Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“Josh, that’s rude!” Mary said. BT umphed as she pulled a stitch too tight. “Sorry.”

BT nodded curtly.

“Competitive ballet dancer,” I told Josh.

“What?” BT and Josh both looked at me. Gary just shook his head as he came in from the living room.

“Sorry, it popped in my head.”

“It’s still all clear out there,” Gary said.

“We’ve got plenty of moonlight. When BT is all fixed up, we should probably get going,” I said. “Although the sun will be coming up soon,” I added as the sky to the east was already beginning to lighten up.

Mary’s shoulders slumped. We might not be her primary choice for guests, but we were company and at least one of us was comforting to her.

“I sure wish we could go with you guys,” Josh said. “But if my dad came home, and we weren’t here, he wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Are you sure you won’t spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning?” Mary asked.

“There are three more of us out there, and I have no idea where they are or if anything has happened to them and they’ll only wait so long if they’re already at the rendezvous point. On top of that, I’m really late checking in with my brother. If I don’t check in with him soon, he might get a crazy idea to launch a rescue,” I said.

“Alright, let me just finish cleaning BT up,” Mary said, standing so she could go into the other room and get some more supplies. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to drag this out as long as possible. She might even scratch him a few more times so she’d have something else to put some Bacitracin on. I was going to keep an eye on her. BT wasn’t going to notice shit if she kept stuffing different MREs in front of his face.

“How many of those things you going to eat?” I asked him.

“Don’t bother me while I’m eating, man,” BT growled, placing one arm protectively around his newest packet, which looked like pork and beans or something equally as unappetizing.

And just like that it hit me. I thought back to Eliza’s caravan and the zombies under Eliza’s control. She wasn’t actively directing them to sit and behave. She had given them an earlier command and had somehow tied it off like those damn, infuriating bread ties. You know the ones; you can never figure out which way they are tied. You spin them to the left for a few turns before you realize that it isn’t getting any looser, so you do the other way, and for some physics-bending reason, you get the same result. I can’t even begin to tell you how many loaves of bread I have just ripped the plastic sleeve on. You want to talk about pissing my wife off? Alright, enough of a divergence.

I knew it was possible to tie commands off, I just wasn’t sure how to do it. I felt like I was five again and my dad was telling me to tie my shoe. Sure, he had showed me like fifteen times previous, but it might as well have been advanced geometry. I wonder if Eliza would be so kind as to give me a lesson. And then the second dawning came to my mind.

Tomas? I reached out tentatively. I felt like I had enough control that I could communicate with him and him alone, but I wasn’t completely sure.

“ My sister is extremely angry with you, Michael,” Tomas answered.

So she’s not dead?

“ What do you want?” Tomas said wearily, or maybe warily.

BT is in trouble . Now I panicked. How much information did I want to give him (or them)? Stupid, stupid, I should have not brought his name up. Forget it, nothing, I said, just about to close the connection.

“ Michael, it was obviously important enough that you felt the need to seek me out.”

“Dammit!”

“What?” Gary asked.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“I don’t want to know,” Gary said, walking out of the room.

BT’s been infected . I laid it all out there; he was no worse off than he had been a moment before.

There was no response from Tomas for long seconds, and then I heard what could only be described as a sigh. “I’m sorry for your loss.” When I hesitated, Tomas spoke. “There is nothing I can do to help him.”

I actually think you might be able to.

“ Even if I could, I do not understand why you think that I would be willing to help you.”

Cut the shit, Tomas! Tommy, George, whatever the hell you want to call yourself now. You are not so far removed from that boy I knew, the one that I adopted as one of my own. Eliza is not evil because she has no soul. Eliza is evil in spite of that. You helped me on that rooftop and you know it, no matter how you are trying to justify it to yourself or your bitchster. You could have let me and all the rest of us die up there. I’m telling you now, BT will die without your help! Don’t do what you think you’re supposed to do, or definitely not what your sister would want you to do, do what is right! I shouted internally.

“ How is saving BT so that he can try and destroy us, doing what is right?” he asked.

He had a valid point from his angle. Just because I thought it was right didn’t mean everyone else would. Damn semantics.

Listen, we can go round and round, but here’s the deal: BT has been bit. I have halted the advance of the virus, but I do not know how to hold it off indefinitely.

There was a bigger pause than when I had told him about BT’s infection. I thought maybe I had not made myself clear enough.

After more long moments of silence, he responded. “Eliza grows suspicious and is even now attempting to see what I am doing. We do not have much time. You will have to give me access to him.”

I wasn’t so sure about this, I just wanted a “how to.” Once he had his fingers inside BT, so to speak, he could do something irreversible.

“ Michael, I can sense your indecision. You’re right. I could have let you all die on that rooftop. What purpose would it serve to now undo that? I’m running out of time, Michael.”

Dammit .

“What the hell is that?!” BT yelled in exclamation.

“It’s just a little hydrogen peroxide,” Mary answered. “The same stuff I’ve been using this whole time.”

“No, in me! Something’s in me,” he said, standing in alarm.

“Josh, get out of here!” Mary yelled. “He’s turning into a zombie!”

“I am?” BT asked with alarm.

“Hold on!” I yelled, coming in late to the party. I had been so intent on watching what Tomas was doing, I was unaware of my physical surroundings. Gary was moments away from putting a bullet in BT.

“Mike! What’s going on?” BT asked, looking like he was getting ready to jump out of his own skin.

“I asked for some help,” I told him.

“What kind of help and who specifically?” he asked with a very large note of concern.

“I asked Tomas for some help.”

“Tomas, as in Eliza’s brother, Tomas?” Mary asked Gary.

Gary shrugged his shoulders. “I told her everything. You guys were gone for a long time.”

“Yes, that Tomas,” I said, answering her question.

“Mike, don’t you think you should have maybe asked me before you let the enemy in?”

“Tomas is here?” Josh asked, running to the front window. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Did you ever stop to think that he could really do some damage?” BT asked. He was more than a little pissed off.

“I took a risk. It was a calculated risk,” I told him.

“With my life!” he yelled, bringing his fist down on the table. Mary jumped as if she were startled, but it could have been that the shock wave from the table had caused her to raise up off the floor.