Mark Tufo: The End ....

“Oh my God.” Nicole whispered.

The hummers were cutting swaths through the zombies. The carnage was beyond comprehension. The small caravan picked up speed as it approached the stranded castaways. The dire straits the trio was, in spurring the usurpers on.

“Are they going to make it mom?” Nicole asked.

Tracy wasn’t sure if she meant Mike, BT and Jen or Brendon and the Marines or just plain all of them. The flood of relief Tracy felt as Mike hopped into the back of Brendon’s truck nearly made her swoon with relief. Travis gripped her shoulder to keep her from pitching head first off their perch.

“Yeah!” Travis screamed a battle cry.

The caravan was pulling away from the destroyed house with its precious cargo.

“Someone fell out of the truck!” Nicole screamed.

The flood of relief turned into a dirge of dread for the watchers.

“What’s going on? Have they pulled him in yet?” Tracy asked, trying to focus her eyes through the smoke and blood screen.

Nicole turned away from the scene, tortured and twisted by the drama unfolding before her.

“That’s Jen.” Travis said gravely.

“What is going on?” Tracy cried.

Travis jumped from the truck roof, running full speed towards the battle.

“Travis!” Tracy screamed. She shuddered at his response.

“Dad’s been shot!!” He said without turning or slowing down.

“Nicole! Tommy! Get in the truck! Fred, Esther get out of here!” Tracy bellowed as she alit from the truck roof.

Fred didn’t hesitate. He had his own family to take care of. Tracy swore though if she lost her family because of his, she would find him and even the score. Tracy had covered half the distance to the melee in the truck before she caught up with Travis.

“Get in!” She yelled into his ear.

He didn’t break stride. “I’m going to help!”

“So are we! Get in!”

He glanced over at her making sure this wasn’t a ruse, her expression was stone cold. He jumped into the bed of the truck. The fifty cals from this close were making the Ford shake. Tracy’s teeth hurt from the percussions. Travis rifle started to explode rounds. Zombies were caught in a crossfire. If she hadn’t hated them so much, Tracy thought, she might actually feel sorry for them.

“Fuck that.” She fishtailed the truck into couple of zombies on the fringe of the excitement. Spines shattered as the heavy truck crushed over one of the unlucky ones heads. She was running parallel to the military convoy, which was fighting desperately to get away from the entanglement. Tracy could barely control her gorge as the trucks began to inch closer and closer.

The bottom of Brendon’s truck bed looked like a swimming pool of blood, BT was cradling her husband, the tears streaming down his face matched the crimson flowing freely from Mike’s chest.

“Oh my God!” Tracy wailed. Her truck was skimming into the outer ranks of zombies in a desperate bid to be with her husband at the end. For that’s what it was, nobody could lose that much blood and survive.

Tracy was alongside Brendon’s truck trying desperately to look over Nicole and into the bed of the truck.

Nicole was screaming. She couldn’t hear anything over the hell fire from the military guns. A zombie crashed over the hood of the truck, Tracy instinctively hit the brakes as the zombie slid back down. The trailing hummer caught up, the corporal was bellowing at her. She couldn’t hear him but his gestures were universal and you didn’t have to be a lip reader to understand ‘GO, GO GO!’

She wanted to stop she wanted to hold her husband one more time. BT’s face was towards the sky, he was yelling something to the heavens.

“NO!!!” Tracy screamed. Tommy had thrown up. A caustic aroma mix of vomit and strawberry Pop-Tart.

“What the fuck is going on!” Nicole screamed. “Pull up mom, pull up!”

Tracy gunned the engine. BT had put Mike’s lifeless body down and was reaching through the rear glass. Brendon was slumped over the steering wheel, his foot lodged on the gas pedal. BT had moved his body to the side so that he could steer the truck. The truck had rammed into the rear of the lead truck, the gunner swung around to realize the new threat.

He thumped the roof of the transport letting the driver know about the new development, and then resumed his place as judge, jury and extreme executioner. BT had regained relative control of Brendon’s truck. The lead hummer had slowed and allowed itself to be used as a braking mechanism. Speeders were keeping pace as the four trucks raced alongside the mob of dead. The lead driver veered away to make distance.

Tracy could feel the lost seconds as they slid away, like so much sand in an hourglass. Over untended fields the trucks careened as the hounds of hell were chomping at their heels. Mike’s hollow body bounced around, more than once he rose as high as the sidewalls and threatened to be tossed into the North Dakota wilderness. Ten minutes later the lead hummer had finally come to a stop. Tracy had nearly dropped the transmission when she shoved the gearbox into park.

His body was so cold as she hopped into the back of the truck and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. A small blue frozen smile was splashed across his lips. Nicole was torn between her father and her fiancée. One of the Marines had come from the first hummer carrying a medical bag. He stopped briefly to check Brendon, and then slowly shook his head. Nicole fell to her knees. Her keening so high that it was barely audible. BT screamed in rage.

He came over to Mike, Tracy wanted to run away, she couldn’t handle that all knowing and death certifying shake of his head. The corpsman was in no apparent rush when he stepped up into the truck. Nobody could be the color of blue that Mike was and be alive.

Tracy pulled Mike away from the corpsman. “NO! You will not tell me he is dead!” Tracy screamed.

“Ma'am let me see if I can help him.” The corpsman told her, though even he didn’t sound believable to himself.

Tracy relented. The corpsman spent considerably more time than he should have to pronounce someone dead. “Corporal Beckett! Bring the morphine and a blanket! Quickly!” The corpsman shouted.

“He’s alive?” Tracy whispered.

“What’s going on?” BT asked through the veil of tears.

Tracy hushed him, fearful that his words might break the tenuous grip on life that Mike clung to.

The corpsman had ripped Mike’s shirt open. Tracy had momentarily become fearful that Mike would die from the cold although that seemed the least of his problems as she looked at the bolt from the crossbow that had punched a hole damn near straight through. The force of the impact had created a melon sized black and blue mark that radiated broken blood vessels in all directions. She wouldn’t swear it on a bible but she thought she saw the arrow rise a fraction of an inch, though she couldn’t tell if it was from Mike breathing or the buffeting wind.

The wound had stopped bleeding, congealed blood of the dead or just plain empty neither symptom a good sign. “Corporal NOW! If this man dies, you're next!”

“Sir, yes sir.” The corporal shouted from beside the truck he cautiously handed over all the supplies asked for.

“He’s alive?” Tracy asked again, still not sure why the corpsman was taking the time to administer pain killer to a corpse.

The truck rocked slightly as BT extracted himself from the scene. BT pulled Brendon out from the truck and laid him gently onto the ground. BT knelt beside Brendon. “Thank you.” He said softly as he covered the body up with one of the blankets that the corporal had brought over. BT grabbed Nicole they sat together like that for long minutes. Long after, Mike’s IV-laced body was placed onto a stretcher and placed in the lead hummer, even after Brendon’s still form was taken and placed in the second hummer, blood dripped in a puddle from the tailgate of Brendon’s truck. Tracy was in shock as another Marine placed her into the rear of the hummer with her husband.