Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“Does aspartame have any antiseptic qualities?” Paul asked his wound. It wept some foamy pinkish fluid onto the floor in response. “Doesn’t look like a wound that would be my undoing.”

Paul was stuck in indecision. He was effectively hobbled with a right sprained ankle and a left foot with a bullet wound in it. A rifle with exactly two rounds, no antibiotics and enough pain pills that he might not even feel a bullet to the brain if he went down that road.

“Whoa where’d that come from?” he asked the air. “Fuck! I’d probably miss.” And then he started laughing; he almost choked, he was laughing so hard. “Okay what are my options? I can try to get back to Deneaux and let her know what happened.” He dwelled on that for a second. “No good, she’d shoot me as soon as I said I was infected. I could try to find Mike. He’d at least wait until I changed over before he shot me. No, I’m not doing that either. Plan C.” Paul gimped over to the front door, shut it securely, locked it tight and sat back at the kitchen table. “Hell, if I’m going to turn into a zombie, I’m doing it with some style.” He took one more pain killer, rationing the rest off for later that night.

Chapter Eleven - Ron’s

Travis had pulled up a recliner and fallen asleep by Ron’s shortwave radio. Tracy put down her cup of coffee to drape a small blanket around her son.

“You should get some sleep too,” Ron said, coming into the room.

Tracy grabbed her mug of coffee and walked to the other end of the room so as to not disturb her son.

“They should have called in by now,” she said, staring out the large picture window at the pond, which was just beginning to reflect the morning light.

Ron was all ready to pull out the standard responses. Maybe the radio is broken (likely possibility, knowing his brother’s penchant for breaking things), or maybe the batteries have died (possible, but not probable; Ron gave them enough batteries to last a year even if Mike had left the damn thing on all day, every day), or they were making such good time, they didn’t think to let anyone else know (also another possibility, considering Mike’s what-me-worry? attitude). But he was not so selfish as to not let his loved ones know what was happening. Ron didn’t even go with the standard, “Everything will be alright.” The lie died on his lips before he could even say it.

Ron sat down at the living room table, looking at the same view as Tracy, occasionally remembering to drink his rapidly cooling coffee.

“Anything?” Travis asked, looking over at his mother and uncle.

A small terse shake of Tracy’s head was all the answer he needed.

“Any more of that?” A stretching and yawning Cindy asked.

Tracy was pretty sure Cindy and Travis had arm wrestled for the right to sleep in the chair by the radio the night before. Cindy looked like she may have paced the entire night away.

“I’ll go get you some,” Ron said as he got up to head into the kitchen.

“He…they have to be alright,” Cindy said, hugging herself.

“How’s Perla doing?” Tracy asked, wanting to avoid that conversation completely.

“Someday she’ll be alright, but not today.” Cindy answered, now realizing that maybe she didn’t want to dwell on the fate of her fiancée just yet either. “The view is beautiful,” Cindy told Ron as he handed her a cup of coffee.

“Thank you,” Ron said. “If you guys need anything, please let me know. I’d like to get to work as soon as possible before it gets dark.” Work involved designing, and building all viable means of defense of the Talbot stronghold. Ron wasn’t a betting man, but he was fairly certain Mike would be back and he would be coming in hot. Meaning every zombie and vampire for a thousand mile radius would be in chase. That was Mike; he never got himself halfway into trouble, he always made sure to be fully wedged tightly in its grip, and he planned on being as properly prepared as possible.

“Hi Perla.” Cindy said as she wrapped her arms around her friend.

“Anything?” Perla asked.

Only the resulting silence answered her.

“I’m going to help Uncle Ron,” Travis said, removing the small blanket.

“Be careful, hon. Your dad used to tell me all sorts of horror stories about your uncle and that machine he’s using.”

“The back hoe?” Travis asked.

“Yeah, that thing. Just be careful.”

Travis looked like he wanted to tell his mother that there were way worse things to be afraid of. But now that he thought about it, being around his uncle using a fifteen-ton machine had its own inherent dangers.

***

Ron was fueling the machine and getting ready to check the hydraulics when Travis came out to the garage to meet him.

“You need any help?” Travis asked.

Ron actually preferred to work alone because he didn’t have the greatest track record running the big machine. There were enough houses with their siding missing to attest to that. But he could tell his nephew needed to keep busy doing something.

“Sure, I can’t get into the tree line with this beast and I need some holes dug about yay big,” Ron said, roughly showing a box about a foot deep by a foot across.

“What are they for?”

“Explosives.”

“Sweet,” Travis said as he went over to the wall and grabbed a pick and a shovel off the peg board. “I should have stayed with them,” Travis said to his uncle, his back still to him.

“They’re just late calling in. You don’t know if anything is wrong,” Ron answered his nephew. It sounded flat even as he said it.

“I’m faster than any of them, I’m as good a shot as my dad. I could have kept them out of trouble,” Travis sighed, turning to face his uncle, his seventeen-year-old features strained from the stress.

“Alright, I’m not going to lie, ever since your dad was a kid, he found some of the most unusual ways to get into trouble. It’s like he has a trouble-homing beacon on so it knows where to go. But somehow he always comes out smelling sweeter than when he went in. Now, I don’t know what kind of mess he’s gotten himself into this time, but there’s no reason at all to think he’s not going to pull out of it like he always does.” Ron’s words seemed to have a measurable effect on Travis. “Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do before they get back.” Ron wrapped his arm around Travis’ shoulder and showed him exactly where to start digging.

***

“Hi Tony, how you doing?” Tracy asked. She was sitting at the table with the radio.

“I wish they’d hurry up and get back,” he said, sitting down next to her. “This not knowing is horrible. If I was twenty years younger, I’d be out there looking for them.”

“I saw you on that on-ramp. I think you could handle yourself just fine.”

His eyes twinkled at her as he flashed a smile and grabbed her hand. “How have you put up with him so long?” Tony asked, half kidding, but also half serious. “That kid has more kinks and quirks than piping done by the Three Stooges.”

“That’s a pretty old reference, Tony, and I never liked that show growing up.”

“Butch…I mean Mike and I,” Tony started with a faraway look in his eye, “used to sit and watch it every Saturday morning. I’d seen them all, years before as a kid, but it was a way for the two of us to be together to do some bonding. I’d always wished that I had spent more time with my children as they were growing up, but Mike got the least time of any of them. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, now that I think about it.” And then he smiled.