A Plague Upon Your Family zf-2 Read online

  I took two Tylenol and was immediately thinking about taking something stronger. The pain in my knee was beginning to rage. It was as if the heat from the fire had taken this long to thaw out the half gallon of fluid that surrounded my injured joint. If the pain in my knee was a grizzly bear, the Tylenol was like firing two air soft pellets at it. I dropped onto the bed with the bag of goodies from the pharmacy as pain lanced through my leg. I greedily downed first one and then another pain killer and...then another. I lay like that for at least ten minutes. The pain never truly went away, it just became muted. When I felt I could get up without crying too much, I used the head rail to prop myself up. I was greeted instantly and not so unpleasantly with the fogged over countenance of one under the influence of drugs, which thankfully I was. The pain in my knee was still sharp. On some level I realized that and still I didn’t care.

  Unbeknownst to me I had somehow levitated down into the kitchen. Carol looked up from some delicious smelling stew she was preparing.

  “Mike you been in my Jack again?”

  I’m pretty sure I answered with the ever witty. “The what now?” More likely it came out as. “Duh?”

  “You know you’re in your underpants right?” She said pointing her what appeared to be an oversized spoon at me.

  “Tightie whities?” I asked hoping that wasn’t the case.

  She cocked her head. “Just how much of my booze did you drink Mike?”

  “Whitie tighties?” I mumbled, slivers of drool escaping from the corner of my mouth.

  “Maybe you should just sit down.” She said as she pulled a chair out from the kitchen table.

  I obeyed. Not that standing anymore was becoming much of an option. Drool landed on my blue boxer shorts. “Ah not frightie mighties!”

  “Tracy!” Her mom yelled.

  “Yeah Mom?” I heard the response from the living room.

  “You might want to get in here.” Her mother answered turning back to the crock pot.

  Tracy came in, looked quickly over to her mom and then to me, the source of the issue at hand. “Oh Talbot what are you doing?”

  “I’m not wearing nightie bities.” I answered gallantly.

  “That’s a good thing, I guess.” What the hell else could she say. “Come on let’s get you into the living room.”

  “Not so sure I can get back up hon.” I think that came out nearly perfect, though my tongue felt as thick and dry as a plank.

  “You don’t smell like booze. What’s the matter?”

  I pointed to my knee, just since my short jaunt down into the kitchen my knee had grown nearly half again what I had started with. So much so that the ace bandage was nearly stretched to its capacity.

  “Talbot!” Tracy said alarmed. “What the fuck?”

  I don’t remember much about the walk out of the kitchen and onto the most comfortable couch I have ever had the pleasure of laying down on, except for a lot of finger pointing and laughing. Most of that coming from BT and he was more drugged up than I was.

  CHAPTER 23

  I didn’t have a clue how long I slept. When I finally awoke it wasn’t to the easy, peaceful, content feeling one arises to after a deep and satisfying sleep. There was no exaggerated stretch as I alit from the bed and casually scratched my nuts. Oh come on, that’s the first thing after the body unfolding, that every guy does when they get out of bed. Don’t ask me why, maybe it’s an evolutionary legacy, probably to wipe away prehistoric mites. Anyway back to the story, the distinctive sound of a gunshot prohibits one from the normal routine. I stood up as rapidly as my vertigo-addled brain would allow. Who knew we were in the midst of a 7.0 earthquake. I braced myself against the couch until the worst of the shakes had subsided. I took no small pleasure in the fact that the pain in my knee had subsided to something I could live with, if not entirely like.

  I still pushed off with my right leg though. No sense in tempting the fates. BT stirred on his resting place but did not awaken. Had I imagined the whole thing? I heard nothing else. The only thing that gave me pause was that a single gunshot these days was rarer than a virgin Catholic schoolgirl. It was approaching dawn. I could tell by the murky light filtering through the windows but no one was up that I could tell. There was no sense of alarm, no commotion, no damn bacon cooking, ooh that sounded good. I had finally managed to gingerly walk my way up to the hallway that led to the front door, when a fully winter weather bundled Carol came in toting her shotgun.

  She didn’t seem particularly startled to see me standing there. “You know you’re still in your underwear right?” She asked me.

  Reflexively, I looked down slightly more embarrassed this time than the last.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry about it, want some coffee?” She stooped over and placed her shotgun next to the door, in a holder that seemed perfectly tailored to that specific job. She looked up to see me watching her. “Did I wake you? She asked.

  I had a sarcastic comment all lined up but then I thankfully remembered she was my mother-in-law and wisely thought better of unloosing my dumb-ass comment on the world.

  “No, I was ready to get up anyway.”

  “Hadn’t seen one in a couple of days was kind of hoping that was over.”

  What she had seen, well let’s just say there isn’t much of a bear problem during the late winter season.

  “Speaking of that, Carol. How did you know it was out there? I’d been meaning to ask, got a little side tracked last night.”

  “Oh those first few days were tough. I was too scared to sleep. However, even fear will only go so far. More than once I woke up to one of those things at the door or the window. Damn near sent my ticker into overdrive. I can’t tell you how many times I just wanted to shoot through the door or the window. Good thing the practical side of me took over. I don’t have the materials to fix what I would have destroyed.”

