A Plague Upon Your Family zf-2 Read online

  “Pray?” She looked at me incredulously.

  “Figure of speech.” I said as I turned away. Seemed like the wrong time to spurn God, but I wasn’t feeling very pious at the time.

  Within a half an hour I had closed the wound. Jen and Tommy had got him cleaned up and put new clothes that weren’t blood soaked on him. And then after getting him placed in the back of Brendon’s minivan, I set his leg in a close approximation of the position I felt it should be in. Two ax handles and a roll of duct tape completed my handiwork. It wasn’t pretty. He was going to be eating oxy’s like pez for the next month and we had about a week’s worth. Great, another stop on the journey. Those always go so well.

  Another set of clothes down the drain, so to speak. The only thing salvageable on me was my shirt. The jacket had caught the brunt of arterial spray. I shivered on the side of the road as I stripped out of the stiff clothing.

  Tracy had come up to me with a box of baby wipes to clean up with. I couldn’t have been more grateful if she had showed up with a cheeseburger right now.

  She started laughing at me. There I was, nearly naked in the dead of winter on the side of a highway.

  “Hey that’s not cool!” I yelled. “It’s because of the cold, it causes shrinkage you know. It’s like when you go swimming!” I was now yelling to her laughing retreating back. “Not cool.” I said angrily to myself as I washed up. I was still muttering angrily when I rejoined the rest of the caravan.

  “What do you think Mike?” Brendon asked.

  “Most people don’t have the nerve to ask that question Brendon. At least not open ended like that.”

  “You really are nuts aren’t you?” He smiled

  I left the question dangling. There really isn’t a way to answer it legitimately anyway. See Catch-22.

  “Well Carol’s is still our ultimate goal, for now. But we’re going to need more antibiotics and more pain killers, which means another effen stop.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “My sentiments exactly. I want to pack up the pick-up truck that isn’t all bloody because we’re taking it and then I want to completely disable the other. I don’t think Redneck Number One and Mullet Man are going to come back and claim it but I see no reason to tempt the fates. And most of all, I want to get the hell out of here.”

  “What do you think about BT’s chances?”

  “Well a normal person would probably be dead already so he’s got that going for him. Plus he’s too mean for heaven and hell doesn’t want the competition.” I didn’t get the expected laugh from my flippant remark. I guess he wanted an actual answer. Doesn’t he know I try to avoid those? “Fifty, fifty. I just don’t know how much damage he really has.” I left it at that.

  “Mike one more thing.”

  Those statements are never good. When someone waits until the very end of a conversation to bring something up, it’s usually because it has taken this long to build up the nerve to say it. “If you tell me my daughter is pregnant, I’m going to be pissed.”

  “What?” His eyebrows knit together. “No wait? Huh? No, that’s not it. It’s Justin.”

  “I know.”

  “About the fever dreams, and Eliza?”

  “I know.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” He asked me.

  “No clue.” I started to walk away.

  “That’s it!” He yelled. “Seems to me that Justin has an open line with the enemy and you’re not going to do anything?” He said heatedly.

  I stopped and turned. “Got any ideas? I’m all ears.” I meant what I said but my words were infused with malice. Brendon could feel the taint of vileness emanate from them but youth does not always heed to wisdom.

  “Oh I think you know what needs to be done Mike! Aren’t you always the one that preaches the sacrifice of the one for the many?”

  I didn’t hesitate one second from his words, though they struck me deep. “Take the other truck then.” I said. He physically stepped back, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting that. I had basically told him he was welcome to leave, without Nicole. I had painted him in to a corner for that I felt a measure of guilt. He was as close to family as you can be without actually being family, a fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless. I would choose family over others 100% of the time. It was as simple as that. By now we had drawn a crowd. This was starting to become commonplace. He shook with rage. If he came at me now I would have only one or two chances to take him down before his size, youth and speed overwhelmed me.

