For the Fallen (7 page)
Authors: Mark Tufo
“It’s stuff like this that makes me think twice and sometimes three times about doing
anything with you. Get your clothes on before people start looking for us.”
“Oh, I don’t know, all this nudity is very liberating,” I told her, wishing I could
just lie there a few years longer, even if we were in the horror book section.
“Yeah? Tell that to the zombies,” she said, looking at my rapidly deflating manhood.
“You really know where to hit a person.”
“I love you, Talbot. Now get your ass up. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Nice view,” I told her as she walked away.
She flipped me the bird, but I could tell she was smiling.
“I might die tonight, but at least I’ll go out happy.” I stood and began donning my
duds. I had just finished tying my boots when BT rounded the corner.
“Ever hear of your inside voice?” he asked.
“What?” I could feel fingers of heat traveling up my neck.
“Acoustics are pretty good in this place,” he said, smiling. “The boys couldn’t get
down in the basement fast enough to go and check it out, been down there the entire
time. Even Henry looked a little embarrassed.”
“Shit. Does Tracy know? She’ll kill me.”
“Oh, from the sounds of it, I think she’ll be fine for the time being.” He was smiling
ear-to-ear. “Always one for ambience I see,” BT said, pointing to the column of scary
tomes.
When I caught up to her, Tracy seemed completely unaware that none of her kids would
look her—or me for that matter—in the eye.
Well this sucks
, I thought.
“Anything worth noting in the basement?” I asked them, trying to change what they
were thinking about. Talk about uncomfortable.
Justin was conspicuously looking off to his left. “There’s windows, but they’re small
and don’t even open.”
“Yeah and the door is steel,” Travis added. “It’s locked and we stacked a bunch of
furniture against it.”
“Big bunch,” Tommy said. I swear his face was a couple of shades deeper red than I’d
ever seen.
Henry was at least happy to see me. He came over, tail wagging. I was happy to lean
over and pet behind his ears. It gave me the chance to not have to try and ignore
the six hundred pound gorilla in the room.
Travis had gone over to the windows. “There’s more coming. Should we start shooting
them?”
“We’ll hold off for now. Wait for the cavalry to come, I’d imagine we’re going to
need the rounds then.” I was looking around. With the appropriate supplies, we could
hold out here forever. I was sort of amazed that someone else hadn’t thought of it.
If books were edible we’d be set.
“When we get out of here, find Doc and get Justin and BT fixed, we should find a fort,”
I blurted out.
“That’s a lot of whens and ifs,” BT said.
“The last military installation we went to didn’t work out so well,” Tracy said, referring
to Camp Custer.
“I’m talking like that fort we visited in Bucksport Maine, Fort Knox. That place has
like two-foot thick walls. We could stay there forever.”
“That place is about as comfortable as I suspect Mrs. Deneaux’s place would be,” she
replied.
She was right; the fort was cold and dank, even in the middle of the summer, we’d
freeze before winter ever set in. “I wonder what the battle axe is up to?”
We had searched for her body after the battle with no luck. I couldn’t imagine a zombie
eating her, more like the other way around would be my guess.
“She can’t still be alive can she?” BT asked. “Eliza had to have killed her.”
“My guess is she scared Eliza, too,” I said.
“It would be just like that old bird to make it,” BT said.
“She’s a survivor for sure. Let’s just hope we’ve seen the last of her,” Tracy replied.
“More like a case of herpes, got a feeling she’ll be revisiting,” I said.
“Wonderful,” BT and Tracy said.
“Go check it out,” Mrs. Deneaux said.
“Why me?” Dennis asked, looking at the store-front.
“You don’t expect me to go dashing about do you? I’m a frail old woman.”
“You’re an older woman, granted. Frail though? I don’t think so.” Dennis exited the
truck. “Can I have a gun?” he asked, coming up on her side of the big rig.
“I should think not.” She handed his hand axe down.
“I’ve made my share of poor life decisions,” he said, looking up at her. “I think
I’m adding to the tally.”
