Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (8 page)

“If you value anything that resembles sleep
for the rest of your days on this planet, Paul, do not come any
closer,” I told him. I would swear I could hear his boots
screeching in the carpet in an attempt to halt his forward momentum
even faster.

“It’s a kid, right?” BT asked. “Aw, man, it
has to be a kid. Is the kid dead, Mike? Did the dad eat it? This is
horrible. Let’s get out of here, man,” BT said, very subdued.

The baby, an infant of maybe four or five
months, was emaciated. Small bits of one of his parents lay
scattered around him, but this thing hadn’t eaten anything more
than some errant bugs since December. Its eyes, which seemed sallow
and sunken, snapped open when it saw me leaning over its small bed.
One small tooth poked through the upper gum. It must have latched
on for dear life to be able to break through skin on whichever
unlucky parent it had gotten a hold of. It began to rock back and
forth, trying to get closer to me, strange gurgling noises bubbling
forth from its lungs.

“What is that?” BT cried. “The kid is alive?”
I could hear BT coming.

“It’s not alive,” I said flatly, my eyes
fixated on the baby’s.

“I…heard…him,” BT said haltingly. “Oh sweet,
sweet Jesus,” he finished when he realized what I was in the room
with.

A feeling of intense hunger raked across my
head, but that was the furthest thing from my mind
. But not the
mind of the one you’re looking at
my subconscious piped in.
“
HUUUUUNNNNNNGGGGGRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”
it said, latching on
to the word I had associated with its feelings. Apparently, it was
a two-way street. “
HUNGRY!
” it shrieked over and over. I
blew four holes into its head before the echoing in my brain
subsided.

BT was in the room within seconds, picking me
up under my arms and pulling me out of there.

“It was talking to me,” I kept mumbling, long
after BT had deposited me on the curb outside.

“You alright, brother?” Gary asked, sitting
down next to me.

“I don’t think I even know what that word
means anymore, Gary.”

“Bad in there?” he asked earnestly.

I was half a beat away from coming back with
a sarcastic, “You think?” But why prove how much of a dick I
already am? He was just trying to help.

“Got some guns,” BT yelled from somewhere in
the house.

I knew in the grand scheme of things that was
good news, but it did little to part the veil that I felt had
slipped between my eyes and the rest of the world.

Gary got up. “Any ammo?” he yelled.

“Some,” Paul yelled out an upstairs
window.

“Do you think God is getting me back?” I
asked Gary.

“Huh?” he asked, trying to figure out what I
was asking. “What would God be trying to get you back for?”

“I’m not sure I’ve been a great person,
Gary.”

“We all have things we’re not proud of,
Mike,” he said, turning back towards me.

“Did you ever chase Bible-thumpers off your
property?” I asked him.

“Um no, but now I’m intrigued.”

“It was a Saturday morning, couldn’t have
been much past nine a.m. and I had drunk to my liver’s content the
night before.”

“Hung over then?”

“Understatement. I think I was still
drunk.”

“Eww, that’s rough.”

“Tell me about it. Tracy and I had actually
gotten into a good-sized fight the night before, something or other
about me being drunk.”

“Go figure,” Gary said.

“I know, right?!” I responded, thinking he
was agreeing with me, (but now that I’m writing this, I think he
was actually coming down on her side.) “So I’m in bed, sleeping my
drink off when the doorbell rings. I threw my arm over to the other
side of the bed, looking for Tracy to answer the door, but she had
already left with the kids to do some errands. I figured it might
be some of the kids’ friends and they would get the message when I
didn’t answer the door. So I shut my eyes, and not ten seconds
later, they rang the doorbell two quick times.”

“What were they thinking?” Gary asked.

“I know, right?!” I was still under the
impression he was siding with me, but looking at his written
response takes on a whole new meaning. “So I’m in bed and thinking
the little shits have one more chance at redemption before the
wrath of God comes thundering down the stairs and gives them what
for. I shut my eyes again against the hurtful rays of the sun,
peeking around the shades. Another two blasts on the doorbell.”

“Kind of like the bells of Notre Dame.”

