Mark Tufo: A Plague Upon Your Family

“Oh I’m sure he knew who you were, and no, nothing quite as mundane as a picture.” I answered. Again Alex looked at me hoping that I would elaborate. “Ever been on Idol?” I asked casually.

“Mike what did I tell you about drinking tequila.”

“Can’t stand the stuff, wish I had some. Good night Alex.”

“One more thing Mike?” Alex asked, I turned to face him. “How did he (meaning Tommy) tell Marta? I mean to come back.”

“Aw shit Alex, you might as well ask me how the universe was created, or which came first the chicken or the egg, or even better what is a woman thinking at any given moment. Those I could give you some sort of informed bullshit answer. I don’t have a foggy clue in Hades what is going on with Tommy. All I know is that whatever it is, it’s powerful and it has a purpose, beyond that…” I shrugged my shoulders.

CHAPTER 3

Tommy’s next words jolted me to a stop as effective as a two-inch thick chain around my neck. “I have to stay with Mr. T, Auntie, he’s going to need me to save him. Eliza wants him dead and I have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

I had an inkling who Eliza might be. I hoped I was wrong. The mere vocalization of her name sent worms of fear crawling across my spine, which is not a sensation I would begrudge on anyone. I know it is naïve of me but I was having faith that by leaving Little Turtle behind we were leaving the worst of this new world behind too, apparently that wasn’t to be the case. Sweat had broken out across my brow and I wasn’t attempting anything more difficult than standing erect. A cold breeze turned the moisture on my forehead into tiny daggers that laced across my head like an angry bee’s nest to a honey bear’s sensitive nose.

Marta tsk-tsked Tommy. I knew better. “Tommy how could you possibly know who needs help? And who’s Eliza? Tommy, I’m your aunt, I used to change your diapers. Your mom would want me to watch out for you.”

That was kind of funny her saying that, there’s this little waif of a woman saying she’s going to look out for this 250 pound hulking bear of a kid. But Tommy brought that out in you. It was almost instinctual that you wanted to go out of your way to make sure he was happy and safe. Was it because he was so called ‘slow’? I doubt it. The kid definitely had some vulnerability but on the flip side of that…his powers might be limitless.

Tommy blushed as his aunt spoke about his diapers almost as if he remembered the occasion. “That was a long time ago Auntie. And I would have changed them myself if I could have reached.”

I snorted a laugh, I did my best to stifle it. Marta glared over at me. Damn it, like I needed another woman mad at me. I quickly replaced my mirth with a fortress of solitude face. What is that exactly? Tough to say. Kind of stoic, definitely not a shit-eating grin type of thing. It doesn’t work often but it’s better than my normal cheesy smile that tends to get me in trouble.

“It’s alright Auntie, we’ll be in the Jeep right behind you.” Tommy continued.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess, yeah we would be, there was no need or sense to split up, at least not yet. I had grand illusions of making it back east at some point to try and ascertain the status of my family and as long as Alex was headed in that general direction than I was all for safety in numbers.

This seemed to placate Marta somewhat, her glare beamed back over in my general direction, as if this was all my fault, I did what any hapless man would do under the circumstances, I shrugged my shoulders and walked away. Marta may have continued her relentless diatribe on Tommy but just at that opportune moment, her baby squealed in consternation. Tommy looked relieved and pleased with himself. I think he gave baby Vera a psychic tickle, the better to help him out of his predicament. Marta said the standard “Fine” and stomped away. Well stomping may be a little over the top, more like padded away heavily. Tommy caught me looking at him and quickly let the look of satisfaction run away from his features.

“Your secrets safe with me kid, come on.” I told him as he caught up I put my arm around his shoulder.

After a brief conversation with Paul, we (and by ‘we’ I mean ‘he’) determined it would be best if he and his wife rode in the truck for a while. Yeah, big sacrifice. Heated trailer loaded with sleeping bags and plenty of leg room. I was a little pissed to say the least, maybe more envious too. I wanted to stretch out and get some sleep. After the frigid conditions of the past few nights it was going to take a lot of warmth and rest to take out the chill that had settled deep in my bones. Little did I know at the time that the chill I felt had less to do with the weather and more to do with my condition. Well time, as they say, is the great narrator, all things are laid out before her whether you want them to be or not.

CHAPTER 4

With no general plan in my mind except to put as much distance between us and our previous home we headed North on Interstate 25 and then East on Interstate 70. We’d be relatively safe for a while, east of Denver would bring us into the plains of Colorado and then into Kansas, during the heyday of humanity this was not a densely populated area so the corollary (see I did learn something in the 6 thgrade that I could use later in life) was that the likelihood of coming across a great brood of zombies would be slight. That was the thought anyway. Getting out of Denver proper was a nightmare. It looked like any natural (or unnatural) disaster movie you’ve ever seen in your life. Cars and trucks, motorcycles and scooters, hell I’d seen a rickshaw a few miles back, were everywhere. It looked more like the world’s largest used car lot than a highway of any sort, that is of course if you took away the bullet casings that littered the ground like so many metallic insects or the blood splattered remains of the zombies that were merely trying to garner a meal or even the thousands of humans that had become, for lack of a better word, Spam, (do you get the reference? Meat in a can?). I know its gross, but that was the only way I could think of it (of them) without blowing chunks. It looked like an all you can eat buffet had opened up right next to a fat camp with a damaged fence. The battle had been savage and quick, with non-infected people clearly on the losing side. This I garnered by the sheer number of cars stuck on the roadway, if people had won they would not have hung around.

At some points I would drive ahead of the truck, scouting out potential routes, other times Alex would need to lead just to push some slag out of the way. For eight excruciating hours we navigated through the worst rush hour traffic known to man, by the time we reached a small town called Bennett, about 30 miles east of Denver I was wiped. Tracy had volunteered on more than one occasion that she would take over driving but I couldn’t get over the sneaking suspicion that she had an ulterior motive. I could see her sideswiping a sign just for a small measure of payback for what I had done to her car. Most likely it was my deep-seated paranoia rearing its ugly head, but then again maybe not. I was paranoid, how the hell would I know. Not once on our 8 hour trek did we spot a living person. Zombies though, that was a different story. There weren’t many of them that we saw, but each and every one turned and walked towards us drawn like a fine metal filament to a powerful magnet.

We stopped at Bennett to stretch our legs, top off our tanks and possibly try to choke down a power bar or two. My brain was completely against the idea of eating anything after witnessing the destruction a few miles back but my stomach wasn’t listening. Travis, Tommy and Henry for that matter had been sleeping for most of the morning. Of that small favor I was thankful. Although what I was shielding them from I don’t know. They had already seen everything we had passed in spades and then some. Bennett looked surprisingly untouched, as if the tidal wave of shit that had hit the rest of the state had completely missed this small oasis. At least that was how it looked. How it felt was a completely different story.