Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“You’ve always been like a younger brother to me,” Gary said.

“Kiss my ass,” I told him.

“You be careful.”

“I will, I always am.”

Gary snorted. “Now I know you’re lying, because you’re insulting my intelligence.”

“Go find Mary; maybe she has some tea that can help you with that.”

Gary left and I was once again alone with my thoughts. I finished stretching quickly because no one should be exposed to my thoughts for too long.

I was as ready as I was ever going to be when I came out of that room. My head, however, was still clouded with doubt for what I was about to do. Why did everything always seem like a good idea right up until launch time? Then it seemed just about the craziest thing ever.

“Mom? Any words of wisdom?” I asked, looking to the heavens.

I could picture her saying, “What the hell are you thinking?” What response would I have to that? Thinking had never been my forte. There were a multitude of reasons why I did not build rockets when the world was slightly more normal.

“The car won’t flip?” I asked Josh.

He looked at me like I should leave that up to the pros.

“What are you eating?” I asked, looking at his sandwich. It smelled really good, but it looked like warmed-over vomit.

“A peanut butter and maple oatmeal sandwich,” he said between big bites. He was busy adjusting something on the chassis.

“Oatmeal?” I asked. Josh never looked up.

“He loves it,” Mary said, shrugging her shoulders.

“So this won’t flip?” I asked again, not wanting to look at his train wreck of a sandwich anymore.

Oatmeal leaked from the sides of the bread as he stared up at me. “Have you been listening to me at all?” he asked testily.

“His wife says that a lot,” Gary said from the couch.

I turned to flip him the finger, but Mary was boring holes in me, so I thought better of the gesture. It ended up being a half-hearted wave, which he returned eagerly.

“It can’t flip over because there is no top or bottom. I designed it that way so if it went over a bump and flipped over it would never get stuck.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, picking up his engineering marvel which was basically just four oversized tires attached to a chassis. “Have you ever gotten it stuck?” I asked, turning the machine over. He didn’t immediately answer, and I moved the machine so I could get a better look at the boy. “Josh?”

“Well not stuck, really,” he hemmed and hawed.

“Feel free to keep going,” I urged.

“Well, I’ve had some problems with this wheel,” he said, grabbing what was at this moment the front left, but at some point could be the front right, back left and/or back right. Yeah, it didn’t make much sense to me at the time either. In my world, front was front, rear was rear.

“Um, so what kind of problems?” My idea’s value was beginning to plummet.

“You really shouldn’t badger the kid,” Gary said.

“Badger the kid? Hey I know I get accused of not thinking before I speak all the time, but this isn’t our entry into the county fair where the worst that can happen is a last place finish.”

“Honey, what’s wrong with your car?” Mary asked him.

Josh took an extra squishy bite of his sandwich, and sticky oatmeal plopped to the floor. I would imagine this was a stalling technique. I’d employed that method many times myself with varying degrees of results. He gulped down his bite. “Sometimes this wheel gets stuck,” he said, looking up at my eyes and then his mother’s.

“How often does it get stuck?” I asked.

“More than it used to.”

Not much of an answer, I thought as I ran my hands through my hair in the traditional “I’m screwed” way.

“Mike, you can’t still be thinking of doing this?” Gary asked, rising up from the couch.

“I don’t have a good feeling about BT, Gary. I can’t explain it, but I really think he needs my help.”

Gary looked at me funny. “BT needs your help?” He finally came out, asking the obvious question. “Are you sure this isn’t just your over-active imagination or your senseless need to put yourself in danger or is it just a way to commit suicide by zombie?!” Gary said heatedly.

“Well, don’t hold back, brother! Tell me what you’re really thinking.”

“You’re upsetting him!” Mary came to Gary’s defense.

I didn’t see it that way, looked way more like he was doing the disturbing.

“Mike, ever since we left Maine, you have done everything in your power to put us in as much danger as possible. It seems like you go out of your way to find the worst situation, then you head right for it, like you just can’t wait to see a new and unusual way to die.”

“I don’t remember forcing you to leave Maine, Gary,” I said forcefully.

“Someone had to watch your back,” he said, advancing a step on me.

“You do realize, Gary, that we are in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, right? And that we are no longer on the top of the food chain. Going out for smokes can now be a life or death situation.”

“You know I don’t smoke and neither do you, but you’d probably pick up the habit just to see if you could get them.”

Gary was pretty worked up. I hadn’t seen him this angry since they cancelled Battle of the Network Stars sometime back in the late seventies. “Gary, I’m not doing this out of some ill-conceived way to commit suicide. My family, my friends are in trouble, I could never, I would never leave them, or their fates up to the whim of a crazy bitch vampire.”

“No swearing in my house,” Mary said loudly. Then she stopped to look at me when she processed the rest of the sentence. “Crazy bitch vampire?”

“Mom, no swearing,” Josh echoed his mother in a much-practiced routine.

“Like Dracula vampires?” Mary asked hesitantly.

“Worse,” Gary said, still with heat in his voice.

“What? He’s not joking?” Mary asked as she sat down heavily, nearly missing the edge of the couch. Gary caught her under her armpit to keep her from hitting the ground.

“Her name’s Eliza and she’s got this thing for Mike,” Gary said as Mary settled deeper into the couch, trying to hide herself from the advancing shadows in her mind.

“And you came into my house!” Mary shouted, rising quickly from her perch. “How dare you!” she said, shaking with rage.

“You opened the door to us,” I told her.

“I wouldn’t have; had I known!” she shouted.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t have the time to give you our bio when we were trying to save our lives,” I told her.

“Cool, you know a vampire?” Josh asked, surprised.

“It’s not nearly as cool as you might think,” I told him.

“Does she sparkle?” he asked.

“Why would she sparkle?” I asked Josh. I was clearly confused.

“You wouldn’t understand the reference,” Gary interjected, with no further explanation.

“Can we forget about all this sparkly shit!” Mary shouted.

“Mom!” Josh yelled.

“Sorry, Josh. Mommy’s a little stressed-out right now. Where is this vampire now?” Mary asked, swinging back and forth between Gary and myself, searching for a truthful answer.

“Well, I mean she could be anywhere by now,” Gary said.

“Where was she the last time you saw her?” Mary asked, trying to extract the information like a stubborn, impacted tooth.

“Well, what’s your definition of ‘saw’?” I asked her, trying to get the heat off Gary.

“I swear, I’ll throw you both out right now if I don’t get a straight answer!”

“What about my head wound?” Gary asked with alarm.

“Oh for Christ’s sakes! I’ve cut myself worse shaving my legs!” Mary shouted.