Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

I would have kept thinking along those lines if I wasn’t receiving a tingling across my thighs and ass. Greta (that’s what I was calling her) was now about two zombies away from the fence, her body was slowly taking on the rigidity of her peers in front of her. I placed my hand on the top of her dirt and oil laden head and balanced my weight so that I could stand. I was thankful the night was still mostly dark, dawn was approaching but still it would be difficult to pick me out of the rest of the crowd, the longer I stayed standing on her shoulders, the better my odds of getting shot at by either side though.

I didn’t feel any electricity as I stood tall on her shoulders—only wavering once, luckily she seemed fairly rooted to the ground at this point. I stepped on the man in front of her—at this point I had a slight tingling—and then, as I stepped on the zombie actually touching the fence, I felt what seemed like pins and needles traversing up my calves. It was uncomfortable at the moment, but I could see it becoming debilitating if I stayed there long enough. My first thought was to place a foot on the fence and jump, but if the current increased and I lost motor function chances were I’d fall back into the zombie stew. The man’s head was at most a foot away from the fence and my feet were less than six inches below the top of it. Even if I were drunk, the jump shouldn’t be a problem.

I think the pressure as I pushed off broke the zombie’s collar bone. He didn’t yell in protest, so I took that as a good sign. I was happy the ground on the other side had been moved recently as it was softer than normal because I had hit it pretty hard. My knees were already suspect at best, and I was happy not to give them any more reason to fail me now. I was a couple of feet away from a ditch that was at least six feet across and peppered with all manner of spikes protruding from the ground; the stink of kerosene was heavy from where I stood. I won’t lie, I was dismayed that my approach was going unnoticed.

The unit that I had dispatched of would have easily made it into my brother’s home and then what? I decided not to dwell on it, nothing fruitful could be gained from it. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have even paused at the gap I had to bridge, right now it may as well have been double its width. Eventually I was going to figure out I was far from an ordinary human…but that moment wasn’t one of them.

“What are the odds there’s a minefield?” I asked. “Probably pretty damned good.” Super deluxe model or not, I was confident that a bomb would send me on my way.

***

“Wait, you’re saying this, what the hell was his name? Buker? Buker fellow took out the entire team?” Kong was asking the out-of-breath Army Ranger, Hank O’Reilly.

“He said he had dusted the other two, then told me and John that we could leave and never come back or die.”

“So was the explosion this Buker guy or John?” Kong asked.

“Oh, I can assure you it was your Navy Seal,” Tommy said, seemingly peering through the trees to the Talbot household.

“How can you be so sure?” Kong asked him.

“Because it was Michael Talbot,” Eliza said, striding up to the circle. “And apparently nothing short of the Rapture is going to take him off this earth. It makes no difference, now at least I know where he is and the whole lot of them can die simultaneously.”

“I just lost three well-trained men, some of my best,” Kong said turning to Eliza, anger flushing his cheeks.

“Perhaps you should have had a better screening technique,” Tomas said smiling. “Maybe asked each of them what side they were on. Michael most likely would have told you the truth.”

Eliza nodded in agreement. “I imagine he would have…right before he killed you.”

Kong didn’t seem so convinced that the man that had called himself Buker would have been able to take him out, but he had just killed three Special Forces men and was still at large. What did I get myself into? “Eliza, I do not think you were forthcoming in our agreement.”

“If you had doubts you should have voiced them before we left,” Eliza told him. “Now organize another team.”

I had my doubts when you ripped Randy’s dick off , Kong thought as he clenched his fists.

“Ten this time…that should be sufficient,” she said.

“Sufficient for what?” Kong asked, trying valiantly to keep his cool. He knew Eliza would have no qualms about eliminating him and putting someone else at the top. He didn’t even consider himself a pawn; he was the board upon which the actual game was being played.

Hank hadn’t left Kong’s side since he got back and already he knew that legend of Buker or Talbot would be spreading across his men like wildfire. He had yet to figure out quite how that phenomenon worked, and something inside him told him he didn’t have the time left to figure it out either.

***

“Can’t stay here, sun is going to be up soon and I’ll be stuck in dead man’s land. And me being covered in gore like this, someone in that house is going to think I’m a zombie and that I somehow got past the fence.”

Minefield or not, I had to leave the spot I was becoming rooted to. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me how easily I traversed the gap, but it did. Now I was just hoping I wasn’t smack dab in the middle of a minefield and everything would be A-Okay. I was within fifteen feet of the deck which was a good ten feet off the ground. I was happy and slightly dismayed to see that the stairs had been removed. I did a once over around the bottom part of the house. There was no way in, it was completely shuttered off with steel plating. I looked up at the decking overhead.

“I should have brought Greta,” I said. “Okay let’s do the math, I’m almost six feet, give or take, mostly give…but whatever. Then if I outstretch my arms, add another three-ish feet, I really need to only jump up about a foot and I can grab the edge of the deck. Subtract from that, I’m a fortyish white guy and I’m still fucked. Wait…half-vamp trumps white. Let’s give it a go.”

I backed up a few feet, still not convinced that I had somehow miraculously crossed a minefield and I didn’t want to throw that to chance again. I ran and jumped not taking into account my added abilities; I almost planted my face where I thought my hands were going to touch. That would have been awesome, me knocked out under the deck after smashing into it.

I grunted as I pulled myself up and over, but only because it felt like the right thing to do. “Why no guard?” The house appeared to be blacked out, but I could see some light spilling from around the blackout curtains. I walked to the back door and turned the unlocked knob. My heart lurched at how easy it could have been for the assassination team and then I entered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mike Journal Entry 15

“Miss me?” I asked a shocked room full of the people I loved the most in the whole world. Blood, gore, sinew and a fair amount of entrails hung from every exposed part of me. Henry was the first to react. I hadn’t seen him leap since he was six months old and there was a particularly tasty shoe of Tracy’s that he had enjoyed rending into bite-sized chunks. I had put it up on a coffee table thinking his little stubby legs would never allow him to regain his ill-gotten booty. He had proved me wrong and cost me two hundred bucks in the process (replacement fee of said shoes).

I stooped down a bit as he jumped into my outstretched arms, his stumped tail was going as fast as a hummingbird’s wings after a Starbuck’s double shot cappuccino. But even he had his standards; he would not lick my face.