Mark Tufo - Zombie Fallout

Last but not least, okay by sizing him up maybe he was least, was someone’s nephew. He muttered something about an uncle or maybe elephant trunk, but I wasn’t able to pick it up and I wasn’t concerned enough to get clarification. His name was Tipper. I know! What kind of name is that? Tipper looked like a cokehead. He twitched more than Tom Arnold when Roseanne was yelling at him. I didn’t trust any of them. Even though this was my idea, I now didn’t want to go. I was more than half-tempted to turn around until Ben started to speak.

“Got the truck all warmed up for us,” he drawled.

Everyone in our small party turned and deferred to me. I just wanted to go home and eat one of Tommy’s Pop-Tarts. “Let’s get going,” I said instead. I inadvertently shivered, whether from the cold or someone walking over my grave; I wasn’t sure but it seemed more the latter.

The truck rumbled by Don Griffin’s small burial detail. They were headed out the Northern gate, shovels in hand and a small Cat backhoe trailing with a cart in tow. It wasn’t until I actually saw the cart that the impact of what Don was doing hit. I hadn’t thought about where the bodies would be buried although it seemed logical that they shouldn’t be interred in the complex. There was a small field across the street well within the protective firing zone of the guards. Still I didn’t think it was wise to leave without weapons, I mean who would go and bury the burial team if something happened to them? We swung out and away from the group, heading first east and then north. It would, in a normal world, be about a fifteen-minute drive with traffic and lights, though we now had neither of those to contend with. We had switched them out for zombies and bandits, a shitty exchange rate if you ask me. The drive was relatively uneventful, if not almost downright enjoyable. Ben knew how to handle the truck. Now if I could just get Tipper to shut up I might be able to think.

“Hey Mike,” I winced. Tipper kept going. “Do you think we’ll get to kill some zombies? Huh? I want to kill me some zombies. I was pretty messed up the night it went down, I mean I slept through the whole thing.” He grinned sheepishly.

“My friends call me Mike,” I said, lacing as much menace as I could through each word.

“Hey Mike, so how come there aren’t any more zombies around? Huh? Where do you think they all went? Do you think they died? Or do you think they went somewhere else like Seattle? Huh?” Tipper kept at this pace for most of the ride until mercifully Jen spoke.

“Oh shut up, you little twit!” she yelled. “Decent people stop between questions so the person they are talking to has an opportunity to answer.”

“Huh?” Tipper said tilting his head like a dog.

“But then I guess there’s nothing to worry about, is there?” she continued mockingly.

Tipper finally shut up, maybe he was coming down. Now that I knew I had less of a chance of being interrupted I figured I might as well pass the time talking. I looked longingly over at Carl who was fast asleep and wished I were too. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, I mean, if these are ‘traditional zombies.’”

Jen arched an eyebrow.

“I know, what the hell is a ‘traditional zombie,’” I snorted. “Sorry, if these zombies are like the ones in stories then they are not going to die without a little assistance from us.”

As I hefted up my rifle to show as an exclamation point, Jen’s grip tightened on her own. Tipper had his back towards us, attempting to hide his habit. The telltale sniffing gave him away, that and his acerbic personality. Jen shook her head in disgust. I would have been amused if we weren’t heading to a potential hot zone.

“More like a lukewarm zone,” I said as I stepped off the truck and into the parking lot of what used to be Rocky Mountain National Guard Armory 17.

“Huh?” Jen asked quizzically as she shouldered on by.

“Uh, nothing, and let me know if I’m in your way,” I said cheekily.

“I will,” she responded without turning around.

‘Someone’s sense of humor had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,’ I thought to myself.

Carl was rousing himself out of sleep, buttoning his pants back up and putting his jacket on before he stepped out. Ben was busy securing the truck, okay I thought, three out of four accounted for. Then I had a slight panic attack.

“Where’s Twitchy?” I said louder than I meant to. In the cold still air of the morning it sounded like a shout.

Jen turned. “Who?” she asked

“Twitch…I mean Tipper,” I clarified. The reply was quick and forthcoming but not the one I wanted.

“Look…arghhh, oh fuck!!!! Get it off!!!” Tipper screamed.

Jen and I both turned in horror. Carl was just coming down off the truck and gaped along with us. Tipper had walked up to the front door of the armory, which looked like it had been blasted off its hinges with a tank. Who knows, maybe it had been. But what was captivating our attention was the zombie attached to Tipper’s head. Blood was streaming down the side of his face as he howled in a combination of terror and pain, the two of them staggering from side to side in a macabre dance. I brought my rifle up but I knew at this distance and their co-mingled movement I could not get a clean shot off. I never would have guessed if I hadn’t seen it myself, but Carl was moving with all the speed and agility of a man half his age, unholstering his pistol as he went. Within moments he was within safe firing distance of Tipper and his new dance partner. The zombie paid no attention to Carl as the pistol was neatly placed against its head. If I thought my voice was loud, the Colt .45 shattered any of those illusions. The open entryway to the armory amplified the affect. The noise was deafening, but not to Tipper, his right ear went down with the zombie. Tipper was clutching at the gaping bloody hole where his ear used to be, screaming for all he was worth.

“Shut him up!” Ben was saying frantically. “He’ll have half the zombie population here in a minute.”

“Yeah, as opposed to that small cannon fire,” I said sarcastically.

Jen was walking over to Tipper to try and console him, but Tipper was having none of it. He kept pushing her away. She had finally had enough.

“Either let me see the damn wound, or I’m going to have Carl finish you off!” Jen yelled.

Carl was busy wiping the gore off his gun and didn’t notice that he had been involved in Jen’s plan. But it was effective enough to shut Tipper up. He was sniffling and close to blubbering. I wanted to call him a baby and tell him to shut up, but when Jen finally calmed him down enough so she could examine the wound, I didn’t say anything. I was too busy holding my bile down. The zombie had bitten the ear clean off but the ear had not come off without collateral damage. It had stayed mostly attached to his face when the zombie went down. The force had torn half of Tipper’s cheek off. So not only was there the exposed ear hole but also the muscles that lined the side of his face. He looked worse than the poor bastard lying on the ground. Torn tissue sprayed blood as he swung his head from side to side in obvious agony. I thought the best thing we could do for him was to shoot him and put him out of our misery, I mean his misery.

“Ben!” Jen yelled. “Are there any rags in the truck?”

I didn’t see the point and I let my opinion be known. “Move away Jen,” I motioned with my rifle.

“Are you crazy!” she spat back.

“What good is a bandage,” I said dismally. “He’ll be one of them in a few hours.”

“You coward!” she screamed. “I can stop the bleeding, and I have some aspirin.”