  “What the hell did you do?” I asked alarmed.

  “I opened the window up and then killed them.” She said as naturally as if she had opened a window to let an apple pie cool on the windowsill.

  “Fuhhh..” I started. Her watchful gaze made me pull back from my colorful phrasing. “I think I would have shot the glass out.”

  “Have you felt how cold it is out there?”

  I nodded, not only did I get her point but also felt it. “So then what?”

  “You mean how did I sleep and still defend the homestead?”

  I nodded again, completely enraptured, bacon momentarily forgotten as I followed her and her story into the kitchen.

  “Well I rigged an alarm. I went out about a fifty or so feet from the house and set wooden stakes into the ground, every twenty feet or so in a circle around the house. Then I screwed an eye hook in each one, about waist high.” She said as she held her hand roughly at her belt line. “Then I threaded rope through all of them. Then finally I brought a rope all the way up to the house and attached it to a bell. Damn thing was worse than an alarm clock. Couldn’t hit snooze, if you get my meaning.”

  My mouth must have been agape.

  “You know Mike, I’ve been on a farm most of my life. Hard work is nothing new to me.”

  “Sorry. That’s just genius.”

  “Necessity. You want sugar in your coffee?”

  “Please.” I said absently as I grabbed the mug from her. “Where is it now, I didn’t see it when we came in yesterday.”

  “After Tommy’s message, I took down the part that led to the house and the barn. I didn’t want you to run it over mistakenly. Just because I can do hard work doesn’t mean I want to repeat it and a good portion of what is still up is under snow. Last night after our little talk in the kitchen... ”

  I flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. I saw your knee after Tracy unwrapped it. I wasn’t even sure how you were still standing. I did my best to drain it.”

  “Oh, so that’s why it feels better. Thank you and you won’t mind if I don’t ask how
you did it?”

  She laughed again. “No I’ll get over it. So after you went to sleep,” She emphasized ‘sleep’ “I re-strung the alarm”. Didn’t expect to get company but I didn’t want to make any unexpected guests feel welcome.”

  “Was there just the one then?” I asked her.

  She looked hard at me. “You must have been sleeping pretty heavily. There were three. Travis and Jen took care of them all. They’re still out there making sure no more are coming. I wanted to get my old bones inside and by the fire. Now that I’ve got help I’m not too proud to use it.”

  “Three?”

  “And by the looks of them they look like they’ve traveled a ways.”

  I bet they had! Fucking Eliza, I was going to slit her throat personally. I momentarily thought about heading outside, but garbed like I was, my manhood would shrivel to half its size and that I could not stomach or afford.

  “I brought some clothes down for you, figured you’d want to go out as soon as you got up and the less stairs you climb right now the better.”

  I nodded to her, my terse thoughts elsewhere.

  “Mike you’re knee hurting again. You look mighty upset all of a sudden.”

  “I just think we brought a whole lot of heartache down on you Carol, by coming here, I mean.”

  She gently caressed my cheek. “You’ve done no such thing, you want bacon for breakfast?”

  “There could be a sainthood in this for you Carol.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” She said as she turned back around.

  I heard Jen and Travis come inside. It would have been hard not too, as loud as they were stomping the excess snow off their boots. I had just finished pulling on my third sweater and met them in the hallway. Jen’s color was nearly the shade of the material she was liberally shedding in the mudroom.

  “Is that bacon?” Travis said happily as he headed into the kitchen.

  I noticed that Jen waited patiently until Travis was out of earshot before she spoke.

  “I won’t swear it Mike, the damage was just too great, but I’d bet money those people, I mean zombies.” She shook her head. “Were from Little Turtle.”

  To think something bad is happening is bad enough, but to get conformation is downright shitty. “Are you sure?”

  We both knew I was hoping for an alternate outcome.

  “Like I said Mike, when you blow someone’s head off it’s a little difficult to get a positive i.d.”

  “Well to be fair, you didn’t quite say it like that.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah I know what you meant. I just want to choose not to believe it.”

  “Are you going out to check?”

  “No.”

  She studied my less than poker face. “You knew they’d be coming?”

  “Figured as much. I’d sort of hoped that maybe this was the place where we could finally stop and plant some roots. It feels so right here. Cold sure, but the energy seems so strong. I guess maybe I thought this might be some sort of hallowed ground. Crazy right?”

  “No I don’t think so. We all want somewhere that we don’t constantly have to feel like it could be our last minute. I love this place too but it’s not the most easily defendable.”

  “Wow, I think you may have been around me too long. My crazy is starting to rub off.”

  “Not necessarily a bad thing Talbot, now let’s get some of that bacon. I’m starving.”

  Tommy was already sitting at the table, strips of bacon hanging out of both his hands. His broad smile dappled with the fried goodness. “Morfning Mftr. T!”

  There was one way in to the kitchen and I had been standing in the hallway that led in. I would have bet a mountain of Kit-Kats that the boy had not stepped into that hallway to get past me. “How’d you get here Tommy?”

