Mark Tufo - Zombie Fallout

“Thanks for that,” I said as I went over and clapped Travis on his back.

“No problem,” he answered, but I could see the pride in his eyes.

“Where’s Spindler?” Alex asked.

“He took off at the first sign of trouble,” was my response.

“Spineless, worthless piece of s….” Alex kept saying but he was out of earshot as he was moving away to gather the last bit of his haul.

“All right guys,” I said to Travis and Justin. “Let’s finish up here, I can’t imagine Durgan has many friends he could bring back with him but I don’t want to find out.”

“Right!” Justin was in complete agreement.

Travis nodded, still grinning. He placed the leveling devices in his pockets and went to help Alex and Brendon pull the load into the truck.

Finally we were ready to head for home. I pulled myself up into the cab of the big rig. Alex drove the van up alongside me. Travis was sitting with him, and Justin was with me.

“Are we going to look for Spindler?” Alex asked, looking up at me.

My first response wanted to be ‘Fuck no!’ But that didn’t seem very humanitarian of me. Instead I came out with, “he knows where we’re going, if he has balls enough to come back he’ll meet us there.”

“I guess we’ll never see him again then,” Alex laughed. “Little bandejo!”

I was starting to stress out a little, driving an 18-wheeler had seemed a whole lot easier when I was drunk. Staring at all the knobs and switches and 12-gear stick shift seemed terrifying at the moment. I couldn’t tell everyone they had just wasted two hours of their time for nothing. Sweat broke out on my forehead.

Justin calmly looked over at me. “You don’t know how to drive this thing do you?”

Captain Obvious strikes again. I ground the living shit out of first gear. It smelled like it did when I would blow up my toy models with firecrackers when I was 12; ahhhh, there’s nothing like the smell of burned plastic in the morning! I was paraphrasing from Apocalypse Now. Okay, so I wasn’t doing the movie any justice, but it was helping to calm my nerves. My brain works in mysterious ways. Just ask my wife, she’ll tell you. The truck lurched forward five feet and stalled. I did the same routine three more times. I didn’t have a true reference point but I figured this was what it felt like when those crazy cowboys hopped on one of those mechanical bucking broncos. I was hopping around that seat like I had eaten five cans of Mexican jumping beans. Justin was having a blast, I wasn’t having nearly as much fun. I had only just gotten my stomach completely under control about fifteen minutes previously. Alex waited about fifty feet ahead of us. I wanted to wave him forward, my fear being that I might not be able to stop this behemoth once I got it going. On my fourth attempt I was finally able to get the truck into second. That probably had more to do with the fact that I had burned the first gear completely out rather than any newly attained skill. Thank God, Safeway was only five hundred yards away, as it was it took me all of ten minutes to get there. As there was no way I was going to back this thing into the rear dock, I pulled up to the front doors and did what I did best, I stalled it.

“Well, that was something special to behold,” Alex said as he got out of the van smiling.

Sweat was pouring off me in sheets. Justin had broken a land speed record for carsickness. He puked as soon as he could scramble out of the cab.

“Not so funny now, is it?” I asked.

“Travis is riding home with you,” Justin answered between heaves.

“Okay guys, you know the drill.” I started. “Justin, you stay out here and keep watch. Blast the truck horn if you need us. Alex, Trav, you stay with me while we check this store out.”

CHAPTER 9

Journal Entry - 9

Justin was wiping his face and getting ready to climb up on the truck hood to get a better vantage point as we entered the store. The smell was….antiseptic. I was in heaven for a second.

“Don’t move!” came the voice from above, someone was using the store’s P.A. system.

We stopped moving.

“We...we don’t want any trouble,” came the anxious voice. I don’t know why he was so panicky, we were the ones being drawn down on, or so I thought. Who could possibly live in this day and age and not arm themselves. I should have known some pacifists would survive Armageddon.

“We don’t want any trouble either,” I responded, not knowing where to direct my voice so I found myself talking to the nearest speaker in the ceiling. “We just want to get some food and get back home.”

“Home,” the disembodied voice said with a whimsical lilt.

“Yeah, we live at the Little Turtle complex and we…” I began and didn’t get a chance to finish.

“Little Turtle!” came the excited reply. “My aunt lives… lived there.”

“That’s great!” I was beginning to feel like we could connect.

“Yeah, yeah, Jane, Jane Deneaux,” he added eagerly.

My hopes sank. If the nephew was a tenth like the aunt we were dead where we stood.

I’m not sure from what vantage point I was being watched but he must have seen my face fall at the mention of his aunt.

“Oh you must know her!” he said. “I know she’s an uber-bitch but she’s all the family I have now. If you put the guns down, we can talk.”

“Umm…” I replied. “We’re not having the best day today, I would feel much more comfortable if we held on to them. I will send these other two back outside and I will re-sling my gun, that’s the best I can offer.”

“That’ll have to do,” was his curt reply.

When Travis and Alex had gone back out and my weapon was back on my shoulder, a little man no more than 5’5” tall came out from behind the customer service desk. He wore coke bottle glasses, had a receding hairline that had probably earned him the nickname Five-Head. (I’ll explain – it’s like ‘forehead’ only his is so big it’s a FIVE head. So it’s not the funniest joke in the world, and it is at the expense of another, but you gotta admit it’s still humorous). He had on penny-loafers, khaki pants, a shirt and a tie, and a Safeway smock that had his name, Store Manager Thad adhered to it.

“How you doing Thad?” as I extended my hand out.

“How...how did you know?” He quickly realized his mistake and blushed as he looked down at his nametag.

I couldn’t believe this guy was still alive. A field mouse would most likely send him shrieking into the night. Bad example, that would probably send me shrieking into the night too.

“How many of you are there, Thad?” I asked as he finally closed the distance between us and took my proffered hand.

“Four.” He winced; I may have gripped his hand a little too tightly. I was still a bundle of nerves.

“May I say something, sir?” he began.

“Mike,” I answered.

“Mike?” he asked.

“Yeah, Mike Talbot’s my name.”

“Mike, please don’t take this wrong.” He looked a little embarrassed at what he was about to say, and he didn’t want to offend me but he held true to his convictions. “You really do smell bad,” he finished. I noted he had a distinctive not-oft used English accent buried in there somewhere.

“Yeah I get that a lot,” I said as I put my non-offending arm around him.

He visibly relaxed. I told him about why we were here, and about the Little Turtle complex and that all of them were welcome. There was still plenty of room to be had.

Thad called out to the rest of his cohorts, who turned out to be two of his co-workers and one customer. From behind the aisle with the canned fruit came a woman in her late 50’s. Sores covered most of her arms and she had some on her face. I gripped my rifle a little tighter thinking she might be one of the undead. When that didn’t appear to be the case I wondered how she could possibly be developing a case of scurvy in a grocery store. She nodded in my general direction and headed back down the aisle picking at a sore at the bridge of her nose.