Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

I could hear Josh’s car off in the distance, but for some reason, that distance was getting closer.

Chapter Eight

“That’s awesome, Josh, they’re all following it,” Gary said excitedly.

Josh did not immediately answer, as sweat began to form on his head. “I’ve lost control!” he shouted. “I think the batteries in the remote are dead.”

“Shouldn’t the car just stop?” Mary asked.

“No,” Josh said in resignation. “I put the car on ‘auto’ so that it would keep running when it was out of range.”

“Well, that’s alright then, isn’t it, honey? We’ll get you another one,” Mary said, leaning up against the front door as if she thought it might open without her there to stop it.

“Which way did Mike go?” Gary asked, moving from the window on the side of the house to one of the side lights by the front door.

“Left,” Mary answered.

“Figured as much,” Gary said as his eyes tracked Hugo heading left.

“Shit,” Josh said.

Mary did not correct him, not this time. If ever there was a time and a place to use an expletive, this was it.

Hugo was heading down the street towards Mike like a heat-seeking missile.

Chapter Nine – Mike Journal Entry 7

“Shit,” I said, watching Hugo head my way. “I bet Gary’s working the damn thing.”

Hugo was cool; the two dozen speeders trying their best to catch him were not.

“Here we go again,” I said as I began to run. Couldn’t I get déjà vu, at like Oktoberfest, while I was sampling different beers? Because that would be so much cooler.

I started running down the sidewalk. Hugo was about dead center on the street. I don’t know about you, but I’d never had much luck with RC cars. Usually, I crashed them into something or they broke consistently, but not good old Hugo! Nope. He was running straight and true right down the bloody center (English slip) of the road. He was looking like he could do it all night long. What was even way better was that the damn street we were on did not have a curve in its foreseeable future. The one and only thing I had going for me at the moment was that the zombies were completely focused on the truck and its bloody contents (not an English slip, actual stuff it was hauling).

I had a few options. First, keep running in the same direction. Hugo would pass me up shortly and I would become victim to those old zombie posters. You know the ones, “I don’t have to be fastest, only faster than you!” Hugo would zip away and the zombies would turn to me for solace and food. I might be able to keep one or two at bay, but I did not understand my powers well enough or even know if it were possible to do much more than that.

Second, I could cut across a yard and start searching elsewhere, but here we come back to the needle-in-a-haystack analogy, although with the size of BT, it’s more like a cop’s nightstick than a needle, which in reality, shouldn’t be all that hard to find in one haystack. Or third, I could hide behind a bush against the house I was next to. I didn’t like the idea of not moving, especially if even one zombie was looking my way when it happened. But it might work, I’ll just let them run on by. I thought through all of these scenarios in a flash, and was already diving into a small mulberry bush as I was thinking it. Hugo was almost even with me by the time I was able to turn and feel that I was completely concealed from the road. The zombies were a good twenty yards trailing, but they didn’t look like they planned on stopping. My upper torso was completely under the bush, but the bottom-most branches were still a good six inches above my back, and my legs were uncovered. This, all of a sudden, felt like not such a great maneuver. If a zombie saw me and headed this way, it would be all I could do to extricate myself from my hidey-hole and get up to full speed.

“Dumb, dumb,” I said softly as the zombies approached. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of the crunching of plastic, and the high-pitched whining of spinning tires upturned. Are you shitting me? Hugo took this most inopportune of times to flip. I stuck my head out an inch, two at the max to see what happened. I was done in, by a fucking pothole! How damn ironic is that? The very job I had been doing before the zombies came and my equivalents down in North Carolina couldn’t do their part to make our streets a safer place to drive on.

The zombies pounced on the truck. The wheels stopped spinning as Hugo’s life came to an abrupt end. Gary’s shirt was shredded in the feeding frenzy, bandages and swabs flying like chaff in World War II. Zombies sprang up as they realized they had been duped. Well, maybe they didn’t figure that part out; they just knew they weren’t eating anything with substance and now they were on active search mode again. I pulled my head in slowly, not wanting to give my spot away. The moonlight felt like it was shining bright enough to rival a morning sun. Sure, no clouds when you want one, unlike that time back in 1978 when I was trying to watch the lunar eclipse. Oh yeah! They were all over the place then. Stayed up all effin’ night, didn’t see a damn thing except for clouds. I told God that he should probably stick to his day job and leave the ironic comedy to the professionals.

“Awesome,” I whispered, putting my head down for a second. Had to be at least thirty zombies just milling about, no more than thirty to forty feet from where I was. They didn’t go back to Mary’s house, which would have been a blessing. They just milled around, like stoners in their parents’ basement. They just didn’t know what to do with themselves. I’d been one of them, so I knew this could possibly go on all night. I guess zombies were a lot like stoners; neither did much in the way of action until food was involved. At least, I would be able to keep myself amused.

I would have to do something before daybreak. I was entirely too exposed like this. I decided I was not going to wait until the very end to do something. Normally, I’d wait until the sun was beginning to peek up over a nearby rooftop. I was sick of close calls when it was time to move. I slowly inched further back and closer to the foundation of the house I was hiding next to. The loud snap when my rifle sling caught a branch above my head, snapping the dry appendage in two, did not go unnoticed. I stopped moving completely. I mean, except of course, for my heart which was banging so hard it was popping my chest off the ground by a good six or eight inches. (Yes, yes, it’s my flair for the dramatic, I was scared. You have thirty or so zombies stop everything they’re doing and more or less look in your direction, and let me know how you hold up.)

I didn’t even want to breathe, but when your heart is slamming away and your adrenaline is juicing the works, it just isn’t possible. I let a small exhalation of air go. GOD, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I screamed in my head. The night was just cool enough that I could see my breath as it lazily swirled past my face. Might as well have been crashing cymbals together. A couple of zombies had honed in on the movement of coiled, cooled air, but as of yet, had not made any direct connection between it and a food source. But I had to imagine that they would come check it out. What the hell else were they going to do? I’m sure they weren’t worried about missing an ice cream social or something.

A few of the inquisitive zombies started to slowly make their way over towards my location. I was gradually inching my way back even further, so that I could stand and make a run for it. I was tempted to head back towards Mary’s, but I wasn’t sure if I’d make it, or more likely, if she’d even open the door. Oh, I’m sure she’d make a good show of it for Gary. But I could almost picture her fingers fumbling with the lock on the security door (yes, the same one she had already twice proved how adept she was with) as zombies began to chew on my flesh. And then she’d have this small, devious smile that would flash across her features right before she shut the front door.