Mark Tufo: A Plague Upon Your Family

Unbeknownst to Eliza she may have actually done the Hoto family a favor, although none of the Hoto’s were around to appreciate that fact. Mrs. Eileen Hoto RN, had secretly stolen three of the very difficult to find H1N1 vaccinations. As a caregiver she would be given preferential treatment as would her baby, but her husband who constantly got sick due to the stresses he placed on himself would most likely never be in a position to get the sought after shot. So in her head, she was only stealing one shot and she rationalized it by telling herself that her husband, a well respected engineer and an involved member of the community, was more deserving than some crack baby down at the clinic where she worked. An hour before her husband had made his death march to get the newspaper, she had administered the shot to all three of them. Doing it early in the morning, in the hopes that their baby might not even realize what was happening. True to her cherub nature, Gilly Hoto never protested once as her mother gave her the vaccination.

The tainted inoculation had already begun to overcome what little resistance the beleaguered white blood cells could muster when Eliza had drunk her fill.

Prologue Four – Mike’s Journal

Hello my name is Michael Talbot and this is my journal. If you have found this then most likely I am dead. I swore that after I left my first journal behind at my homestead in Little Turtle I would not let the same fate befall this one. I have no way of knowing what the world has turned out like. While I was alive we were at war, a war where 85% of the combatants didn’t know that fact. They simply felt a need to eat and we simply felt a need not to be eaten. The story of myself, my family and my friends are in these pages. It is as true an account of what happened to the Talbots as can be written from one that has lived through it. Is some of it biased? Probably. Is some of it subjective? Definitely. In a perfect world I’m hoping that I left this book behind in some haste to evacuate an area. But more than likely I have fallen. I have been so tired, now I finally can rest.

CHAPTER 1

Zombie bodies exploded under the crushing weight of the tractor trailer. Splintered bones rained down all around us. The occasional eyeball struck the side of the trailer with a hollow thudding. The noise was sickening from atop. I could only imagine what it sounded like inside. Noxious gases issued forth from burst beings, some unlucky few that got stuck in the plow works were slowly eroded away like the world’s largest eraser on the biggest mistake in mankind, which actually wasn’t so far from the truth. The truck was an island that floated along a sea of death and decay. I had never felt more afraid for my family since this whole thing started. The constant jostling as we hit and subsequently ran over zombies made holding on for dear life, take on a whole new meaning. For some friggen reason I had not had the foresight to rope my English Bulldog Henry to the truck. I now had one arm wrapped around Henry like he was an expensive Saks Fifth Avenue package and I was in Central Park at night. My other hand was gripped onto a handle secured to the top of the truck with two entirely way too small screws. Again if you read my first journal you’ll know I would no sooner let go of Henry than I would one of my natural born. For those of you that say he’s only a dog you must be cat lovers and just don’t know any better. I won’t hold it against you. Luckily Henry wasn’t squirming or this would be a short novella punctuated by my untimely demise. The screws were puckering up the top of the truck. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were going to give under the strain I was placing on them. My last few moments on earth were going to be the loud audible pop as the screws tore loose and then my ungraceful swan dive off the top of this trailer and into the waiting arms of an endearing crowd of brain and flesh eaters. Thankfully Alex was a much better craftsman than I gave him credit for, because I’m still writing. Alex is a man that I’ve only known a few weeks but I consider him a true friend. Especially since he saved my family’s collective ass today, Christmas day. Alex was one of the newest residents of Little Turtle after the deaders came, he set up or engineered most of the defenses we used in our now shattered community. If not for his stalwarts I would have never made it out of my cell and to my house in time. With that thought I had a pang of remorse as I remembered Jed. At one time we had been bitter enemies in a much simpler world. When what time you put your trash out actually carried meaning. I hadn’t seen Jed since the day the walls came down, literally. He had let me out of my cell, as I was awaiting my trial for murder. Sure I had killed a piece of shit and the world was a better place for it but it was still murder. Why I had killed him is not something I am going to revisit, especially on this the most sacred of days, if you really want to know you’re going to have to go back to Little Turtle on the Denver/Aurora line in Colorado, I left my journal in my old office before we had made our narrow escape to the attic. I’m sure the zombies will be gone in a few days, there’ll be nothing left there to eat.

The jostling of the truck slowly decreased as we moved further and further away from the kill zone. I could almost hear the collective sighs of relief but more likely it was the great intake of air as everyone felt it was finally safe to breathe deeply, not from fear but from smell. The dead have not a clue about personal hygiene. That and the fact that comparatively, lepers had a mild case of acne. Exactly one point one miles from my previous home the truck pulled to a halt, I let go of Henry with my left arm. I was going to need that hand to pry my fingers from the handle. It seems I had frozen it in place. Again I didn’t think to grab cold weather gear as zombies were pouring in to my bedroom. Yeah you sit there in your bomb shelter and judge me all you want for not being properly prepared but I’ve got a leg up on 80% of the rest of the world. I’m still alive or at least not one of the living dead.

There were no zombies in sight, but that could change at any moment as I helped my wife, Tracy, down from the top, she seemed a little perturbed that I had got Henry safely to turf before her. You know how it is, man’s best friend and all, that and I think he had to take a piss, and I’d known him long enough to know he’d go anywhere and on anyone once the need was there. Brendon, my daughter’s fiancée helped his fiancée down. They were still in that new love phase when chivalry ruled. That would die as soon as he ripped his first big fart in front of her, but for now it was all still tea and roses. My best friend Paul had alit from the far side of the truck, I could hear his wife Erin as she was trying to rub the circulation back into her arms. My son Travis had scrambled off the truck and was patrolling our perimeter, bless his heart. My other son, Justin who was still suffering after effects from his zombie scratch was helped down from Tommy into Paul’s waiting arms. Justin was both relieved and embarrassed, relieved that he had made it off the truck in one piece and embarrassed that he needed the help in the first place.

The biggest enigma, both literally and figuratively, Tommy, was the last person off the roof. I think I had saved the kids ass back at Wal-Mart so many days ago, but the more I think about it I think he was meant to save us. In his previous life he had been a Wal-Mart greeter, all stickers and smiles. What his so called ‘normal mind’ lacked was more than made up for in the infectious grin and overwhelming heart that the kid possessed. But that was not everything about Tommy, not by a long shot. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the kid for those reasons, but there was something way above my pay grade going on with this kid. For starters he has a spirit guide that by all accounts sounds and looks like Ryan Seacrest. There’s that and then there’s things he knows that he just can’t know about and then there’s this fucken truck. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled Alex showed up when he did, but it wasn’t by coincidence. Alex’ wife Marta is related to Tommy on his mother’s side, somehow he was able to hone in on that connection and summon them for help. I almost always had to shake my head at the dichotomy that was Tommy. I laughed as I saw the savior of the human race jump down from the small ladder. He looked at me smiling with a huge glob of peanut butter on the tip of his nose. This did not go unnoticed by Travis as he rounded the corner of the truck on his circuitous patrol route.