left standing will take you in.”

“Mike, I came here to kill Eliza. I’m not leaving until that’s done.”

“Okay, let me see what I can find out,” I told her as I got back out of the truck making sure to lock both sides up.

The zombies had pretty much stripped the truck driver clean. Most had left as he was down to about bone marrow; but a few of the more ravenous were even going after that. I pushed them away and I kicked what remained underneath his truck just to avoid any prying eyes. We were far enough from the action, but there wasn’t any reason to take unnecessary risks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so much a kick as it was a push with my boot, because there just wasn’t enough of him left for my sole to find purchase on.

“Fucking gross,” I said looking at my boot that was now covered in what I was going to call ‘goo’. I walked the rest of the way down Dowboin lane, then took the left down onto my father’s lane. I was still about a quarter of a mile from the house but this was where all the activity was happening. The zombies were present but they were very sparse, those that I could see where heading towards the Talbot compound. I saw a knot of men and had to imagine that Eliza was in the middle of it.

I had my gun and I was weighing out the odds of success. If it were just zombies I had to deal with I might have taken a chance, and I still wasn’t sure she was in the throng. I caught a glimpse of her as the group broke up. A large man was walking in my direction. Eliza went to wherever evil bitches go.

“I need prior military volunteers!” the large man was shouting.

“Fuck it,” I muttered. At least I wasn’t lying when I told him I was prior military. “Here.” I raised my hand.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked stopping right in front of me.

“I came in with Fritz. I helped him fix his truck, he told me what was going on and I wanted in. My name is... (what the fuck is my name?) Josh, Joshua Buker.” No clue where that came from but happy for the inspiration.

“You all vialed up?” the man asked.

I showed him. He seemed to have completely missed my pause as I sought to name myself, understandable with how much was going on, add to that the repeated rifle shooting.

“Well, if he trusted you enough to give you his spare, then that’s good enough for me.”

He had a spare? I thought.

“Where’s he at?”

“He’s working on his trailer, told me to see what was going on.”

“You’re prior military?”

“Marines…Afghanistan and Iraq,” I told him.

“Good enough for me, I’ve got a team with two Navy Seals, one Army Ranger and a Green Beret.”

“Great,” I said. Why don’t we just add in some fucking special forces ninjas to make it interesting? I thought. The Army guys would be tough, but the Navy Seals would be brutal, I love my Marine Corps, but the SEALS were second to none, not only in the US, but the entire planet.

“My name is Kong.” I stuck my hand out to shake, he looked at it and then at my face. I got the hint. “You take care of this…then I’ll shake your hand.”