“Stop being overly dramatic and go get some supplies. If you take too long I won’t
wait.”
“And here I thought we were making inroads with our friendship.”
Dennis headed toward the front entrance. The reverberation of the engine bouncing
off the storefront blocked out all other noises. He thought about asking her to shut
it off, but he’d been with her long enough to know the answer. His boot crunched on
mounds of broken glass, all from the windows, the door, however, was surprisingly
intact.
A small bell placed strategically over the door heralded his entrance. The foreign
sound almost sent him running. The inside stunk of bleach and the all too familiar
stench of death, like there had been a hideous crime performed here and someone had
tried valiantly to clean up after. The store was destroyed; there was little of any
value still left inside. A gun battle had raged and, by the splatter, the ones wielding
the weapons had used shotguns.
Dennis went in a little farther. He felt like he was between a rock and a hard place.
If he came out with nothing, she might leave; and if he stayed in too long, she’d
leave. The more he thought about it, the better of an idea that sounded like. There
was more to the Mike story and the flippant way she had dismissed their deaths. He’d
stay with her if only to find out. A glint of glass caught his attention. He bent
over, pushing away a half-destroyed box of Cheerios.
“Well shit, not my flavor, but I’ll drink it.”
He wrapped his hand around the neck of a bottle of bourbon somehow unscathed in the
melee. He was still looking at the label as he stood. It took him one constriction
of his heart to recognize that there was a zombie standing before him. The monster
seemed almost as confused, but reacted quicker, its teeth trying to bite down on the
bottle held out before it.
Dennis heard a resounding crack. He thought the bottle had been broken, and that had
been proven when he felt sharp shards sprinkle onto his hand. He realized his mistake
when he saw the broken bits of blood-stained teeth stuck to his hand.
“Gross, man!”
Dennis did his best to keep the bottle between him and the teeth. He brought up his
axe-laden right hand, swinging it with all the force he could muster, his balance
was pushed onto his back foot and he could not put as much into it as he hoped. Yet,
the blade dug deeply into the soft tissue at the top of the zombie’s shoulder. The
skin split apart in a wide wedge as the sharp steel sliced through and struck the
collar bone, shearing it in two. The zombie’s left arm hung uselessly by its side
as the connective muscles and tissues were hewn through. It cared little for the damage
wrought.
With its right arm, it snagged hold of the bottle, trying to bring it and its wielder
in closer to its dangerous teeth. Dennis most likely could have got away if he had
merely let go of the bottle; the thought just never occurred to him. He pulled the
blade free with a wet ‘plopping’ sound and reared back for another attempt. This time
he caught the zombie on the side of the head, neatly bisecting the ear. He thought
he was going to be sick when half of the zombie’s ear fell to the floor, with an audible
squishing sound. The zombie’s head cracked like an over-boiled eggshell. Black ooze
the consistency of bad Jell-O leaked out of the devastating wound. The zombie shook
violently for the span of a few heartbeats and fell to the floor, nearly taking the
fought-over bottle with it.
“That would have sucked,” Dennis said as he fumbled with it before regaining control.
He had been so pre-occupied with his fight that he did not hear the tinkle of the
bell, the explosion of the pistol round going off would have been hard to miss, though.
The sound had not finished echoing throughout the store when he felt the vibrations
of something falling behind him.
“Mike would never have turned his back on a zombie,” Deneaux said around a cigarette.
“Damn.” Dennis turned to see a zombie that had gotten to within handshaking distance
behind him. He wasn’t sure which was scarier; that, or the crazy old bat with the
large caliber gun framed in the doorway. “Th-thank you,” Dennis stammered.
“If you could have done the same, I’m sure you would have.” She approached, deftly
stepping over the fallen zombie.
“Aren’t you afraid it could still be alive?” Dennis asked.
“Oh, sweetie, it was a head shot.” She dragged her smoke-smelling left hand across
the side of his face. “What do you have here? Twenty-year-old scotch. Fantastic,”
she said as she easily took it from him. With that, she walked back out of the store.
