A Plague Upon Your Family zf-2 Read online

  “You two ready?” I asked as I stood up, grabbing the road flare from the cabinet next to me.

  Jen extracted herself from BT and did her best to gingerly help BT to stand. I noticed as he shifted his weight around, he was being especially careful not to put any weight on his injured leg. He half hopped over to where I was and leaned against the cabinet. Jen had walked over to the bottom of the staircase, nervously looking up at the basement door as if expecting it to open.

  BT leaned in to make sure Jen couldn’t hear but unless she had a bionic ear, that wasn’t going to be a problem. The general melee free-for-all up stairs made the simple act of thinking a difficult proposition.

  “I can’t run, Mike.”

  I knew he was serious. He called me by my first name. “Figured as much, what’s your idea?”

  He looked candidly at me.

  “Come on man, you wouldn’t have shuffled over here and tried to be all sneaky if you didn’t have some shitty idea.”

  Jen involuntarily jumped when the door took a particularly savage blow.

  BT looked nervously over at Jen before he began to speak. “I was thinking I’d stay behind and watch your backs.”

  I took my pointer finger and thumb and grabbed my chin like I was really contemplating something deep. “Can’t do it BT.”

  He looked incredulously at me. “What do you mean, Mike? You gonna carry me? Maybe buck ten Jen over there could heft me on her shoulders.”

  Jen looked over. “What’s going on?” She asked as she crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed her arms, possibly to wipe the chill of death from herself.

  “Oh BT thinks we should leave him behind when we leave.”

  “What? Is he fucking nuts?” Jen yelled.

  “That’s what I thought. So I basically told him no.”

  “Guys I’m right here.” BT said lamentably.

  “And what did he say when you told him that?” Jen asked.

  “Oh well he got all indignant. And then he was berating me about being able to carry his extra large ass, and that maybe you’d be able to.”

  “Mike, I’m right here!” BT shouted.

  “So you told him that there was no way in hell that we were leaving him behind?” She asked.

  “Well we hadn’t got that far, but those would have been my next words. And then he would have replied with something heroic like ‘You guys could save yourselves. If you try to help me then we’ll all die.’ And I would have came back with something equally heroic like ‘Either we all get out of here alive or none of us do.'”

  “I get it guys.” BT said. “We knew this was a one way trip anyway.”

  Jen gripped herself tighter. “Wow just got a chill. Someone must have just walked over my grave.”

  I laughed my ass off. We all did. “That’s hilarious because well, because…” And I pointed to the ceiling with the shuffling of hundreds of feet was going on.

  “You must be psychic.” BT added. And we started laughing all over again, like the crazed doomed souls that we were.

  Jen's tears of joy, slowly but inevitably turned to real tears. BT went over to comfort her.

  “Now seems as good a time as any.” I lit the flare and walked over to the far corner of the basement where I had previously drilled a silver dollar sized hole through the kitchen floor and into the basement. I had drilled the hole through a cabinet in the kitchen thus avoiding any chance the hole would be plugged by someone standing on it or by knocking over the large container of gas that was next to it. I looked at the flare for a few seconds more, letting the brilliant fire burn its final images into my memories.

  This fire represented the end of so many things, and hopefully the beginning of a new safer life for my family. “I wish you were here to enjoy this with me Eliza,” I muttered as I thrust the flare up and through the hole. The flame flashed brilliantly as it came in contact with the gaseous vapors. I crinkled my nose as the smell of burnt arm hair wafted up. If I found this smell offensive, it was a vale of roses on a warm spring day after a brief rain shower compared to what assaulted my olfactory senses next. The smell of zombies can be topped by only one other smell, that of burning zombies. Roasting on an open pit was preferable to the cloying stink of melting decayed flesh that ran rampant through the farmhouse.

  There were no screams of mercy coming from upstairs. No shrieks of terror or pain only the mindless hunt for food. There was no mass exodus from the premises. We knew this by the unrelenting assailment on the basement door. Would the door give before the floor? Or would we succumb to smoke inhalation, death by breathing in the dead. Oh just fucking gross.

  “You guys ready?” I asked again.

  “Let’s give this a shot.” BT said making sure his rifle was fully loaded.

