Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

“I could crank up the outage on the frequency modulator,” Mad Jack piped up.

“Okay.” I answered, trying to figure out where he was going with it. Lord knew I’d had enough practice with John the Tripper I should have been able to figure him out, although that wasn’t a fair comparison. MJ was logic based, John was acid based.

“Well that would mean more power was going out,” he added.

“I get that, but to what end?” I asked.

“Mad Jack, you said that putting out too much power could fry the components,” Ron said with concern.

“I did say that,” Mad Jack pronounced.

“How could someone that snorted, inhaled or smoked enough drugs to finance a cartel sound as similar to someone that graduated the top of his class at MIT?” I demanded, throwing my hands in the air. “Ron? Help me out here, man. I don’t speak genius.”

“Relax, Mike, he usually has so much going on in his head, he doesn’t know what he’s told us or what he’s thinking. He’ll get there in a minute.”

The cursory minute passed. We were all waiting for some more information that was not coming. Mad Jack was pacing the room, and it looked like he was about to leave before Ron stopped him.

“MJ?”

“I need some more transistors,” Mad Jack told him as if that explained everything.

“Okay, we all get that you want to put more power through the modulator. The Jeopardy bonus round question is why?” Ron wanted to know.

“ Jeopardy is for the uneducated,” Mad Jack stated contemptuously. “The questions are so easy.”

I had stopped watching Jeopardy years ago when I realized that I hardly ever knew the answers to even the easiest hundred dollar questions. Who needs to be reminded daily of their ignorance?

Ron tried Psych 101 on MJ. “The reason for increasing power to the frequency modulator that disrupts the thought patterns of the zombies is?”

“Nice…he phrased it as a question,” Gary said, smacking my arm to make sure that I was watching the riveting action.

“To drive the zombies back, thus obscuring our vial-laden exit from the armed guards,” Mad Jack retorted.

Now all of a sudden it was a riveting conversation. “That’s brilliant,” I said aloud.

“I know,” Mad Jack said.

“But you’re not thinking escape, are you, Mike?” Tracy asked.

“Where would we run to that she wouldn’t find us? Where could we run that was more secure? Where could we run that was as well supplied? Where—”

“I get it,” she lashed out.

“Plus I have someone waiting in a truck out there that I need to bring into the fold.”

“What? Who?” came the myriad of questions.

I quickly explained where I had discovered Azile and how I had rescued her. I somehow failed to tell them that she had driven the majority of the way back because she was better at it than me, it must have slipped my mind.

“You just left her out there?” Tracy accused me.

“You know, I wasn’t all that sure I was going to make it back here. I figured she was safer in the truck,” I said, defending myself.

“You need to go get her,” Tracy said.

“I know that, dear. But it’s not like I can just walk out the door and do that now, is it?”

“Don’t you get condescending with me.”

“Ooh look, the finger should be coming out any second,” BT said to Gary.

“I don’t know why you’re so smug,” Tracy said, turning her wrath to the big man. “You’re going out there to help him.”

“Me?” BT begged off. “I always have to pull his scrawny ass out of a scrape.”

“And that’s exactly why you and I are going with him.”

“Oh no,” BT and I said simultaneously.

“I’m used to saving his ass, I can’t be looking out for you, too,” BT shouted.

“BT, I’d been saving his ass for close to twenty-five years before you ever came in the picture. I think if anyone is qualified to do it, it’s me.”

“I hate when you two do this,” I told them.

“You keep out of this,” BT told me.

Tracy and BT were still arguing about who was better at keeping me alive when I turned my attention back to Mad Jack who had lost all interest with the ravings of the monkeys below the one-forty intelligence quotient level.

“How far back can you push the zombies?” I asked him.

“A couple of hundred feet at the most.”

“Will it be fast?”

Mad Jack thought about it for a moment. “Yes, they’ll want to get away from the signal as quickly as possible.”

“Okay. Will it be like a fire drill where everyone leaves in an orderly fashion, or will it be like a real fire when everyone tramples over each other?”

“The latter I would imagine,” Mad Jack replied, looking up as he pondered the answer.

“Latter…that means last, right?”

He gave me the ‘how have you survived this long’ look.

I could have easily returned the gaze.

“There’s one small problem with increasing the power output that much, though.”

“Is there any chance you can just tell me what the problem is without me playing game show host?”

“It’ll only last for sixty-four-and-a-half seconds.”

“Exactly sixty-four-and-a-half seconds…or can we give or a take a second or two.”

“Science doesn’t lie,” he stated vehemently.

“Alright sixty-four-and-one-half seconds it is, what happens after that?”

“No more signal.”

“No more extended signal?” I asked hoping.

“No more signal, period, ever. I don’t have the supplies here to recreate the box,” Mad Jack told me in no uncertain terms.

“Wait so you know to the half second when the box is going to blow but you can only approximate the distance the zombies will be effected?” I asked, because I had to.

He shrugged his shoulders like I should leave the heavy thinking to the experts.

Now came the weighing out option. We would need the cover of the zombies to be able to get out of the house, but once the signal died, thousands of zombies would be pressed up against the structure like the skin of an apple.

“How long will it take for the modifications?” I asked him.

“You mean how long will it take to turn a knob?”

“Hilarious.”

“I need to do some mods first, shouldn’t take more than an hour, then it really is the turn of a knob.”

Within a moment or two of Mad Jack going off to do whatever voodoo science he did to tweak his box, I was sitting at the kitchen table loading magazines.

“You’re not really going to allow Tracy to go with you are you, Mike?” Ron asked, coming up to the table.

“Ron, you’re married…when’s the last time you told your wife she couldn’t do something and she listened?” I asked him back. I gave him some credit; he actually spent a moment or two thinking about it. As if, he would have ever forgotten about a victory that significant.

“Listen, I know I don’t have any military training,” Ron began, “but I’d like to go out there with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a great idea. The defense of this house falls squarely on your shoulders. And as soon as MJ’s box fails, we’ll be in full-press mode here. When we get Azile, and maybe take a swipe at Eliza, we’re going to need someplace to come back to.”

Ron looked equal parts relieved and distressed.

“You know I appreciate the offer. We’ll be back before you know it,” I told him as I loaded my fifth magazine. I wasn’t going to die from lack of ammunition—of that fact I was certain.

I could hear Tracy and BT still going on with the merits of who was better equipped to save my ass when I got up from the table.

“We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. You guys maybe want to load up?” I asked them.