“Are you giving me shit, Gary?” I honestly
asked because he was so dry in his delivery, I couldn’t tell. He
shook his head vigorously. “But yeah, it kinda was like those
bells, my head was splitting, my vision was blurry, I had to piss
like a race horse, and my stomach felt like I had drunk a pint of
bacon grease after eating chili dogs.”

“That doesn’t sound too good, Mike.” Gary
said, starting to look a little green-tinged.

“Sorry, brother.” I had to remember Gary did
not have the strongest stomach.

Go on, he motioned with one hand; he kept the
other up close to his mouth.

So I ripped the door open, my gaze downward,
expecting to yell at some little puissant about bothering grown-ups
on their day off. What I got instead were two women and one
man.”

“Were they selling vacuums?”

“What? What the hell would make you ask
that?”

“I once bought a vacuum cleaner from a
door-to-door salesman, one of the best vacuums I ever bought.”

“It wasn’t vacuums. Can I finish my story?” I
asked him. But I think I had lost him for a few beats as he thought
about his domicile super sucker. “So there they are at my door and
this lady with a far-off stare and wild hair starts spouting about
how I can survive the end of the world.”

“Did you listen? That sounds like some pretty
good advice,” Gary said, coming back from the reverie of his vacuum
experience.

“Who knew Jehovah Witnesses were so
prophetic?” I said more as a statement.

“Jehovah’s? They’re like bedbugs--once you
let them in your house, they’re damn near impossible to get rid
of.”

“You sound like you’ve had personal
experience.”

“I invited them in for coffee.”

“What the hell were you thinking? You just
wanted to show them your new vacuum, I bet.” Gary bent his head
slightly like I had hit the nail on the head. “How did you get rid
of them?”

“It was getting late and one of them had to
get ready for bed,” Gary replied.

“How long were they there?”

“Not very,” he said, avoiding the
question.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“Fine, Mike,” Gary said, getting a little
hostile. “They were there for close to twelve hours! I couldn’t get
them to leave, I even started vacuuming so I didn’t have to hear
them proselytizing. Did it for so damn long, I thought my arm was
going to fall off.”

“Well, at least your carpet was clean.” What
the hell else could I say?

“It was horrible,” Gary rued.

“Well, then maybe you’ll appreciate my story.
I had no sooner opened the door when crazy lady number one started
her spiel, then the second one tried to hand me a Watchtower. If I
had had the presence of mind and knew who was at the door, I would
have brought a lighter and burned the pamphlet as she held it. I
started yelling at them, saying, ‘I’m an atheist! Do you want to
talk about life free from religion?!’ They started to back up. I
think the first lady might have actually even begun to cry a little
bit, but what really put me on their ‘Do not solicit’ list was, as
they were trying their best to get the hell out of there, I came
out of my house and got all up in the man’s face. Reeking of booze,
I screamed. ‘I’m one of the four horsemen, motherfucker! And if you
don’t get the hell out of here, I’m going to ‘rapture’ your ass!’
They started screaming, running as fast as they could to their Ford
Taurus.”

“Wow! Maybe you’d better hope the Big Man
doesn’t favor their religion over every other, or you are screwed!
And what’s with the Ford Taurus? Is that somehow relevant?”

“Not really. I just think that car is the
preferred vehicle of religious zealots everywhere.”

“Mike, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t have
a cabin in upstate Montana, all by yourself.”

“Would have, if I could have afforded it.” I
stood up, feeling marginally better. I didn’t think God had
anything specifically out against me, just mankind in general. Way
better. Misery loves company.

Paul and BT were coming out of the house with
a small cache of weapons. The pistol from the father’s hand was
noticeably missing, which was fine with me. There was the 30-30
rifle with a beautiful Leopold scope, another damn .22 and a
shotgun. My eyes grew wide, looking at the beauty.

“Twenty gauge,” BT said, deflating my
spirits.

Twenty gauges were a blast to shoot, but
anything bigger than a turkey and you’d have to be a foot away to
kill it. Might as well be swinging a machete at that point.

“Damn, I was hoping for a little more,” I
said, picking up the 30-30.

“There’s another room upstairs we didn’t
check,” BT said.