  Jen didn’t say anything but thankfully she picked up her HK, popped in a new magazine and nodded to me. We three stood for a moment side by side looking at the door that led to the bulkhead. Long moments passed. Realizing your death is imminent is one thing. Rushing headlong into it is completely another matter. The basement door cracked or it may have been a floor joist.

  “Well that’s decided.” I said as I opened the basement door that led to freedom, in theory anyway.

  The heavy aluminum bulkhead doors were heavily dented from the sheer number of zombies standing on them trying to get into the house.

  “I guess the fire didn’t scare them away so much.” BT noted.

  “Yeah, didn’t work in Little Turtle. Was expecting sort of the same result here.” I said. “Seems like the fire and heat might actually attract them instead of repel them.”

  “Talbot, I figured we wouldn’t get out of this, but why did you volunteer? You have so much more to lose than either of us.” BT asked pointing to himself and Jen.

  “I thought this was going to be a chance to give my family a fresh start. I didn’t think Eliza was going to pull a no-show on me. I wanted to be there personally, when she took her last…whatever she takes.”

  It was definitively the cellar door that had shown signs of weakness previously. Zombies literally began to tumble down the stairs and onto the basement floor. BT unloaded a clip of 30 aught 6 rounds up and through the aluminum doors. Heavy, congealed bluish tainted blood ran in rivulets through the holes. I wanted to jump out of my skin as the, what I believed to be, caustic liquid ran down my head and neck and pooled in the small of my back as we all pushed up on the doors. A couple of zombies still on the doors had the actual benefit of a small carnival ride as they slid off and into a snowdrift.

  Zombies were within touching distance before we opened up a large can of ass whooping. Those unlucky few that were closest to us quickly became nourishment for next year’s crops. But this was more futile than trying to bale water out of an already sunken ship. A veritable sea of healthy flesh challenged people awaited our embrace. Jen ran back down the stairs. I figured she had panicked when in actuality she may have saved a few extra precious seconds of our time remaining.

  I heard the basement door slam shut below us. Zombies in front, zombies behind, the crackling heat of the fire to our backs was becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate.

  “Any ideas?” BT asked me. “You know because if you do, now is not the time to keep them to yourself.”

  “Only one at this point.”

  BT didn’t look at me as I spoke, too intent on firing his rifle that he was. “Yeah what is it?”

  “Keep firing until you have one round left.” The implied meaning in that sentence was clear.

  He looked over briefly at me and lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. “Makes sense to me.” And he kept on firing.

  Jen had shut the bulkhead doors and was standing on them looking out over the Dead Sea. “I can see them!” She said excitedly.

  “Why haven’t they left yet?” I yelled back to her.

  “I don’t know, but at least they’re safe.”

  That was a heavy burden I could release from myself. At le
ast they were safe. That part of the plan had worked perfectly. Carol’s homestead had two tornado shelters, which were used more for pickling and canning jam than anything else. One was located near the animal barn. The other was out in the field at least a good half-mile from the house. Put there so that if someone was caught unawares of an impending storm they would still be able to seek shelter. It was a rumored family secret that during prohibition that shelter had served as a lucrative still.

  The plan was with Justin knocked unconscious we would move him to the shelter and blindfold him so that he would not have any idea that he was anywhere but where he thought he was, the basement. Eliza and her horde of smelly citizens would then converge on the house where we would allow them to come in, en masse, and then lay waste to Carol’s house. Once the zombies had passed the shelter on by, Tracy was supposed to get them all out of here, and we would (theoretically) meet up a mile or so down the road. That way if Eliza somehow survived this holocaust she would not know that we had also survived.

  The problems with the plan were numerous. First off Eliza hadn’t come to the dance. Secondly we had way more party crashers than we had intended and thirdly, Tracy hadn’t fucken left before we died!!

  “She sees us!” She’s waving, Jen yelled.

  “If she tries to rescue us, I’m going to shoot her myself!”

  Jen jumped down off the doors as the heat from the melting house began to blister us all.

  We couldn’t see anything, except the nearest wave of zombies, which thankfully weren’t children. Most of them had become roasting marshmallows in the house behind us. But we all heard what came next.

  BT looked up from his sights. “Is that a horn?”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Oh fucking Tracy, what are you doing woman?” I moaned. “Don’t make me die for nothing.”

