Mark Tufo - Alive in a Dead World

“Maybe, they haven’t seen us yet…Dammit! Said it too soon.”

“Gary leave me, I don’t think they’ll eat me.”

“Don’t think?” He paused to catch his breath. “Or know?”

He kept running. The wheelbarrow was about as comfortable, Mike imagined, as the old time, horse-drawn buggies of a bygone era, and probably worse because they at least, had some sort of crude, spring shock absorber.

“Mush,” Mike told Gary.

His comment did not elicit a remark. Gary was scared and running for both of their lives and Mike didn’t think he had the steam in him to make it.

“Gary, get me out of this thing.”

Gary didn’t say anything or slow down, at least not consciously, but he was flagging.

“Can’t…touch…you,” he said.

“If you don’t, we’re both toast,” Mike said and Gary winced. It was not the wording he was looking for. “Now, Gary,” Mike said with as much force as he could muster. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

The wheelbarrow almost tipped as he came to a stop. He quickly came around and picked Mike up underneath his arms, Mike was standing on shaking legs. “Run now!” Mike told him.

He looked to Mike and then directly over his shoulder at the zombies rapidly closing the gap.

“Run fucking now!” Mike told him, gingerly placing his smoldering hand on top of Gary’s shoulder. Layers of skin stayed behind as he removed my hand.

“No,” he said.

“Gary I…I can hold them from eating me, but I cannot protect the both of us, will you make me watch them kill you? Please don’t let that happen.”

“Are you sure?” he asked desperately. “I can keep pushing the barrow.”

“Absolutely,” Mike said, although he had no fucking clue.

“I love you, Mike.”

“I love you too, Gary. Now, get the fuck out of here!”

He wanted to hug his brother, but thought better of it. He turned and started to run. Mike stood there for a few seconds, contemplating how he was going to get his legs moving, when cats in varying states of disrepair began to stream by. Some had been burnt as badly as Mike had guessed. He had yet to take a complete inventory. Some had bites taken out of them and at least one or two looked like they might survive the entire ordeal. And then Mike heard their pursuers; zombies were coming up behind him and he didn’t have the strength to even turn around and look.

“Time to find a happy place,” Mike said aloud. Gary gave one long, woeful look from a few houses down before he turned the corner and was out of sight.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“What do you mean you left him behind!?” BT was asking, clearly agitated.

“You weren’t there, BT, he begged me to. I didn’t want to,” Gary said, finally catching his breath.

“I know, I know how he is. Stupid Talbot and his death wish persona.”

Mrs. Deneaux had not said anything from the corner of the room, but secretly she was overjoyed. Surely any questions of her culpability in the death of Brian and Paul’s disappearance would die with Michael.

“You ready to go back out and get his ass?”

“You know it.”

“You coming?” BT asked Deneaux.

“Not a chance. He got himself into this mess, he will have to get himself out,” she replied.

“I would have expected nothing less,” BT said flatly. “That’s the woman whose words you want to believe,” BT said to Mary. “If she had to step two feet out of her way to not step over you, she wouldn’t do it. We’ll be back.”

Josh raced out the door before his mother could stop him.

“Josh! What are you doing?” Mary cried from the front door; she was too afraid to follow him outside.

“I’m the man of the household now and I’m going to help them get Michael Talbot back here,” he answered not once raising his voice, just stating a factual matter.

“You will do no such thing!” she screamed, her face turning a bright crimson.

“I am and I will. Let’s go,” he motioned to BT and Gary. “I know all the short cuts around here.”

“Joshua Hilop! Get back here!” she screamed uselessly. “Do something!” she asked BT desperately.

“He’s safer with us than with her,” he told Mary, looking back at the hawk-eyed Deneaux.

She grabbed BT’s arm, but he shrugged her off. “I don’t have time for this little family drama. I have a brother to retrieve. I promise he’ll be as safe with us as he would be at your house.”

Mary was now beginning to doubt the sanctity of her own home, and looked to be moments away from joining the rescue party. “You hurry up and get back here,” she said to Josh. “I love you.”

“Mom, you’re embarrassing me.”

Mary went back into the house, shut the door and watched the small party of three head down the street from the vantage point of her living room window.

“They’re probably all going to die,” Deneaux said from the chair across the room. She lit a cigarette and took a long slow drag.

“What?” Mary didn’t think that Deneaux had just uttered those words because no one with a soul could have. She chalked up her missed hearing to stress. “There’s no smoking in this house.”

“Sure there isn’t,” Mrs. Deneaux said, shaking her ash on the carpet.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tracy was alternating between sitting at the radio, pretending to read a series of books she couldn’t get into and working on the beefed-up fortifications Ron was installing when Henry started barking. A sound that was much closer to a sound a seal might make than any dog.

Tracy crossed the room quickly, trying to follow Henry’s line of sight, but since he was looking at a wall, she didn’t understand what he was getting all riled up about.

From Ron’s front door, you could see the long gravel roadway that was his street and that was where she went. She was slightly hesitant to open the door, lest something previously unimaginable was on the other side. But Henry never turned to look at her as she disengaged the lock and pulled the door open quickly. Kind of like the band-aid removal method--do it fast before it can sting.

Ron had come quickly with rifle in hand, almost pushing past Tracy to shield her from whatever Henry was going on about. Henry was all about conservation of movement and energy and would only reveal his true inner wolf when someone he loved was in danger.

“What’s going on?” Ron asked wide-eyed, looking around expectantly for any signs of danger.

“He just started barking, but he keeps looking at that wall,” Tracy said, clearly confused.

“Mice maybe?” Ron asked, trying to fill in the knowledge gap.

“Henry? Barking at mice? Not unless they are carrying his cookies away. What’s on the other side of that wall?”

“That’s south so about a fifty-foot clearing and then the woods,” Ron answered.

“South?” Tracy asked and she began to turn ashen.

“What’s the matter?” Ron asked in alarm. “What’s south?”

“North Carolina.” Tracy was slammed with a heavy dose of vertigo. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said as Ron helped her to a chair.

“Let me get you some water.” Ron was back in a few seconds, Tracy felt a little better as she drank. Henry barked a few more times and then yelped once before he walked out of the room with his head down. Tracy’s glass shattered to the ground as she passed out.