Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (10 page)

“Get off!” Paul screamed at it.

Gary was frantically hitting buttons on the
console. The static-laced radio shot through the speakers, the
sound not a welcome addition to the pain blossoming in my head. At
some point, Gary turned on the hazard lights, which was actually
fitting, and then he found what he had been searching for. The
windshield wipers began to sweep back and forth, the added strain
of a one hundred and eighty pound zombie snapping them off in its
hands. The zombie looked to me to be surprised as it slid back down
the hood and thumped under the bottom of the car. The radio was
still blaring, the blinkers were still clacking and now the twisted
metal from the broken windshield wipers was etching a groove
through the windshield. I turned, the first zombie was already up
and running, while the one that had perched on our hood looked like
its legs were crushed. He was out of the race and the third had
already turned and was still entirely too close for comfort.

“Nice driving, Paulie,” I said in all
seriousness.

His knuckles glowed a brilliant white where
they made contact with the steering wheel.

“You alright, buddy?” I asked him.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” he answered a few
octaves higher than normal.

“Gary, you think maybe you could take care of
the radio and the wipers?” I asked him.

“Sure thing,” Gary answered. If I hadn’t
known better, I would have sworn they had both found some helium,
and had just moments before, been sucking some down. Gary was
nearly as high pitched as Paul. But after some initial fumbling, he
was still able to shut down the radio and the wipers. Curiously,
his hand had hovered over the hazard button and he decided to leave
them on. I could deal with the minor clacking, my headache and the
possible concussion that I figured was going to ruin my entire day
had already faded into obscurity. I could at least thank Tomas for
that.

We had driven a few more blocks. The car was
pretty quiet as the first of the fat droplets of rain began to
fall. Paul, without any conscious thought, turned the non-existent
windshield wipers on. I don’t think he even noticed the grating
sound of metal on glass or that the rain, that was now coming in
sheets, was not being pushed from his field of vision.

Luckily, the rainstorm did not last long. By
the time we got back to the storage yard, it had dwindled down to
something resembling an ant pissing on a flat rock. (Think about
that for a second, it’ll come.)

“Are those zombies?” BT asked, sticking his
head out the window and into the soft spray as the car came to a
stop.

It was still difficult to see through the
wet, streaked windshield so we all rolled our windows down to take
a better look.

“Better yet, where are Brian and Mrs. D?” I
asked.

“I’ve had better days,” Gary intoned.

“That’s like comparing whether or not you’d
like to get kicked in the nuts or eat an ice cream sandwich,” I
said to him.

“Ice cream sandwich,” Gary said, without even
blinking.

“Wise choice,” I said as I got out of the
car. The zombies immediately started heading towards us.

“Do you hear that?” BT asked as he placed his
new rifle on top of the car door frame.

“Sounds like someone is banging on the
locker,” Paul said.

“Canned zombie?” I asked.

“Hopefully it’s Brian and Mrs. Deneaux,” BT
said as he aimed for the approaching zombies through his steel
sights. The rifle blast rocked the car slightly as the lead
zombie’s head disintegrated. It was the first zombie kill that
actually looked like a movie prop. The head looked like someone had
stuffed it with some C4 and just blew it up.

“That was disgusting,” Paul said, turning
away.

Gary was already gagging.

It took me six shots with my .22 before the
second zombie stopped. I may have missed a couple because he was
running full tilt at us. But I watched the connecting hits. Its
head would snap back a little, like it had got caught up
momentarily on a small branch, and forward it would keep
coming.

By the fifth shot, I could see BT in my
peripheral vision. He was wondering if he should finish the thing
off. The sixth shot dropped him like a penny from a skyscraper. Its
knees just buckled and he went down, no skidding, nothing.

“What the hell is going on?” BT asked, still
sighting through the rifle to see if there were any more targets to
acquire.

“Zombie 3.0,” I said as I went forward to
check out the increased banging on the orange steel doors.

“Brian?” I asked directly outside the banging
door.