  We were all down to the dregs of our ammo, and I had been completely serious about holding one bullet for myself, when the cannon fire erupted and then I saw the familiar front grill of the white Ford pickup bracketed by two military vehicles. Trailing was your standard issue Marine Corps Humvee, in front was a six wheeled lightly armored troop transport. There were waves of joy and waves as despair, was the violence of existence worth it? Joy because help was coming, despair because it was too far away. The .50 caliber machinegun mounted on the turret of the troop transport, was shredding through zombies, head shots weren’t warranted when bodies were literally being torn in two. There’s a reason why the Geneva convention had expressly forbidden the act of shooting personnel with this type of gun. It made identifying the deceased a nearly impossible task.

  I was gauging the number of rounds I had with how long it was going to take the trucks to get here. It was looking like a typical Vegas wager, the house was the favorite and we were the mark.

  Maybe the sight of us, or my thoughts actually held sway over the caravan as they began to speed up.

  “That’s not Tracy.” BT said from his higher vantage point.

  “Nicole? Travis? Please tell me no.” I begged.

  “Brendon.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me BT?”

  “Does now really seem like the time Talbot?”

  As I was pondering this new information, my AR dry fired. My Glock was up next, I had 500 rounds but only 5 clips, once those fifty clipped rounds were gone, it was over, unless of course I could call ‘time-out’ and the zombies would allow it. Then I’d be able to reload and have a fighting chance.

  The house behind us began to crumble, we had been able to push forward fifteen feet or so away, close enough to the flame that zombies couldn’t circle behind but not far enough to be safe from an imminent collapse and probable cooking.

  “I sure wish they’d hurry.” BT said with no more expression than if he was waiting for a pizza.

  “I’m out!” Jen yelled, on adrenaline fueled lungs.

  I was two clips down and now I would have to pick up the pace with Jen’s sector of containment now flooding through. Zombies were close enough that I could see individual gore stained teeth, black cracked fingernails clawed through the air attempting to seek purchase. Foul breathe escaped through decayed airways. Zombies lit by flame began to spill out of the house behind us, somehow still able to hone in on us. Three magazines down, the Marines and Brendon were still fifty yards away.

  “So fucking close.” We might have all said it, I can’t credit it to any one of us.

  The trucks slowed minimally as the .50 cal shots had to be aimed more precisely, lest they take us out too. The troop transport was in danger of high centering over the sheer number of zombies becoming so much road kill. The snail paced crawl may be saving the truck from getting stuck but at the cost of our lives. I saw exactly when the driver of the transport weighed those two factors on the scale and said ‘Fuck it.’ The bluster of the truck’s engine hitting full throttle cut through the dull roar of the burning cinder block behind us. Zombies flung in the air like a giant spoiled baby was done playing with his GI Joes and Barbie dolls and was throwing them around in the fits of a tantrum.

  The armor was beginning to fold in on itself under the pressure of so many collisions. As the lead vehicle pushed past, Brendon pulled up broadside just as I had expended the last bullet in my clip.

  “All aboard!” Brendon yelled in his best train conductor voice.

  Jen almost cleared the other side of the truck bed as BT hurled her up and in. BT’s leg might not be working well but his arms were fine as he followed her immediately up and in. BT’s ass had no sooner made contact with the bed and I was in his lap.

  “Didn’t know you cared.” BT said as he put me in a more respectable position.

  “Please have your tickets ready to be punched!” Brendon yelled through the rear facing windows as he crushed down on the accelerator.

  Zombies pressed in from all sides. I grabbed a shovel and did my best to keep them at bay as the truck swayed violently from side to side. BT had found a tire iron and was making anything within striking distance rue the day it had gone over to the dark side. Jen had found an axe handle that looked like it had already been used for nefarious purposes as the end of it was deeply stained a suspicious brownish red color.

  Jen was swinging violently, when she made contact, the vibrations would shoot up her arms.

  “Be careful!” I yelled to her.

  Whether she would have heeded me or not, the warning was a beat too late. The zombie she had been lining up to strike, had fallen when Brendon ran over its leg. Jen pitched forward precariously balanced between relative safety and death. Death won out. I watched the resignation in her face as she fell out of the truck bed.

  “JEN!” I screamed. I jumped to the other side of the truck bed. My hand brushed hers as she slid away from my touch. Her other hand shot out even as the first of the zombies sunk his teeth into her back. I was able to make a tenuous grasp on her hand, dragging her along behind the truck.