  Travis breeched a round into his shotgun, Brendon turned towards him. Fear, hurt and betrayal spanned across his features in less than the span of a second. His shoulders drooped as he walked towards the bloody Ford. The passenger side tire was blown and Tracy had made sure when she scraped down the side of it, that it would never win ‘Best in Show’ but other than that, it was mechanically sound.

  “We’ll wait until you get the tire changed.” I told him.

  “Dad?” Nicole questioned. “What are you talking about?” I didn’t answer her. “Brendon, what are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer her as he reached into the cab and got the jack and tire iron. She started tugging on his arm as he began to break the lug nuts on the tire.

  “Brendon, you can’t leave us, me!” She cried. “Dad fix this.”

  “He’s a big boy.” I said with an ice-cold edge.

  “Talbot!” Tracy chimed in.

  “What!” I yelled right back. I hadn’t even got to the ‘h’ in ‘What’ when I knew that was the wrong answer.

  She didn’t even have to say ‘Really?’ Her arched eyebrow let me know how screwed I was.

  Already down for a nickel, might as well increase the Talbot national debt. “You know what Tracy, if he wants to stay with us fine! But I’m not going over there and begging him to come. He doesn’t like the way things are shaking out right now. Why don’t you go see what his plans are. I’m sure you’ll be just as thrilled as I was. I’m going to pack the truck.” And with that I walked away.

  Tracy now knew the root of the problem as she looked over to Justin, still sitting in the minivan. She shuddered as she saw the ghost of a smile play across his features. I had taken my time moving our stuff from the minivan to the truck in the hope that cooler heads would prevail, mainly Brendon’s. But for as slow as I was moving, Brendon was moving that fast, maybe he didn’t want to think about what he was doing because he’d realize just how fucking stupid he was being, dumb ass. I almost went over to him to start round 2, but I didn’t want to burden Travis with the guilt of having to shoot him.

  Brendon kissed Nicole, and then gently pushed her trembling body away from his as he stepped into the cab of the truck.

  “No Brendon!” She wept. “You can’t leave me!”

  My heart was breaking for my daughter.

  “I’m sorry.” I heard him yell through the closed windows.

  I thought Nicole might try to get in the cab and go with him. I would have physically restrained her if it got to that point. I was thankful it didn’t. She stood stock-still and sobbed as Brendon started the truck, did an illegal u-turn and drove off. That was it, he left. We watched for a minute until he was a dot on the horizon. Tracy actually slid an arm across my waist and wept silently on my shoulder.

  I put Nicole in the truck with me. She didn’t react at all as I put her seat belt on. Her head slumped against the cool glass.

  “Jen you up for driving?” I asked her. Of us all she looked the most prepared. The Talbots as a whole had just suffered a crushing loss. This wasn’t the movies. We weren’t going to be all joking around in the next scene, one of our own was gone. Whether literally or figuratively didn’t really matter. We weren’t ever going to see him again. If he somehow survived on his own, which was doubtful, he would never know how to find us again. I was going to turn around and get him. I had made up my mind. BT changed it back.

  His screams pierced the day. I ran over to him, sho
ok out a couple of oxy’s and handed them to him. He swallowed them without water, the tears that leaked from his eyes causing enough lubricant to get the large pills down. Within minutes he had passed out again, not from the pills but from the pain.

  “Let’s go, we’ve got to find a pharmacy.” There was no more milling about. We had a mission to complete now. We would have enough time later to mourn.

  Tommy was nearly as catatonic as Nicole. He had really ratcheted up the empathy button. Tommy had a serious crush on Nicole. Everyone knew it, though somehow Tommy didn’t know we knew. That was the funny part about it. He would get so flustered around her that he would call her everything but her real name, and Brendon was ALWAYS, ‘that other guy’ or ‘him’. So of all of us, the big kid had the most to, ‘in theory’, gain. Though not in a millennium would he have ever conspired for this sort of outcome. He had taken on Nicole’s pain, not to ease, but to share.

