Mark Tufo - Zombie Fallout

“What’s the matter Mr. T?” he asked with a huge grin, the smile broadening when he noticed the boxes labeled MRE’s.

I wanted to yell at him but he just seemed so damn happy, so instead I answered him dejectedly. “Well Tommy, we just have too much stuff to carry plus the dog, and I have to figure out what to leave behind.”

Leaving most of the ammo seemed the logical thing to do. It was by far the heaviest; no food meant starvation. We could leave the 2.5 gallon water jug too. I figured we’d still be able to get water through the pipes at least for a little while longer. So it was Henry, the firearms, whatever ammo we could carry in our pockets and the MRE’s.

“Could you take the slings off the rifles, Mr. T?” Tommy said, his infectious grin never leaving his face.

I should have known how strong the kid was just by the way he caught his bulk on the ladder. I shook my head in disbelief as we walked away from the car. He had fashioned a couple of crude carrying devices with the slings. He had the three boxes of MRE’s strapped to his back, off to his sides he hefted the four cases of ammo, and in his arms lay a slumbering Henry. He probably could have carried me too and not even have lost a step.

It would have been a beautiful fall night; the crispness in the air always harkened me back to my youth and the start of school. But the smell, the fetid odor of the dead and the living dead blended together to create one humongous wave of putrid stink. It pervaded everything. Only Tommy seemed to be immune as he walked on, seemingly unencumbered by the undead bouquet. The first mile or so went by unremarkably; we heard things (mostly screams) in the distance but never anything too close.

Things got radically difficult once we had about a half mile to go. I was asking Tommy for the tenth time if he wanted some help. He was telling me for the tenth time that he was fine, but he stopped short and the smile melted from his face. I followed his line of sight, and IF I had been smiling I would have stopped too. It didn’t look like an ambush, it looked more like a convergence. The problem being, we were the attraction upon which they were converging. We were almost entirely surrounded. The only breaks in the zombie lines were caused by either natural occurrences like the fast running stream on our left, or the large block wall that surrounded the Isuzu dealership parking lot on our right. Otherwise this looked like a textbook besieging. We were outnumbered easily 50 to 1. Good thing they didn’t know how to shoot.

“There’s no way they pulled this off without some communication,” I said out loud just to hear my thoughts manifest themselves.

“Mr. T, do you want me to put Henry down so I can shoot?” Tommy asked.

“Not yet Tommy, we’re not going to stay and fight. Justin, I want you on my right side a step or two back. Travis, I want you on my left the same step or two behind me. Tracy, Tommy, you two stay close in behind us.” Again with the superfluous directions, both of them were already close enough to tell if I was wearing boxers or briefs.

“Okay boys, we’re not going to worry too much about what’s coming behind and to the sides of us, we’re going to concentrate our shots to the front and slightly to our left and right. Understood?” I asked, looking both of them in the eyes to make sure we were on the same page and to gauge their readiness.

They were both scared but they knew what had to be done. When the zombies were within fifty yards, I gave the signal. The signal involved me shooting. The frontline of the zombies crumpled under our withering fire, acrid smoke filled the air. Heads burst, limbs were blown apart, a river of thickening blood flowed in our direction, and hair fluttered down. But still they came, fearless, relentless but most disturbing of all, quietly. There was no battle cry, no gallant speeches, just the slow steady mindless march of the zombies. Kill or be killed, we fired on. The barrel of my M-16 shone a dull red. I knew I was moments away from making a deadly looking paperweight. We were making headway but it was much too slow. Our frontal assault was nearly complete, but to our sides and rear the zombies had halved their distance, some even closer than that. Our break towards freedom was close but not close enough. I slung my M-16 over my shoulder, the barrel grazing my cheek on the way. The smell of my burning flesh seemed to excite our opposition more.

I pulled out my 9 mm Glock and began to shoot zombies that had closed to within fifty feet. I motioned for the boys to keep shooting to the front. We had to have dropped half of them, most of those fatally, but the survivors still pressed in. I then noticed something strange; some of the zombies started to leave the fray. It was in ones and twos at first and then it was in fives and tens, and just like that we found ourselves alone in the road. The tattered remnants of what attacked us were now heading for new quarry. I watched as two men emerged from a small copse of trees about one hundred yards to our right. They started running for all they were worth towards a nearby golf course, the zombies in pursuit, not hot pursuit mind you, but definitely trailing them. Sweat was pouring off my body, “Sweatin’ to the Zombies.” It could be the next big workout fad. Maybe I’ll run it by Richard Simmons. One of these days I was going to get a psych eval.

“Dad, what just happened?” Travis asked.

Justin was hopped up on beer and adrenaline. “We’re just too bad assed for them!” he cheered just a little too loudly.

I thought about it for a second before I answered. “I think Justin has it mostly right; we weren’t worth the losses, and they found an easier food source and went for it.” But that still raised a lot more troubling questions than it answered. I would have to dwell on it eventually, but for right now I wanted to get out of this killing zone.

There was several questions I wanted answered, who was going to answer them was a different question all on its own. How had the zombies pulled off a coordinated attack? That the attack was coordinated I had no doubt, we had been completely surrounded. And why, when they were so close to taking us, did they stop? Because if they were scared, they never once betrayed their emotions. I looked like hell and I smelled worse. If I kept this up the zombies would think I was one of their own.

The remaining distance to the house was covered in a subdued silence. Even the gregarious Tommy was quiet. We knew how close we had come to feeling death’s cold embrace. Henry slept on in Tommy’s arms.

As we approached our town-home complex I had the boys once again spread out into flanking positions. Our complex was roughly ten square acres. It housed over three hundred units and was surrounded by an eight foot high stone and cement wall. There were four entrances, two on the northern side and two on the southern. The security of the complex was part of the reason we had moved here. The other was monetary; we couldn’t afford anything better. The two northern entrance points had large, card activated chain-link fence gates. The two southern facing gates had nothing. That made no sense to me. Did the designers just hope that a criminal, upon seeing the northern gates, wouldn’t try another avenue to gain entry? Although the residents would be up a creek if said criminal came this way first. I’d like to have said they were getting ready to install the gates but I’d lived here for almost two years and I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a construction crew.

A large RV had been toppled on its side, completely covering the first entrance. It was placed with entirely too much precision to have been an accident. There wasn’t a gap on either side; this passageway was closed. We would have to walk another two hundred yards to the next opening. Hope surged. It appeared that a defense had been mounted at the Little Turtle housing community. As we got closer to the next entrance I saw a school bus, this one still on its wheels. The passenger side of the school bus covered most of the entrance. The only parts that were vulnerable to entry were towards the front end and underneath the bus itself. This would have been unsettling if we were dealing with a conventional enemy, but that bulk was going to stop ninety-nine percent of the zombies that attacked it. Smart bastard, whoever thought of that, I thought admiringly.