“Thank you.” I told Travis.
“Where’s your gun?” he asked me.
“Get back in the truck.”
“You told me that my rifle is the most important fighting tool besides myself and that I should never leave it behind. But yet here you are, Dad, without your rifle.”
“You’re really going to give me shit after that bumper car excuse you call driving? Get in the damn truck before the zombies catch up.” I smiled. It was easy to smile when you’d flipped Death off and were still standing. Of course, he’d be back, but for now, it was Mike four hundred and seventy-two to Death’s zero. The sucky part about that was Death only needed one to win.
“Where to, Uncle?” Meredith asked. “Oh my God! Is that you?” she cried as I got into the truck. “You … you smell like maybe bad pickles or something. I thought, like, maybe it was something in the bucket, so I didn’t want to say anything. It’s horrible … I thought Henry was the worst thing I’d ever smelled. You beat him.” She yanked her hoodie above her nose and drove her face deeper still under the makeshift nose cover.
“Okay, I get it. I stink.”
“Understatement, Dad.”
“Listen, you guys have no idea what I’ve been through!”
“Yeah, well, just think what we’re going through right now.” Meredith’s voice was muffled. “I think maybe you should tell us. You owe us at least that much. I think I’m going to vomit.”
I couldn’t help but notice her eyes were watering from my stench.
“It’s not really that bad.”
“Uncle, just because you’ve burned a hole in your nose doesn’t mean the rest of us have.” Jesse added.
Travis was turning different reddish shades as he tried to hold his breath. Meredith was threatening to shoot out the windshield to get more air in.
By the time I’d recounted most of my tale, they’d made some sort of peace with my funk, or more likely, I’d caused some serious permanent damage to their olfactory senses. When I was done, I circled back around to Meredith’s original question, because it was a hell of one. Most of my family was stuck in a bunker under the post office. They were safe, though, and that was something. We needed to regroup. I needed a weapon, and we could definitely use more ammo. Then my thought was to go to Ron’s and assess that situation. If we could help, we would. Problem was the easiest store of guns was at Ron’s. Maine was a gun-friendly state, but we’d proved over and over again that going into someone’s home to look was not a great idea.
“We need a bigger truck.” I headed for a rock quarry a couple of towns over. It wasn’t quite the Tyrex’ that Eliza had used against us, but I hoped the zombies would have a hard time getting on to it. The trip ended up being half a bust. There were two trucks there. One had its engine out and the other was dead, and dead like not moving, not undead or living dead, meaning it would move. There is a huge gun store in Holden called Maine Military. We stopped. Had to. It’s a requirement of all rednecks to stop. It’s in the Redneck Nature Guide right after the discussion about beer-can chicken. They had been cleaned out like the store had closed and the inventory sold off at auction. Someone had even taken the fake prop guns hanging on the far wall. I felt bad for the idiots that thought those were going to do anything to the savage lines of enemies coming their way. Well, I guess you could always go pew, pew, pew really fast in mimicry of a machinegun.
I was saddened by so much nothingness. The people who came through here had been thorough. I would love to see their hideout. I could guarantee they were doing all right. They had enough ammunition that they could hand it down from generation to generation. I was at a loss as to what to do. We were a mile down from the gun store, heading to Ron’s, when Travis pointed to another store. It was a fireworks place.
“This is no time for bottle rockets,” I told him right before I locked up the brakes, having all the kids brace against the dashboard in an effort to keep from ruining their expensive dental work. All of their responsible parents would have been pissed at me if I had busted anything.
“And you say I drive bad? Plus, you can’t get bottle rockets in Maine.”
“What?” That sounded like blasphemy. One of my favorite Chinese-made products of all time, and it was banned?
“Something about unknown flight path or something.”