  CHAPTER 21

  I don’t want to gloss over it. It was what it was though. We smashed into a pristine Rite Aid. We startled the zombiefied pharmacist and two techs even more than ourselves. We dispatched of them in the most humane way possible. It was a quick, precise, antiseptic kill. They were of the slow variety and maybe even a little slower since they probably hadn’t fed in weeks. That would be something to file and look back on later. I’ve always considered myself a glass half full type of guy but the fact that this store was relatively untouched disturbed me. Don’t get me wrong, I was absolutely ecstatic that we were getting the meds BT and Justin were going to need along with everything from toe nail fungus inhibitor to Viagra (I figured if we ever got to the point where Tracy wanted to have sex, I was going to make up for lost time.) The problem being that this store being virgin territory to looters meant that there weren’t enough people of the living variety around to do any looting. And to top that off Brendon’s leaving had had a crushing affect on us all. He had died to us, pure and simple, no matter what happened to him physically.

  Nicole was inconsolable. I picked up every anti-depressant known to man. How I was going to administer them was beyond my scope though, maybe one of each. I knew things were at an all time low when I actually had to point out the Pop-Tart boxes to Tommy as he walked right on by them. Jen stayed with BT while we ransacked the store. she wasn’t nearly as devastated as the Talbots but it affected her too. We were already counting the number of us on two hands. Removing just one finger had a profound impact. As a viable fighting force we were in dire straits. We were down to Travis, Jen and me. Any opponent bigger and meaner than a girl scout troop and we were going to get our asses kicked, and by asses kicked, I meant killed.

  I was sick of reflecting. The image coming back was horrible so when the horn sounded it was a welcome if at the same time ominous sound. If the world ever got back to some semblance of normality, I would never be able to drive again. The mere sound of someone beeping at me would send me into panic attacks. We all looked up like meerkats waiting for the hawk to descend. Travis was first to the door, shotgun at the ready. No matter how many zombies he killed or how long we survived, I was never going to get over the bounce in adrenaline my heart took every time he was exposed to danger. I couldn’t get the picture of him as a seven year old out of my head. Although I knew he was as capable if not more so to get us out of any sticky situation. I could almost watch him harden to the world by the hour. Whereas I felt I was heading the other way. Stop pondering! I ran to the door.

  Jen had stepped out of the car, she didn’t seem too particularly out of sorts. She pointed to her left somewhat out of our view. I walked past the buggies and looked. Zombies were coming.

  Travis came up beside me. “No speeders, that’s good.”

  He had ascertained a fact that took me another few long moments to realize. “Nope.” I drawled out, making it look like I had known all along.

  He looked up at me, no that’s not quite right, he slightly lifted his eyes to make them level with my own. ‘Holy Shit, when did that happen?’

  “I’m gonna finish loading the truck.” He said as he turned.

  A small wall of the living dead were coming our way, with what I would imagine was less than grand intentions and he gave less than two shits. Maybe a piss and a squirt, but that was about it.

  He had already gone back into the store when I answered him. “Ok sounds good.”

  Tommy came up beside me, seemingly more in character as he devoured a Hostess Cupcake. “Wanff onef?”

  “You know what Tommy, I think actually I do.” I took the offered cupcake from him and we shared a moment there eating our cupcakes, watching the advancing zombies as if it were the most natural thing in the world, like maybe it was a sunrise. I guess it was more like a sunset and not quite so beautiful.

  Tommy had at some time departed. I had somehow eaten a cupcake I couldn’t remember chewing and Travis had finished loading the truck bed.

  “You coming Dad?” Travis asked with some concern. I guess I looked like the village idiot standing there. I would imagine I had chocolate on my face and I was gazing off into the distance, dimly aware that a viable threat was approaching.

  “Uh yeah.” I answered as I absently dropped the cupcake wrapper clutched in my hand. I bent over and picked it back up disposing of it in a trash barrel that would never again be emptied. What was the point? I didn’t have one and I couldn’t see the reason to look for one.