If he didn’t answer, would I have to open the
door to see if it was them? Deneaux, I think, I could shoot without
too many issues; Brian would be another matter.

“It wasn’t my fault,” a whiny sounding Mrs.
Deneaux said.

“How the hell wasn’t it? You fell asleep,”
Brian said. It sounded like I was interrupting a repetitive
argument.

“You killed all the zombies?” Brian asked
through the doorway.

“How many did you think there were?” I asked
him as I pulled up on the handle.

Brian shielded his eyes from the light as he
stepped out. Mrs. Deneaux sat in the shadows a few moments more,
letting her eyes adjust slowly.

“That’s it?” Brian asked, looking at the two
prone bodies. “I figured there were dozens,” he said, a little
embarrassed.

“Wanna start from the beginning?” I asked
him.

“I was looking in the lockers and Mrs.
Deneaux was supposed to be watching my back.”

“I was, but I got tired of your repeated
failures,” she interjected acerbically.

“You’re priceless. No wonder nothing ever
took root in that cold, barren womb of yours,” Brian shot out.

“If it were you coming out, I would have made
sure to wrap the umbilical cord around your neck a few more times,”
she said, not missing a beat.

“Whoa, whoa!” BT yelled, “How long have you
two been locked up?” he said, stepping in between them both.

“You’re lucky it was dark in there!” Mrs.
Deneaux yelled, “or I would have shot you!”

“That would have been preferable to listening
to you drone on or almost die from your carbon monoxide
emissions.”

“If I could have smoked more in the hopes
that it would have suffocated you, I would have!”

“Alright this is all very entertaining, but
our day has also been less than stellar,” I said.

Brian was about to unleash some new verbal
assault on Deneaux, but stopped when he looked around at the four
of us and our hangdog expressions.

“Sorry,” he said to us, careful to make sure
that Deneaux did not believe she was included in that apology.

“Any luck before they came?” I asked.

His bowed head answered before he spoke.
“We’ve been stuck in that shed almost since you left.”

“Alright, let’s just find someplace
relatively safe to hunker down for the night. I think we could all
use a break from today’s festivities.” Nobody argued, at least that
was a step in the right direction.

“Got any good ideas about that?” BT asked,
“Because I’m a little hesitant about going into other people’s
homes right now.”

“Oh come on, Mike,” Gary said as he saw me
looking back at the storage space Brian and Mrs. Deneaux had just
been liberated from.

“We’ll chain up the front gate and we’ll post
a guard,” I said.

“Hopefully, one that doesn’t fall asleep
while they say they’re watching your back,” Brian said for good
measure, looking across BT at Mrs. Deneaux.

I smiled inwardly as the old crow stuck her
tongue out at him.

“Come on. I’m sure there’s plenty of
blankets,” I said.

“Tons of sleeping bags too,” Brian added.
“I’ve found all sorts of camping gear.”

“I wish we had some S’mores,” Paul said. “Oh
that’s right, you don’t like them, do you, Mike?”

“Isn’t that un-American? Not liking S’mores?”
BT asked.

“They make his hands sticky,” Gary said,
adding his two cents.

“Think of how many more germs you can pick up
with sticky fingers!” I said, trying to defend my position. If
making my opponents laugh was victory, then I had defeated them
all.

“Didn’t you ever think to lick your fingers
off?” Mrs. Deneaux asked.

I shuddered at the thought.

“Wash them off in a stream maybe?” Brian
asked, trying to be helpful.

“Ever hear of giardia?” I answered.

“Come on, as a kid you were thinking about a
parasite in water that came from the refuse of wildlife?” BT
asked.

I nodded. “I read a lot as a kid.”

“Poor bastard,” he said, smiling. “I’ll take
first watch. Won’t get much sleep thinking about your S’mores issue
anyway.”

I didn’t tell him that since Tomas’ bite, I
didn’t feel like I’d ever need to sleep again and could pretty much
take every one’s shift without an issue. I decided I’d take the
other watches after his. That’s what he gets for making fun of
me.

