Mark Tufo - A Plague Upon Your Family

“Where’s the food?” She shot out, her initial anger at my becoming unemployed still highly evident. As she began to look closer at the near comatose expression on my face, the ketchup on my pants and shoes and the pickle slices that dripped to the floor that her demeanor changed. “Oh Talbot how do you get into these messes?” I would have aimlessly argued that I had nothing to do with it, but her ensuing laughter was like the siren call to sailors of lore. I joined in with her wholeheartedly. After heavy moments of out-of-control laughter we locked into a vinegar infused kiss that temporarily made all of our earthly concerns melt away. For twenty beats of my heart, the entire day had been worth the pay out.

CHAPTER 17

“You’re probably right.” I said answering her original question back in the here and now. But I still looked longingly at the rapidly departing, true King of Hamburgers. My heavy sigh, went unnoticed or ignored didn’t really matter which, I wasn’t getting any golden bronzed dipped in sunlight French fries no matter how much I pouted.

We were still hours away from Carol’s and the weakened winter sunlight was doing its best to retreat into the west ahead of the frigid night. We had some choices, none of them particularly grand. We could push on through the night and get to Carol’s in the blackest part of the evening. My feelings were that entering into that nightmare during the brightest part of the day might make it minutely more palatable. So we could cross off option number one. Number two consisted of pulling off to the shoulder of the road and sleeping in the car, one look at the depleted gas tank gauge revealed that we would not be able to keep the car and subsequently the heater running for the entire night. Of the ‘choices’ we were contending with, we would have to pick the one that was the least unsavory. That doesn’t mean it was a good choice, just better than the rest. It’s like the choice to eat chocolate covered ants or caviar. They’re both choices but they both suck. Kind of like having to vote for either candidate in a presidential race, no matter which way you go you’re guaranteed taxes will increase and the winner will blame the losing parties ineptitude for the necessity of the increase.

Option three involved pulling off the highway, getting some much needed gas and finding some sort of safe haven to sleep the night away. Our luck at safe havens had been largely devoid these last few nights. I had my doubts that would turn around tonight. I pulled the van over and waited for Brendon to come up alongside. I laid out all my thoughts, hoping that someone might potentially have a better idea or possibly dissuade me from my present course of action. I’m a control freak in the strongest sense of the phrase but only in so far as a situation can be controlled. I’ve yet to come across a zombie that ‘heeled’ when I told it to.

“How long would it take to get to Mom’s?” Tracy asked with a strange mixture of hope and resignation.

“Shit maybe four hours.” I said rubbing my eyes. “I’m exhausted though and we’ll still need to pull over somewhere and get gas.”

“What about finding a motel or something like that?” Brendon asked. “We could stay on the second floor, there’s usually only one or two stair cases that we would have to defend.”

What he omitted, probably unintentionally is that one or two staircases meant only one or two escape avenues. Our lives depended on me always keeping vigilant. But it was still a decent idea. We had to stop, that was not the issue. We might as well be as comfortable as humanly possible, while we were still humans.

The stress I felt everyone exuding was tangible. It had a texture, a thickness to it. When we were moving we were safe. Every time we stopped the danger caught up to us. Only Justin and Tommy thought stopping was a good idea.

My hope was that Justin wanted to stop to give his low grade fever a chance to dissipate, I would not dwell any longer on any wild theories that I could not prove, but could still feel, in the depths of my soul. Damn him, the warring factions in myself were mere children throwing stones to what was going on in his head. He might be the biggest threat to all of our survivals and he was my son. My soul wept, my essence raged, nothing changed.

“Ryan says something about a lantern being on.” Tommy said his eyebrows pinched in a frown as he tried to make sense of his ‘seers’ words.

You could hear a pin drop or Jen peeing a few feet away, you decide which descriptor fits. They were both accurate if not both politically correct. However I don’t think this was going to be on any ACLU docket in the foreseeable future.

“What’d I miss?” Jen asked as she came back wiping her hands in the snow.

BT gave her the short version. “Brendon thinks we should stay at a motel and Tommy says there’s a street light on somewhere.”

She looked as confused as the rest of us, but she recovered a lot faster than any of us. She leaned her head into the minivan.”

“Hi Tommy.” Jen said with a smile. Tommy blushed. “Whatcha got there?”

“Triple berry pop-tart with peanut butter frosting.” He said proudly.

“Dad.” Travis entreated. “You said we were out of pop-tarts.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Wait.” Now I leaned my head into the minivan. “Did you say peanut butter frosting?”

“Uh huh.” Tommy said, shifting uncomfortably as he noticed that everyone was looking at him.

“Did you spread peanut butter on your pop-tart Tommy?” I asked.

He looked at me like I was crazy. His eyes rolled as he answered me. “We don’t even have any peanut butter Mr. T.”

“But pop-tarts never made a peanut butter frosted variety Tommy.” I intoned.

“Oh forget the pop-tarts Talbot.” Jen hushed me.

(I let it go then but I haven’t forgotten about them yet and I can guarantee when the savage vestiges of Alzheimer’s are rendering my mind into brain flavored oat meal and I am slinging my own shit against the walls that I’ll remember triple berry pop-tarts with peanut butter frosting. Oh you dear reader can be assured that after Jen got her answers I checked that pop-tart out and it was indeed the flavor he described. Not that the kid had ever lied but maybe he got confused. He hadn’t.)

“Okay let me get this straight, Brendon says ‘motel’ and Tommy says ‘street light is on’, right?” Jen asked.

Nicole clarified with. “Lantern, he said a lantern was on, not a street light.”

“Let’s go, we’ve got a motel to find.” Jen said with a huge smile on her face.

“Um any chance you could let the rest of us know what mystery you figured out?” BT asked.

“Come on in, we’ll leave the light on for you.” Jen beamed.

“Huh?” BT asked.

Tommy around mouthfuls of an impossibly flavored snack nodded fervently in agreement.

“The old Motel 6 catch phrase.” I wrapped up.

“Exactly.” Jen said. “Let’s go I’m freezing.”

Nobody needed any more persuading than that.

Within twenty minutes we came up on a viable choice for our overnight stay, even if there wasn’t a Dunkin’ Donuts. Beresford South Dakota was about to become our home away from home, at least for the night. It was by far the prettiest place we had stopped thus far in our journey, with its tree lined streets and the pond in the center of town. But pretty doesn’t equate to safe. It was a given that zombies travel to where the food is. So by pure theory alone small towns should be the first places to become devoid of the offending vermin. Like flesh eating locusts, they plunder and pillage the local resources and move on. They don’t hunker down and make roots. Can’t really cultivate a human farm, can you? And then I shuddered as I thought about The Matrix. Okay, but that was about machines harvesting humans for energy. If I come across penned up humans with zombie cowboys, my tentative grip on the fringes of sanity will be forever frayed. I shook my head, trying my best to dislodge the offending vision. Like this shit isn’t bad enough I’ve got to try and drum up even more exciting scenarios. ‘Ah what I’d do for a nuclear bomb.’