“Well, that’s the damn point of them.” I drove backward up the road so I could turn into the parking lot. Unlike the cleaned-out gun store, this place looked like it had just been freshly stocked; if not for the heavy coating of dust I would have assumed it was getting ready to open for business. Any other fucking day of my life this would have been like letting a monkey loose in a chocolate covered banana factory. Right now, all I could see were large noise makers. I mean they had rockets, but the odds that these would hurt mass amounts of zombies was minimal. I wished I had Justin around; the kid had the uncanny ability to take some of the most harmless of fireworks and turn them into small bombs. Then I was walloped with that “a-ha” moment. I ran over to the sparklers.
“Which ones, Trav?”
“Which ones, what?” he asked. He was looking at the mortars.
“Remember a couple of years back. July Fourth. Justin had us come outside to check something out. Blew a trashcan to shreds, broke three of our neighbor’s windows, and apparently, made Mrs. Durphy’s dog so scared he shit all over her expensive couch.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Didn’t you have to go to court?”
“No, I paid for the windows and told Mrs. Durphy if her dog hadn’t been on the couch to begin with he wouldn’t have shit up there. She only threatened me with court. She did move out soon after. I always meant to thank Justin for that. She was a pain in the ass.”
“Because she didn’t want her windows smashed or her dog to suffer near coronaries?” Meredith asked.
“Was anyone talking to you?”
She raised her hands in an apologetic manner.
“It was sparklers.” Travis was thinking. “Colored sparklers. I remember him showing me. He grabbed a handful of them and wrapped them in an entire roll of electrical tape.”
They had a bunch on display and even more in the back. The beauty of having an energy truck was the overabundance of electrical tape they had onboard. We made over twenty handmade bombs before I decided we should check out just how effective a weapon we had. We used one of the sparklers itself as a fuse. I lit the sparkler, and like a seven-year-old, I got transfixed by the shower of blue sparks.
“Dad, throw it!” Travis backed up.
Thing had to be a pound by the time it was all wrapped up. I tossed it a decent distance away and even backed up a few steps. We all waited. I could still see sparks shooting on the ground, then nothing. I was not liking our chances of dispersing a zombie horde with pretty colors. I started walking forward. I about halved the distance when I was rocked by an explosion. A peppering of small rocks and clods of dirt struck me, but that was nothing compared to the concussion that felt like it was shifting my internal organs around.
“Fuck me!” I laughed, brushing myself off.
“You’re bleeding, Uncle,” Meredith said as she ran up next to me.
I had an inch long splinter, which looked like a piece of chopstick, wedged in my forearm. I didn’t care. If the divot in the ground was any indication of the damage we could do, then I was all in. Actually, I did kind of care about the chopstick, if that was indeed what it was. Who knew whose mouth that thing had been in? I pulled it out. It came loose with a sickly wet smacking sound. When I felt like my organs had slid back into place, I caught up with the kids, who were looking at the eight-inch-deep carve out in the ground.
“I think that will work,” I said while we all looked down. “This time though, we’re going to wrap some shrapnel up inside as well.” Again, we had more than we needed in the truck: screws, staples, nails small hand tools … we didn’t care as we bundled everything up. By the time it was all said and done, we had near
ly a hundred of them.
“Let’s go get the Talbot compound back!” I was happy. It was the first modicum of hope I’d had in a while, and I was going to enjoy it. The truck sounded like rocks going through a cement mixer by the time we pulled up to Ron’s. That we had everyone’s attention was without a doubt. We’d known this was a one-way trip with the truck, so I’d made what sounded like a decent plan on the go. It had more holes than Trip’s underwear and smelled as bad upon closer examination. I had let the kids out before I drove closer. Their job now was to creep as close as they could to the horde and climb a tree. I had to hope that zombies hadn’t thought to post sentries quite yet. That was a comforting thought as I rolled on. I lit a makeshift fuse, fixed the bungee cord on the steering wheel to keep it straight, and popped a heavy rock on the accelerator to get it closer, then I bailed.