Chapter Six – Mike Journal Entry 5

BT
finished up his watch. The sun had long since departed. We had a
small flashlight going in the corner of the ten by thirty
foot-shed, but it did little to shield us from the darkness within.
Every time I even contemplated shutting my eyes, images of the
infant from earlier today crept in. I should have just let sleeping
zombies lie, so to speak. BT raised the door as quietly as he
could, which was still as loud as you would expect a metal rolling
door would be. Paul and Brian immediately awoke, Deneaux slept on,
snoring like a sailor, (which I guess is an unfair comparison to
sailors everywhere because I don’t really know what they sound like
when they’re asleep.)

Paul started to get up. “I’ve got it, bud,” I
told him.

“You sure, man?” he asked even as his head
was traveling back down to its resting spot.

“Can’t sleep anyway. No sense in both of us
being up,” I said. He grunted something about thanks, in return, or
he belched, sounding just about the same.

“Anything?” I asked BT, who was eyeing my bed
longingly.

“I think I heard a couple of cars off in the
distance and maybe some gunfire, but it was so far away, I can’t be
sure.”

“Thanks, man,” I told him. “Enjoy your beauty
rest.”

“You have any phobias about other men sharing
your bed?” he asked.

I didn’t answer, I wanted to hold onto some
secrets.

“Okay, so I know it’s not because I’m black.
Is it because I’m a man?” he asked solemnly.

“BT, I don’t like my kids in my bed,” I told
him truthfully.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Why would I? Like you need some new and
improved reason to think I’m nuts?”

BT just shook his head and grabbed the scant
bedding remnants not presently being used.

“No retort?” I asked him.

“Talbot, I am so damn tired and I really
think I’m beginning to realize the depth of your illness.”

Oh, I doubt it
, I thought. “BT,
seriously, I’ll be lucky if sleep comes at all tonight, sleep in
that bed (I couldn’t, as hard as I tried, say it was “my bed”.)

“You’re cool with that?” he asked. “You’re
not going to try and slip in there with me later tonight, are you?
I mean, Tracy did leave today.”

Was that just today? Seemed like a sanity
ago.

“I think I’ll be able to restrain myself,” I
told him.

“Even with this pretty face?” he asked,
smiling as he got down onto the sleeping bag. “You’re alright with
this?” he asked as he placed his head on my pillow. “Because you
look like you’re regretting your decision.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told him as I tried to shut
the door more quietly than he had opened it, with far less
success.

The night had a distinct chill to it. I could
register that fact, but I felt slightly removed from it. I was
comfortable and I had the feeling, I could be running around naked
or wearing seven different layers and I would feel the same. And
for some damn reason, Pop-Tarts kept leaking into my thoughts,
which was disturbing, but still better than splattered, baby zombie
brain. (Unless, of course, we were talking about cherry-flavored
Pop-Tarts because that might be the singular, most disgusting thing
left on the planet.)

I walked the entire perimeter of the storage
facility. But after thinking about it, I don’t think I ever looked
out beyond the chain link fence. My head had been down and I was
deep in thought or shallow in disregard. Either one works just
fine, but I was paying absolutely no heed to the outside world. I
could have walked into the waiting arms of a zombie and not
realized it until he or she had bitten me.

My next lap I vowed to pay more attention,
but I didn’t make it halfway around before I began to daze out
again. It really does suck having the attention span of a
coconut-laden swallow (whoever picks this journal up may or may not
get that reference; it will be a slightly better world if you do).
I started to think about life, a normal life, mortgage, taxes,
death, pretty much everything that I would never experience again.
How the hell is it possible that I’m now missing any one of those
things? And then I kept circling back to arriving at Ron’s and
seeing Tracy and the kids again. Was Nicole showing yet? And what
the hell is in Ron’s false floorboards in his closet? After kissing
my wife and hugging my kids, that would be my utmost priority. I
was going to have to be careful though, I wouldn’t doubt it if he
had a security system in place.