“Master bedroom, most likely,” Paul
added.

“You two both know there’d probably be more
guns there, right?” I asked. BT and Paul shared a knowing glance.
Of friggin’ course, they knew that. “Someone’s in the room?”

BT nodded. “My guess would be the
mother.”

“Yeah? Why would this nightmare have any
other kind of conclusion? I’m going in.”

“Why?” Gary asked me.

“This family deserves to be together.”

“You need a wingman?” BT asked.

“If I’m not out on my own in five, could you
maybe pull me out? And I’ll take a bottle of Prozac, if you come
across any,” I said, trying for levity. I think it came out more
like a grumble mixed with a dose of grim determination.

“This isn’t necessary,” Paul said.

“You’re probably right, but if that zombie
upstairs is somehow still holding onto a soul, I’d like to think
that I’m putting her to peace and they can finally all be
together.”

“Aren’t they already dead?” Gary asked.
“They’re souls should already be gone.”

“I’m not dead,” I told Gary. He looked like
he just swallowed a grapefruit. “Relax brother, I’m not mad. You
would think not having a soul would be liberating,” I said. “I mean
free from guilt, what more could a Catholic boy ask for?”

“I would appreciate you not talking like
that,” Gary said, truly hurt.

“I’m the walking abomination, Gary. I’ll talk
any goddamn way I want to!” I yelled at him.

“That ought to get you in his good graces,”
he retorted hotly.

“My bad. Probably not going to make it
through the pearly gates now!”

“I’ll send you to a neutral corner, Talbot,
if you don’t shut the hell up. We all know this is a bad situation.
You’re just making it worse!” BT yelled.

“Which Talbot are you talking about?” Gary
asked as an aside.

“The other Talbot-hole!”

“That’s what I thought because he really kind
of started it,” Gary said.

“Gary!” BT shouted, “You’re not making this
any better either! You do realize you’re his older brother.”

“I’m good, I’m sorry,” Gary said, composing
himself better and quicker than I was able to.

I had left the scene completely to go back
into the house. BT or Paul had pulled the father totally into the
crib room and shut the door. One more nightmare locked away tight.
I looked up the staircase, wondering if salvation might lay up
there. I had my doubts. All this talk of lost souls had me thinking
as I ascended, about all those people that believed in past lives.
Why would God reassign souls? Was there a finite number? But that
would only make sense if there was a set number of people on the
planet. There were way more people alive in 2010 than in say,
Biblical times. And would God go green? I mean with the whole
recycling thing? It just didn’t make much sense. To believe in
reincarnation, you would have to accept one of two things: either
only certain people got to get “used” souls or the vast majority of
us running around didn’t have one. Or maybe there was a third
alternative. Maybe the finite number of existing souls was
divisible. That could explain why the whole world had become so
corrupt and evil. As more of us were born, we each got less and
less of God’s essence.

Maybe this whole damn zombie-pocalypse was
just a way for God to collect back his broken pieces to finally
make them whole, something Humpty had never been able to
accomplish. But if that were the case, wouldn’t those of us still
around be feeling “wholer” or “holier”? How many soulless people
had I come across since this all happened? How could anyone with
any allegiance to the Big Man align himself with Eliza? The new
root of all evil. My thoughts were flawed…Well, there’s something
new and unusual. I was at the top of the stairs and I couldn’t even
begin to remember how I got here.

The master bedroom was at the end of a
hallway that wasn’t nearly long enough. I figured it was where I
wanted to go because of the three doors up here, it was the only
one not open.

I took a deep breath, and before I could
engage my legs into moving, I heard Gary down at the bottom of the
stairs.

“Wait, brother. I’ll come with you,” he said,
taking the stairs two at a time.

I thanked him. This might singularly be the
most difficult thing my brother had done to date and he was doing
it for me.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “I said
I’d come; I didn’t say I’d lead.”

I snorted, it was a little undignified, but
he let it lapse. I could see the shadow play of someone moving in
the gap between the door and the floor. Back and forth it moved
rhythmically, at least it wasn’t banging up against the door, but
we’d learn why in a few more seconds.