Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

If she had passed while we were messing with Re-Pete, then every second we wasted here put my family in more danger. Another route could potentially be as bad, but as long as we were running parallel to her and not hours behind, I could deal with that also. That crawling sensation kept worming its way up my back that Re-Pete had been some sort of diversion and she was laughing as she barreled down the highway. The wondering was a nightmare. I was seconds away from pulling the whole plug when I noticed the slightest sway to a young sapling; it was not windy.

“Everybody down!” I yelled.

Ten seconds went by, twenty seconds, I think we were closing in on a minute and still nothing. I was beginning to feel a little foolish and now that nagging itching sensation was coming back. Screw it. I was ready to go. Gary reached out and put his hand on my shoulder when he sensed that I might be getting ready to move. How I let the sound of that caravan slip by my senses, I had no clue.

“Thanks,” I told Gary.

“You always were a little impulsive,” he told me.

BT was on my left side, looking intently at the rolling nightmare coming our way. His grip tightened on his rifle. Fat beads of sweat rolled off his forehead.

“You good, big man?” I asked him.

“Right as rain,” he answered without ever taking his eyes off the lead truck. “You think she’s in that first one?”

“Maybe before that invasion on Camp Custer when I almost killed her. She might be an arrogant bitch; but she’s also a self preservationist.”

“Too bad,” BT said.

The three of us were down in a culvert on the side of the road. It was almost steep enough that we were just about standing where we lay. Two tandem-trailer semis thundered past. Following them was what appeared to be an endless chain of troop transports and more tractor-trailers.

“Looks like Eliza’s playing for keeps,” Gary said, sticking his head over the embankment slightly.

“When has that ever NOT been the case?” BT asked.

I can’t say that I had ever seen BT quite as nervous as he was now and I was picking up on it, which in turn, made me more nervous. Gary seemed blissfully ignorant of it all.

“Sure would be nice to get a hold of one of those troop transports,” Gary said.

“I vote for just making it through the day,” I told him.

“I second that,” BT said, sticking his hand up slightly.

We could hear gunshots up ahead of us. Paul, Bryan and Mrs. Deneaux were holding up their end and we were getting close to seeing what we could do about holding our own.

It was long seconds before the entire rolling army knew that it was under attack, but the lead tandem-trailer truck lying on its side kind of put a damper on their forward progress. The screeching metal as the truck slid sideways down the highway grated on my fillings, the vibrations hurting my teeth. I was thankful I did not have a steel plate in my head; it would have probably scrambled my brains more than they already were. The large truck had finally come to a stop. Sporadic fire was being returned as some of Eliza’s human sympathizers started to realize they were being shot at and that the lead driver had not simply had an accident.

Eliza was close, I could sense the waves of cruelty emanating from her like ripples in a pond. I’m sure I could have followed the signal back to its source, but then she would have known I was here.

We could hear multiple truck doors opening and men scrambling to get into a defensive posture. Boot falls fell no more than five feet from where our heads were. A troop transport truck almost at the edge of my abilities was parked with the engine running; it was full of zombies.

“Anything?” BT asked, gripping his rifle so tightly, I thought he was going to fuse the metal with the wood.

Now it was my turn to sweat. “It’s full of zombies. They’re just sitting in there.”

“They’re very well behaved,” Gary said. Not sure why; it was most likely nerves.

“Mike, these guys are getting close. It’s only going to take one of them to look over and we’re screwed,” BT said.

“Cool, so I wasn’t already feeling enough pressure; that oughta help.” I told BT I was doing my best to not cause a self-induced brain bleeder.

A hastily thrown cigarette butt flew by the left side of Gary’s face. I thought he was going to start coughing from the smoke. Gary, in his entire life had never smoked, not one normal cigarette and not one of those funny, little left-handed ones that I had enjoyed so many of in my youth. Who am I kidding? I still enjoyed them from time to time in these latter years, especially at Widespread Panic shows.

Gary was turning blue in a desperate bid to keep himself from coughing. I grabbed the cigarette and chucked it further down the slope we were standing on.

“Talbot,” BT said, with no small measure of alarm.

We could hear men talking. The gunfire from our band had stopped. They had done their part and left before becoming outmanned and out gunned. Eliza’s men were about to fan out and find whoever had attacked.

I turned my thoughts back to the zombies, who were still waiting patiently in the truck. “Eliza’s got them under her control,” I told the group.

“We gotta go, Mike,” BT said, gripping my shoulder. “We might be able to make it to the tree line before they see us.

“Doubtful,” Gary said.

“Okay, she’s not communicating with them now, or she would have found me meddling about,” I said aloud, but mostly for myself.

“Mike, it’s now or never,” BT said, flipping his safety off, while Gary did the same.

“Okay, so she sent them an order and kind of tied it off. Does that make sense?” I was still only talking to myself. “It’s almost like a repeating message and she just has it on loop.”

“You should maybe pull the plug on that machine,” Gary said as he got himself into a proper shooting position.

“No power cord,” I said, intensifying my concentration. I’m still uncertain as to how this is done though. Can you really think harder? I find just thinking about thinking leads me astray. “More like a rope or a cord.” We were seconds away from capture and/or death or vice versa. My senses were so heightened, I could hear individual pebbles as they were crushed under the boot heels of the troops approaching. “I found the knot!” I said excitedly.

“Weeks! I heard something over by the side of the road!” one of the men said.

“Time to die,” BT said, though whether it was about the man that shouted or for us, he did not clarify.

I felt sort of sorry that the last thing that man saw on this planet was most likely the biggest man he had ever encountered, popping up from the side of the road with a rifle.

“Got it!” I shouted triumphantly just as BT’s rifle shuddered from the gas release of two bullets. Weeks’ friend caught the first round in the side of his neck; blood pumped out as the man tried in vain to staunch the flow.

A small piece of hell broke out that day as BT’s rifle kept jumping from the expended rounds. He was screaming a war cry. I watched in horror, almost matrix-like, as return fire began to pass him by, coming dangerously close. I was convinced I was going to watch my best friend die in slow motion. And then the real fun began. Shouts of alarm, pain and terror began to ring out all around us as “freed” zombies began to pour from the troop transport.

Speeders had come to our aid. As Eliza’s men had begun to coalesce on us, the speeders had attacked from behind. They were relentless as they chewed on anything within reach. Shots fired wildly as the men turned to face their new threat. BT was still screaming and firing. I had to get up from my hiding spot to drag him down. Okay, to be fair, nobody really drags BT anywhere. He sort of let me. Watching people, even the enemy, being eaten is not something to be witnessed.