Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“You do get that I was a manager at FedEx before this shit happened, right? I didn’t go off and play Army boy for a few years. I’ve played paint ball maybe three times my entire life and the only gun in my house belonged to my wife. So excuse me if I’m a little fucking nervous that we’re about to get into a fire fight with an enemy that probably outnumbers us a thousand to one,” Paul said heatedly.

“Quit your bitching,” Mrs. Deneaux said, looking up. “Most of them won’t even have a weapon,” she cackled, referring to the zombies that were being carried in the trucks.

Brian snorted. “Sorry, man,” he said when Paul directed a glare at him. “I was just trying to gauge your combat readiness.”

“He didn’t do so well,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “They’re in range,” she said steadying her eye back down on the scope. “You give the word, Brian, and the driver of the first truck is a dead man.”

Brian shivered at the iciness with which she delivered those words. Killing a man was not an easy task. She, however, sounded practiced at the event. “I want you to be able to tell if he’s a genteel before you shoot.”

Mrs. Deneaux laughed.

“I don’t get it,” Paul said.

The trucks rumbled closer.

“God, there’s so many of them,” Paul said.

The driver of the lead truck saw a glint of light from above. As he looked to see what was reflecting, he thought he saw a small wisp of smoke, followed immediately by a warm, stinging sensation in the center of his chest. His heart stopped beating from the ruptured aorta long before his brain caught up with the fact that he was dead. The truck jerked to the right and then immediately back to the left, the G-forces pulling the cab free from the trailer. The cab went off the embankment to the left, smashing into a tree with the tortured sound of twisting metal and breaking glass. The trailer’s front dropped onto the pavement. Sparks shot back forty feet as metal grated noisily on the roadway.

The trailer may have come to a peaceful stop had not the truck behind it plowed ferociously into its rear end. The troop transport’s rear tires came off the ground as it slammed into the tractor-trailer, spilling the undead contents all over the roadway. Zombies that weren’t immediately liquefied from the accident got up and looked around. The small group atop the overpass was left to wonder why the zombies didn’t do anything except stand in place, almost like they were awaiting direction. But those questions would have to wait to be answered as Eliza’s real men got out and began to search for the threat.

Mrs. Deneaux, smoothly pulled her bolt action back and then forward, placing another round in the chamber. The driver of the third truck had stopped in enough time to avoid the collision and had just stepped out of the cab when Mrs. Deneaux sheered his arm off above the elbow.

Paul, who now had the binoculars, told her that the driver was not dead.

“I did it on purpose, sweetie,” Mrs. Deneaux said, almost kindly. “I was hoping that maybe the sight of blood and someone screaming and running around like a headless chicken would get the zombies moving. Doesn’t seem to have worked,” she said, pulling the bolt back and pushing it forward again.

Brian once again got that chill up his spine. She’s either mad as a hatter, or insane. Neither is a very good prospect.

Brian started to shoot, not nearly with the precision or icy coolness with which Mrs. D dispatched of the enemy, but it was effective all the same.

“Might be time to get going,” Paul said as he saw troops rallying. “It looks like they know where we are and they’re getting ready to fight back.”

As if on cue, shots began to pepper their location.

“Good enough warning for me,” Brian said as he shifted to get his things together, ready to leave post haste. The round that hit him, smashed through his collarbone and exited his abdomen. He immediately rolled on to his back. “Fuck! I didn’t think it would hurt that bad!” he said as his breathing became rapid.

“What would?” Paul turned, beginning to rise with his rucksack. “Damn,” was all Paul managed to say as he looked down on Brian and a blossom of blood spread from Brian’s shoulder to his stomach.

“Bad?” Mrs. Deneaux asked, as she realized they weren’t leaving quite yet. She dropped her magazine and started to put more rounds in it. “I’ll keep shooting; you need to get pressure on his wound.”

Brian was breathing heavily, straining the air through clenched teeth. “It feels like someone has dragged a branding iron across my chest,” he hissed. “And I can’t move my left arm.”

Paul gingerly opened Brian’s light jacket and pulled his shirt up. The sharp intake of air was all the information that Brian needed.

“It’s bad?” Brian asked.

“Brian, everything’s bad to me. Remember me saying I was a manager at a FedEx? Worst thing I ever had to deal with were cardboard cuts,” Paul told him as he took an extra shirt from his backpack and placed it over Brian’s exit wound. “It looks like your collarbone is pretty busted up and the bullet grazed across your chest. That’s why it’s burning; and then it went in and out of your stomach.”

“Gained twenty-five pounds since I’ve been out of the Army. Most of it is gone now, but if I had stayed in shape, the bullet would have missed,” Brian said, still in pain, but realizing he might not quite be dead.

“That extra weight might have saved your life, at least the sexual part,” Paul told him.

“What are you talking about?” Brian asked as he repositioned himself.

“Look at the direction that bullet was heading,” Paul said as he got some bandages and tape.

Brian looked down to his left, past the busted collarbone, at the scrape that went to the right of his left nipple to where the bullet entered into his stomach and came out right below the navel. “Oh shit! That was close,” Brian said, placing his right hand on his still present male equipment.

“I’d take a scar on my mid section any day of the week,” Paul commented, doing his best to place a field dressing on the wound so they could get out of there.

Mrs. Deneaux was still rhythmically shooting, but their location was under heavy fire. Mrs. Deneaux’s lawn chair had already suffered two grievous wounds. The only thing saving her life was how thin she was.

“Well, that helps,” she said as she lifted her head from the scope.

The shooting had stopped on both sides, but the screaming intensified from the highway below.

“What’s going on?” Brian asked.

“I think Mr. Talbot has held up his end of the agreement,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she gleefully clapped her hands.

Paul got into a crouch to look over the guardrail.

“Oh, I think you could do the Samba and no one would take any notice of you,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she stood to get a better vantage point of the slaughter down below.

Paul was perfectly happy with his vantage point. “The zombies are attacking Eliza’s people,” Paul said, pumping his fist.

“I think now would be a good time to get gone,” Brian said, pulling his water bottle over.

“Let me get a sling on your arm first,” Mrs. Deneaux said, placing her rifle down and accessing Brian for the first time.

Brian was none too pleased with her scrutinous eye. He could tell she was sizing up his mobility, and if he were left wanting, she would not have any problem leaving him behind. She’s a dangerous one , he thought. But he said nothing as she did a reasonably good facsimile of a sling with an old t-shirt.

“Not bad,” Brian said as he stood up slowly. Blood rushed out of his head, sending him into a brief, but intense bout of vertigo.