  “I walked.” He smiled again.

  I was looking for more than the literal explanation. Tommy looked down at his hands, seemingly more concerned from which hand he was going to take his next bite from than answering me.

  Travis and Carol were not going to be of any help. They were both at the stove. Carol was showing Travis how to make an omelet. Although I could tell from his posture he was more intent on eating said omelet than on learning how to make it. Maybe I would have pressed the issue, most likely not, but the rest of the family chose that time to come in. Tommy’s eyes twinkled at mine.

  “You got them up. Didn’t you, you sly dog.” I conspiringly said to him.

  “Bacon?” He said, pushing his meat-laden fists under my nose.

  “Thanks I’ll get my own.” He seemed immensely relieved at that answer.

  Breakfast was phenomenal. Farm fresh everything. I knew processed, and artificially preserved foods were a necessary evil of our society. Oh but what we had given up when we had moved off of our family farms and into the denizens of depravity, that would be cities, in non-sarcasm speak. Then it all came rushing back to me why we moved away, as I cleaned out the pens and fed the animals that had so graciously allowed us to gain sustenance from them. I enviously eyed the dairy cow. She had seemed completely at ease when I had first entered the animal enclosure but each subsequent time that I stopped to stare longingly at her, she more and more sensed the predatory nature of my visits.

  Milk was grand, especially fresh milk. But a steak! Now that would be special.

  “Hope you don’t have an accident Bessie.” I said as I patted her snout.

  She pulled away, and eyed me warily.

  “I’m just saying.” I told her.

  Bessie wasn’t appeased much. She didn’t go back to chewing her cud until I was well past her stall.

  It was close on lunch by the time I had finished my chores. It wasn’t steak but there was absolutely nothing wrong with the pork tenderloin chops Carol was dishing up.

  “I would have made sandwiches, but I ran out of flour to make it with a few weeks ago.” She said apologetically.

  “No.” Tracy told me, without a word coming out of my mouth.

  “But.” I started.

  “No Talbot, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “Fine.” I pouted as I sat down to my mounded plate of meat. “Some barbecue sauce, maybe shredded a little. Man it would make a…”

  “Talbot!” Tracy said.

  “Fine.” I dug in. I didn’t think that after smelling animal ass for the last four hours I’d be hungry. I was wrong.

  I parked my butt in the living room after lunch. The couch was inviting. The fire was warming. About the only thing that could have made this perfect was if ESPN were on. Carol had never had a television as far as I had known. Was that even possible? Wasn’t there a law against that or something? I shuddered at the thought. I think the only reason she ever got a phone was to stay in touch with her daughter.

  BT was sitting up. “Why you looking all content and shit?” He asked me.

  “I almost feel like I’ve come home.” I told him honestly.

  “Almost?” He asked. He grimaced as he shifted his position so he could look at me easier. “It’s not over then?”

  “What! Do I have a playbook on my face?”

  “Let’s just say Talbot, you have an uncanny ability to say everything without opening your mouth.” Tracy said from the entryway. She came over and kissed my face. “And that’s what I love about you.”

  “When we leaving then?” BT asked.

  “I was hoping to give you more time to recover.” I was surprised when he nodded in agreement. He must be hurting if he couldn’t even manage a small semblance of male macho bravado.

  “You tell me when Talbot. I’ll make myself ready.”

  Justin came in at that point and sat down heavily in the large chair by the fire. “We have a week.”

  Nobody doubted his source. I just doubted the message.

  “We leave in three days BT.” I said never taking my eyes off of Justin.

  Justin smiled maliciously, realizing I had just caught him
in his lie and absolutely not caring.

  “Two days.” I hastily amended. Justin’s and BT’s faces almost mirrored each other exactly in their disappointment.

  Tracy’s shoulders sagged as the weight of my words weighed on her. “My mom won’t leave you know.”

  “I know that. You’re going to have to convince her it’s for the best.”

  “What’s for the best?” Carol asked.

  “Is it me?” I asked Tracy. “Or is the timing of people showing up at the right time uncanny.”

  “Canny.” Tommy filled in.

  “So what’s for the best?” Carol asked again.

  “That you come with us when we leave.” I said hastily, hoping that maybe the shock value of the words would be lost in their fast delivery, it wasn’t.

  “I’ll do no such thing.” Carol answered adamantly.

  “Mom.”

  “Hush, Tracy. This is my home. I’m 79 years old and I have no desire to start somewhere else. I was born in this house. God willing I’ll die in it.”

  “Mom?!” Tracy cried with more volume.

  “And what’s more I don’t see the point in any of you leaving. There’s plenty of chickens and pigs to get us through the winter. Plus there’s Bessie.”

  “Yeah for hamburger.” I added much too quickly.

  “For milk.” Carol answered while she glared at me.

  “Right, that’s what I meant.” Even though I hadn’t.

  “Mom, the zombies are coming. We have to leave.” Tracy nearly begged.

  “Then let them come.” Carol answered defiantly.