“No, no, no.” I’d gone face first into a poison ivy plant. That was not the greatest way to start a mission off. The truck plowed into and through quite a few rows of zombies before it succumbed to the terrain and the sheer press of dead people around and under it. Zombies swarmed around and even in it looking for a meal. I’d gotten off the long driveway and into the woods. I got to the very outer edges of the zombies before finding a decent-sized tree to climb, and one that actually afforded some cover when the debris started to fly. I was not more than ten feet off the ground when the tree vibrated. A wash of heat and bits of metal blew past me. Then came the wonderful smell of burning corpses. I was downwind, fantastic. I got up higher, hoping to out climb the stench. It sort of worked. I was damn near thirty feet up. I scanned the tree line to my left. Travis was waving his arm back and forth. I acknowledged him then raised my shoulders in a questioning shrug. He pointed to where Jesse and Meredith were. I could barely make them out through the cover of branches, but that they were safe, that was all I needed to know.
I finally got a decent look at the truck, or at least what was left. The heft of the body was fine, but the cab had been shredded, peeled back, in fact—looked like a giant pissed-off ape had stripped it back thinking a banana was inside. Dozens of zombies laid around the wreckage in various forms of body-frayed disarrayed states. Those that weren’t outright dead were missing limbs or had large swaths of muscle torn from their bodies, making any form of decent locomotion out of the question. Arms hung at odd angles, legs were bent awkwardly, torsos had gaping holes; it was all the carnage one would expect from an IED, or improvised explosive device. A couple of zombies were even ablaze, which worked in our favor as they sought to share their body heat with others.
“Who’s out there?” Ron called from the deck once the truck simmered down from blazing inferno to camp fire. Meredith called out.
“It’s me, Daddy!” she said triumphantly.
“Mer?” he yelled out. I caught the hitch in his throat. I’m not going to lie; I teared up a bit as well. Who wouldn’t? His daughter, who he had no idea how she was doing, suddenly shows up and is right as rain. “Who’s with you, honey?”
Zombies were beginning to meander over to the sound of her voice, looking around for the source. “Jesse, Travis, and Uncle Mike!” I watched a flare of flame come up from her spot then drop down close to the base of the tree, closer than I would have liked it. I didn’t think the bomb had enough power to knock the tree down, but that wasn’t a risk one took. If the ride to the ground didn’t kill you, then the zombies would take up the slack. I could see her leaning over to watch the explosion.
“Meredith, hide!” I yelled, using as much force as I could. She peered at me for the briefest of seconds, and then I think it all kind of dawned on her. It was a damn shame that she had a fair amount of Talbot running through her as well. The explosion was glorious. There were vivid reds, deep blues, dark greens, and purply purples. Ran out of adjectives. It ripped the entire layer of bark off the bottom three feet of tree. Its days were indeed numbered. Although, odds were it wasn’t going to fall today. Disease, rot, and ruin would be its downfall. The nearest zombies were propelled in the air along with various body parts. If it were people, I would have been sickened. That it was zombies only made it that much better. I conveniently forgot the simple fact that they once were human.
I was easily over fifty yards away from her, and still, I found a two-inch nail embedded in the tree not more than a couple of inches from my head. “Damn.” I used force and pulled a good half inch of it from the tree.
“Talbot where you at?” It was BT.
I made sure I had my voice under control. If it hitched while I replied, he would rib me mercilessly. It wasn’t just that he was my best friend. It was now I felt like I could share the burden I’d been shouldering the last three days alone. Of course, the kids had been holding their own. It was just, at the end of the day, their safety was my responsibility. That was tough enough, but that two of them were my sibling’s kids made it that much more difficult.
“Over here, man,” I said reaching as deep down as I could for my baritone.
“Good to see you. About time, man. Where the hell you been?”
“What are you, my mother?”
“I missed that.” I think he was talking to Gary.
“Me too, man.” I said softly. “We’ve come to rid you of your infestation!”
“Mike, I’m not thrilled you gave my daughter explosives.”
