Mark Tufo - A Plague Upon Your Family

And then it was over. The metallic burnt smell whisked out of our car. The din of war was reduced to just wind coming though our various new ventilation systems. Brendon had come through the far side in much better shape than us. They had decided wisely to use more conventional weapons. They had struck at least two and possibly a third man. What was left of our would-be hijackers would fit comfortably in a tollbooth. Tracy had tears streaming down her face as the stress finally wore her down. How the hell she could see through the stream of tears and the shear of wind through the dispersed windshield was once again something that eluded me.

“Tracy.” I said softly. She looked over. “We need to go back.” She didn’t question my sanity she merely acknowledged my words. BT was near to passing out as his eyes were beginning to roll up into his head. “Do you want me to drive?”

She turned the car around and sped back to the trucks. That was sufficient answer for me. This time, however, there was no call to arms as Redneck number one and one of his militia sprinted out into the snow-covered field. Throwing their weapons to the side as they did so.

“So much for comrades in arms.” I said as I pointed to the lone injured gunmen that hobbled desperately to keep up with his fleeing leader. By the time we were abreast of the trucks, the two lead runners were nearly out of sight and didn’t look like they were going to stop any time soon. The injured one had fallen over maybe a hundred yards away and seemed to be rapidly succumbing to whatever injury had taken him down. “Stop.” I told Tracy.

Now she did question my sanity in a backfire of neatly phrased expletive words. I was duly impressed.

“Hon.” I placed my hand on her shoulder. “We need to work on BT. Plus, how far do you think we can go in this cold weather without a windshield? I’m already freezing my ass off and I must have a couple of quarts of adrenaline running through me.” She didn’t think I was any saner but she did as I asked. I knew appealing to a lack of warmth would get to her. I have the heating bills to prove it.

I shivered as I went through the contents of the trucks. Not because of the cold but because of what they contained. There were handcuffs, zip ties, duct tape, rope, a variety of knives and what could only be described as medieval torture tools. Everything the home rapist could wish for. Jen had been more and more disgusted as we moved from cargo hold to cargo hold. There was food and medical supplies and even some oxycodone, which I knew BT would appreciate. But interlaced with this were the true purport of what these animals were up to. There was s&m magazines strewn about that would only arouse the sickest and twisted that society had to offer. Polaroids’ of previous victims spilled out from the glove compartment as I searched through the truck. These pictures made the magazines seem tame in comparison. The reality of how close we were to disaster struck me physically. I could see the tortured faces of my wife and daughter in these pictures of misery. These women and girls screamed in agony as every inconceivable act of depravity was forced upon them. I had not noticed Jen as she peered over my shoulder. I bumped into her as I had grabbed the pictures and was headed for the nearest snow bank, no one else needed to see this.

She walked wordlessly away from me as I dug a hole in the snow and tossed the offending images in, covering them quickly. Fearful that the infused evil on them would seep through my gloves I hastily wiped snow vigorously on them. Two pistol shots pulled me away from my infected finger wear. Jen was standing in the field over the prone body of our intended assailant. If he had had a flicker of life in him before, Jen had made sure to extinguish it. I felt no pity. I don’t think that under his tutelage our demises would have been so ‘clean’ for lack of a better word.

Tracy hadn’t flinched at Jen’s actions. I rightly assumed she must have come across her own grotesque cache of monstrous mementos.

“I can’t find an exit wound on BT. I’m pretty sure that bullet is lodged on his bone.”

I turned to her. My eyes just plain felt heavy. If there were such thing as a stressometer, mine was rapidly red lining. I was pretty good at field sutures and staunching blood flow, even setting the occasional bone, but this would require full on surgery. There was no way around it. I blanched at the prospect, sewing torn skin was vastly different from intentionally cutting someone open and feeling around for a bullet. Rooting around in muscle and tissue, making sure to not nick any major arteries while also insuring that I did not cut myself on any of his bone fragments was not doing me any favors. Pondering, leads to hesitation, which leads to mistakes.

“Brendon, hey man come over here. You’ve got to help me get BT into the truck bed.”

“I’ll help Mr. T.” Tommy said as he handed a bottle of whisky to Tracy.

Tommy’s helping turned into a one-man wonder show. If I hadn’t been watching it with my own eyes, I would have cried ‘bullshit’ and still I almost did. Short of having an engine lift I don’t know how Tommy could do it. It wasn’t with the ease he had displayed during the Wal-Mart encounter but still I watched in awe as Tommy hefted the burly giant BT out of the minivan. Twenty feet later he gently placed the big man in the bed of the truck as Brendon and Travis had hopped up on the back of the truck to help.

“Tracy put a couple of those smaller knives to flame.” I said as I grabbed the bottle of liquor from her.

“What do you need that for?” She asked.

“Disinfectant.” I told her, right before I unscrewed the cap off and took a long pull of the bitter, burnt gasoline derivative.

“Yeah disinfectant.” She said as she went to sterilize some knives.

Jen had returned, seemingly no worse for the wear. She looked basically like she had just returned from taking out the garbage and I guess in reality that was all she had really done. She grabbed the bottle from me. I felt a little ashamed as she made my rather significant drag from the bottle seem child-like in comparison. She wiped her sleeve over her mouth before she spoke. The tenor of her voice belied her true feelings to a point, but not completely.

“What are you doing Talbot? Besides drinking this rot gut. Oh what I wouldn’t do for a nice Pinot Noir.” She took another long pull.

“Uh, could you save me some, I need it for BT.”

She smiled abashedly. “Sorry.” She said as she absently wiped her mouth again. “For what?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you need this?” as she shook the bottle in front of my face, not really handing it back.

“The bullet didn’t come out, I’ve got to go in and get it.”

“Have you ever done that?” Now thrusting the bottle into my hands. I guess she thought whoever possessed the bottle had to perform the surgery.

“I filled in pot holes, Jen. Not much call for field surgery in that line of work.”

“What about before that?” She grasped.

“Oh yeah sure, I left a lucrative and life fulfilling job as a highly skilled surgeon to live the prosaic life of a road crew man. Filling holes seemed a much nobler profession.”

“Don’t go there Talbot. Don’t cover over your insecurities with sarcasm. You know what I mean.”

I sighed. I knew what she meant. She was asking if I had I ever had the need to put any of my friends back together after some raghead had done their best to make Humpty Dumpty fall. “I’m sorry.” I told her. “No there was never time during the heat of battle to help and by the time the last bullets had flown they would be medi-vacced out. Some I got to visit in the hospital while they recovered. Others I watched as their bodies got loaded on a plane and headed back home.”