  “You alright Talbot?” My wife asked as I got behind the wheel.

  “That noticeable?”

  “We’ve been married a long time but even if I had just met you I’d be able to tell.”

  The zombies were still coming and would soon be within bow and arrow range but still I turned to face and answer Tracy as if I had all the time in the world.

  “Brendon?” She asked beating me to the punch.

  “That’s definitely a big part of it. I’m not sure if I did more harm than good to BT. Chances are he’ll still die, whether from infection or my ineptitude.”

  “Mike you saved him, what happens to him next is in God’s hands.”

  “You still believe huh?” I asked her. In retrospect it was mean spirited and wasn’t going to help my bargaining power when I got to the pearly gates, provided that they actually existed.

  Her facial features said it all, how dare I question what she did and did not believe in. I always used to give her a hard time that she didn’t believe in extra-terrestrials. I would pull out the arguments of how could their NOT be with the billions upon billions of solar systems and if only a billionth of those could support life there would still be an infinitesimal amount of probable planets that were capable of harboring life. She’d have nothing to do with it. She also used to scoff at me when I would sometimes let it leak that I was preparing for Armageddon in one of the many different ways it was bound to happen, including zombies. Being right sucked if you couldn’t rub the ones you loved noses’ in it. Maybe we’d luck out and Alpha Centauri would get their shit together and attack us. Then I could have a twofer. I laughed out loud.

  “Something funny?” Her arched eyebrow let me know that I was beginning to tread on uneven ground.

  Zombies to the front, Tracy to the side, I was weighing my options carefully.

  “No, no I was just thinking about aliens.” I answered truthfully.

  “What’s this got to do with Mexican’s Mike?”

  I busted out laughing. If I had waited to start the truck and get out of the Rite-Aid parking lot AFTER I got myself under control, we would have made a wonderful lunch for the zombies. At this point I was thankful for the lack of traffic. My vision was distorted from the tears. Tracy glowered at me.

  I had been in a foul mood for the majority of the day. I hadn’t completely pulled out from that dank place in my spirit but I had been granted a momentary reprieve. It was those small candles of light on this unlit path we lived on now that were going to sustain us all.

  The drive up the highway was damn near une
ventful, which in itself is a good thing. We saw an occasional bloated frozen cow or sheep. The more disturbing ones were picked to the bone. That could only mean one thing. There were some cars abandoned on the road, most likely from expired gas tanks. I pitied the fools that had got out to walk, and then I thought back to the bone frameworks previously mentioned. Nothing like a mass exodus had happened here. Sure North Dakota wasn’t known for its population explosion but still.

  “Here Mr. T.” Tommy said as he handed me a heavy brown paper bag. Normally I would tell him to wait because I had to concentrate on driving. I was pretty sure some pimply faced teenager wasn’t going to be coming in the other direction texting his friend lying about who he had banged the night before.

  “What you got here, Tommy?” I asked as I took the bag. Although from the weight of it and the feel of the glass bottle it couldn’t have been anything other than booze.

  “I got you some Jeff Daniels.” He answered.

  I laughed, again thankful for the small release of endorphins. “I think you mean Jack.”

  “That’s what I said.” He answered.

  “But why Tommy, you know I can’t stand the stuff.”

  “Oh it’s not for you.” He answered with a smile.

  Tracy turned to look him in the eye. A mischievous grin spread across his face. He knew something and he wasn’t going to spill all his beans at once.

  “Tommy, I’ll hide your pop-tarts.” Tracy said, going right for the jugular. Dancing lightly around the subject had never been at the top of her repertoire. Tommy grabbed his backpack and pushed it behind himself. “I’m serious.” She added, making a mock attempt to reach around him. I watched in the rear view mirror as the sheer look of terror came over his face. It released an even bigger amount of happy juice into my veins. I didn’t laugh out loud though. If Tracy couldn’t get that bag from him she might make me try and I had no desire to be such an abject point of fear for the kid.