“Relax, brother. They’re fucking sparklers. Fire in the hole!” I yelled before lighting one and ducking behind the trunk. Leaves rained down on me as my tree shook. It was twenty maybe twenty-five explosions later I called a cease-fire. I wasn’t sure anybody would hear me, as I could barely hear myself, and I was the one doing the talking. My ears were ringing, and my eyes were bouncing. The zombies had taken hellacious damage, but even more importantly, they’d yielded ground. In all likelihood, we’d only killed ten percent or so of the horde, but they’d had enough, at least for this round. At some point, gunfire had erupted on Ron’s deck. They were making the tactical withdrawal of the zombies a full-on retreat. I climbed down off the tree to see if it was any type of ruse on their part. I made sure to keep an eye out on the too-maimed-to-walk zombies that could still inflict a deadly wound. So far, so good.
I went over to each tree and waited for the kids to come down, urging them to run for the house while I watched their backs. It was while I waited for Jesse to get back safely when I thought about how I didn’t have a weapon—well a rifle, anyway. I still had plenty of bombs, not great for in-close combat though. Meredith was the last down, and I ran with her back to the house. BT wrapped me up in a huge bear hug when I got to the top of the deck. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was covered in poison ivy oil. It wasn’t a long hug anyway, once he got a big strong dose of me.
“You fucking reek, man! But it’s still awesome to see you!” I noticed he was backing away before coming forward to grab me.
“Thanks, man,” I told him as he placed me down. He had a big grin on his face. “Before you go asking, everyone else is all right. They’re in the bunker.” I consciously moved closer to him, just to screw with him.
“Want a sandwich?” Trip had come outside in nothing more than his underwear and mismatched socks. He held up what looked like three pieces of bread. “I always get hungry after sex, man. Me and the missus were going at it so hard the earth moved. A few times!” He smiled then proceeded to scratch his nether regions before once again thrusting the sandwich under my nose. “Whoa, man. I just realized I should have put pickles on this thing,” he said as he sampled the air and headed back into the house.
“Your wife isn’t even here!” BT called him out.
“Whoa, man. Then I guess I rocked my own world.” He held up his right hand and looked at it with an awed expression.
BT walked away, disgusted. Muttering something about crazy whiteys. I too walked away when he grabbed his sandwich again and started eating. Unfortunately, Trip decided to follow me. Finally, I stopped and just started talking, trying to distract myself fr
om him. I told everyone what was going on at the post office and about the new development with the zombies, although they’d witnessed some of that first hand. They were still out there, but they’d pulled back completely out of arm throwing range. We went into the house. I needed to get cleaned off and hydrated, and a little food wouldn’t hurt, either. Especially considering that Trip’s bread sandwich was starting to sound better and better. When I was done, Ron sat down at the table next to me.
“Now what?” he asked. “And yes, you still smell a little like vinegar—well a lot like vinegar, actually.”
“Must have soaked in. At least I’ll preserve well. As for the post office, I guess we mount a rescue. Maybe it was a mistake to separate,” I told him.
“You think?”
“Hey Ron, I know you’re worried, but I didn’t come to that decision on my own. If you remember correctly, I wanted to take my family who I mistakenly thought was the source of this newest threat as far away from here as possible, and it was you that maintained, fervently, I might add, that we had to stay.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve just been so worried.”
He felt even worse after I told him what the kids and I had been through the last couple of days. He kept refilling my water and offering to make something for me to eat.
Gary came into the room decked out in all the football gear he must have been able to round up in the tri-county region. A Star Wars storm trooper would have looked underdressed next to him.
“Going somewhere?” I asked him.
“Aren’t we going to get everyone else?”
“You’re going like that?” BT had finally got some distance between himself and Trip. For some reason, Trip followed him around incessantly, and BT couldn’t stand it. He would peek around corners in the house making sure Trip wasn’t in the room before he would enter. More times than not, though, the perpetual stoner would be behind him, wondering what BT was looking at. You could oftentimes find him peering underneath the bigger man’s shoulder and arm.