  “Don’t let me go Mike!” She screamed. “PLEASE!” She begged as another zombie took hold of her thigh, teeth first. He tore a ragged piece of flesh away from her as I continually pulled her behind the truck.

  She was dead. We both knew it. But I was not going to let go. The blood vessels in her eyes burst as a zombie ripped through her calf muscle, long strips of meat hung between its greedy lips. I turned to gain as much momentum as I could before I began to pull her back into the truck.”

  Her hand went slack. The weight I dragged increased as zombies jumped on her, feasting as we went. I let go of her hand and sat back up. The sharp pain in my shoulder a reminder of what had just happened. BT was looking at me in what I could only describe as shock. He moved faster than any man his size had a right too. He grabbed me and slammed me to the floor of the truck bed. I was beginning to feel light headed. He must have really knocked my head against the floor.

  “It wasn’t my fault BT.” I said through fogged vision.

  “I know that you damned fool, you’ve been shot.
”

  “Shot? Zombies don’t shoot guns. You’re crazy man. It sure is getting dark quick.”

  “Not a gun, a crossbow.”

  A crossbow! A fucking crossbow? Who shoots somebody with a crossbow? What am I an elk? What’s next? Someone gonna whip out a mace? Maybe a scimitar?

  My shoulder, for lack of a better term, unraveled. Muscle, tendon, sinew, whatever, just literally began to curl like wet parchment. My biceps bulged, rivaling the Hulk, as my ripped tendons rolled up into them. I noticed with a note of envy how large my muscles looked even as my vision began to blur. (Guys can be vain! Just because I was dying of blood loss and shock didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate how large my damaged muscles looked.) Searing pain immediately made me wish I would just pass out and die and be over with this. As bone separated from tissue, I’m pretty sure I involuntarily blackened my eye as my arm flung up. That was the least of my problems and I wouldn’t have even registered the fact had not my right eye dimmed and then blacked out before my left one.

  “Talbot!” Someone screamed. Sounded like someone I knew. Well I must know them if they knew my name, right? Who gives a shit. “Talbot!” Again with the screaming but it sounded further away, even as I felt arms around me. From somewhere very distant I heard my wife. “Talbot don’t you di….”

  I accelerated along a black tube as light emanated from every direction. Its source I could not discern. My speed seemed to be accelerating, although I think it was all relative. It wasn’t me that seemed to be moving so much as the tunnel was streaming past. I wanted to reach out and touch the wall to see if that was the case but I was afraid of doing more damage to my injured wing. Aw what the hell, my arm was barely attached anyway what more could I do. I moved my right arm around, unbelievably happy with how pain free the movement was. ‘Holy crap.’ I muttered. ‘He must have missed. Maybe it’s the wrong arm.’ Having been ambidextrous my entire life I often confused my left from my right. When I moved my left arm and again felt no pain the light of recognition dawned. ‘Holy Shit! I’m dead!’ That thought wasn’t nearly as dreadful as I would have imagined. Oh I was scared to a point, maybe more concerned. Alright I was a little freaked out. My thoughts obviously centering around what is at the end of this tunnel? Do I pull a Wile E. Coyote and smash face first into a faux hole in the wall? Do I come out to a huge drop and fall eternally? (Oh that would suck.) IS there a Heaven? Or worse a hell? My actions thus far in my life could probably gain my entry into either. Was my eternity going to come down to a rock, paper, scissor game between God and Satan? Wow, sacrilege on my final journey cannot be good in the ledger books. Maybe it would be possible to hang out in this tunnel a little longer and weigh my options. Wind buffeted me back as I tried in vain to approach the walls. The speed was picking up I knew I was nearing my final destination, no stops, no layovers. I had a momentary pang for my wife and kids. I did feel remorse that I was dying but only because I wouldn’t be there for them. I had ultimately accepted my fate, for what other choice was there? When I felt another presence nearby, it wasn’t nearly as comforting as I would have expected from the almighty. There was a great sense of anger, of sadness, of a life truly unfulfilled. It took me long moments to pull these vaporous thoughts away from own, the intermingling almost made me believe these errant thoughts were mine. Out of the corner of my awareness I caught movement as it at first trailed behind me by some lengths and then hastened to catch up and pass me by.