Mark Tufo: A Plague Upon Your Family

“Oh no!” Cash wheezed.

CHAPTER 6

It was impossible to not hear the girl’s screams. Her shrieks pierced the air like a cord of harpies’. “I take it she’s one of the missing people?” I asked Alex.

He nodded, stress imprinted on his face. “Yeah April was with that pimply kid, what the hell was his name? Moola? Dinero? Cash? Yeah that’s it.”

“Not sure that matters right now buddy.” I said as I was peering through my sights looking for something causing that much distress in the girl. April was no more than 25 yards away and still I saw no sign of trouble, was it just some contrived drama for our viewing pleasure? Possible, but I hadn’t seen acting that good since my daughter was caught sneaking out of the house and she tried to blame it on sleep walking. If I hadn’t been watching her the whole time and caught pieces of her conversation over her cell phone I almost would have given her the benefit of the doubt. Well…not really, I might be a guy but I’m not that stupid. Anyway, suffice to say, it was an Oscar worthy performance none-the-less. The girl never stopped shrieking as she hurdled up into the back of the truck.

“One down, three to go, Alex.” I said. “I guess I’m going to have to go see what’s going on.”

“Why?” He asked. “You have your family to look out for Mike.”

“I know.” I said earnestly. “It just seems like the right thing to do.”

By now a small crowd was at the back of the truck looking expectantly in the direction from where April had come screaming.

“I’ll go with you, Talbot.” BT said. His deep bass voice startled me out of my thoughts. Any animosity between us seemed to have been swept completely away with that small gesture. Well I guess it wasn’t that small a gesture, he was putting his life on the line. “I appreciate that BT, I really do, but I think our second wayward chick-a-dee is returning to the roost…look.” I said pointing.

Cash swung the corner of a row of houses at full speed, even from this distance I could tell his pants were doing there damnedest to fall. Cash was struggling with one hand to hold his pants up and with the other he was doing a motion that only someone with experience might be able to pick up on. He was taking mighty puffs from an inhaler. I turned to Alex and BT. “I think this is more a case of a date going bad.” I breathed a sigh of relief, don’t get me wrong, I understand the severity of the potential crime and Cash would be dealt with accordingly but it still beat the hell out of the alternative.

“I don’t think so Mike.” BT said as he pointed with his finger. I for the life of me did not want to follow the direction that offending digit indicated. Into the cold gates of hell it led. Like Icarus to the sun I went. Not ten feet away from Cash was one of the new breed, fast and hungry. The kid was easily a couple of hundred feet away and he was directly in my line of sight to the zombie. Between holding his pants and the inhaler he was losing more ground than the French in WWII. The outcome was a foregone conclusion and still I ran towards him, motioning him to drop down so I could take a shot. By the time the kid’s pants fell and brought him down in a gangly mash of elbows and knees, the zombie had pounced on him. It was all over except for the screaming, as the zombie took its first rending bite of meat, what was once that young man’s pride and joy, hung in bloody shreds from the mouth of the zombie. The high-pitched keening that issued from Cash was heart tearing. Every guy that witnessed the event had sub-consciously placed their hands over their own privates just to make sure their own house was in order. The first bullet should have been for Cash, just to put him out of his misery. Five shots later, my trembling hands were able to put a kill shot into the zombie’s head. I started to run over to the kid, what I was going to be able to do for him was beyond me. His all out wails had become more of a struggling wheeze. Blood vacated his body in gushes. I got down on my haunches by the kid’s head. I couldn’t look at the damage done, the chord it struck was entirely too fundamental to my existence. Cash’s hand grabbed mine, his fevered, pain addled eyes looked in to mine.

“Don’t let me die.” He begged. I wanted to answer him and tell him everything was going to be ok, but I wasn’t the actor my daughter was, my voice would betray me, my posture would belie me, my cadence would divulge the truth. I barely registered the fact of the staccato burst of firearms but the angry hiss of displaced air as bullets passed dangerously close to my head got my attention. I looked to BT who was firing what looked like a bazooka when it was aimed at me. I guess our earlier spat wasn’t completed yet, but this seemed a little extreme. Alex was gesticulating crazily. Everyone else seemed to be yelling incoherent strings of words, but every once in a while I picked up the word “Run!” I looked behind me, before my heart began to start the trip hammer routine, I thought for one short millisecond my heart might just stop from the exertion. Twenty maybe thirty zombies were running full bore towards me. I was seconds away from sharing the same fate as Cash, hopefully not in the same manner though. I grabbed the kid’s shoulder meaning to put him in a fireman’s carry, the cataract glaze of his eyes let me know the futility of the maneuver.

“Run you stupid shit!” I heard BT yell over the roar of his rifle. A zombie dropped no more than 10 feet from me. More rifles took up the covering of my hasty retreat. Within three strides I was at full speed and still some of the zombies kept pace.

I made it back to the firing line without any undue incidents. The tattered remnants of what were still pursuing me were quickly dispatched.

“That’s not cool!” I said as I stood up and surveyed the scene laid out before us. “Thanks BT I owe you one.”

“What is going on Talbot?” BT asked he looked more shaken than I did and I was the one that had been chased.

“No time BT!” I pointed. A larger contingent of speeders were heading our way. I already had enough excitement for the day. “Let’s go!”

“Mike, we can take them.” Brendan said. “There’s still two more of our own out there, we have to go get them.”

I understood the hero mentality, I truly did. But they were a lost cause, if they weren’t already dead they soon would be. “To what end Brendan? We risk ourselves, our loved ones and we waste bullets. There is no honor in casually throwing away one’s life in a hollow attempt at bravery. They’re gone.” I was all for the eradication of this plague, but this was akin to trying to put out a seven-alarm blaze with a super soaker.

“Mike what if it was one of your kids?” Brendon asked brazenly.

“Don’t you fucken dare Brendon!” I screamed. He backed up. He was bigger than me but I was definitely crazier, and in case you didn’t know, crazy out trumps size. “I have done everything I possibly can to keep everyone around me safe! If you’re so fucking ready to die go find them. I’ll wait, but only for as long as I can still make a safe retreat!” Brendan’s shoulders sagged as he looked back at Nicole who was witnessing the entire event. There was a look of unbridled shock on her face. I watched as the inner demons in Brendan wrestled for control, on one side was the overwhelming need to protect Nicole and on the other was the need to help someone in need. “Not so easy now, huh?” I taunted.

“Fuck you, Mike.” He answered dejectedly.

I swung the Jeep past Alex’s big rig. Brendan was following closely. I was watching in my rearview mirror as some of the faster zombies, they looked mostly like high school kids, smashed headlong into the truck. I had no desire to see how many hits my Jeep could take. I flooded the engine with high-octane gas and I was rewarded with the desired result. I was putting this particular circle of hell behind us. Alex was finally getting the tractor-trailer up to a speed where even the track team couldn’t keep up. I had to look over my shoulder to get the full brunt of what my rear view mirror was trying to convey. I should have left it alone. Half the population of what had once been Bennett, Colorado was in one form or another in pursuit of our small caravan. Speeders bowled over their slower cousins, the deaders. So it looked like manners hadn’t made the cross over into death.