Authors: Mark Tufo
“Uncle Mike?” It was Jesse calling from the roof, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing.
“Coming.” But I wasn't, not yet. For better or, the more likely, worse, I was staying until the fat zombie sang. The zombie's eyes rolled into the back of his head and his mouth opened even incredibly wider as if he could somehow unhinge his jaw like a snake. Something like a scream issued forth from his mouth, though it sounded more like giant rocks being ground against each other. It was deep, bassy, and definitely disturbing.
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah, mostly,” I called up, still backing away. I could now see Jesse's head poking down through the hole while also keeping the vast majority of my attention on Billy Bulker. I don't know why I give them these Dr. Seuss names. I think it just makes them less fucking creepy in my head, and any advantage I can get in that department is fine with me. I swear Billy's eyes had done the impossible and gone completely around so that his irises were rolling back up. They were distant at first but then began to focus on me. Whatever was causing the incredible pain he was in, I think he was laying that blame completely at my feet.
“Yeah, well, maybe if your fat ass wasn't trying to come in here and eat me you wouldn't be in this predicament!” I yelled at him. He started shaking more, like I'd just rattled his cage or something. That was when the horror really started to kick in, the reason Billy looked like he was having grand mal seizures became clearly evident. It wasn't him doing the twitching, it was the five or so zombies behind, ripping through him to get in. When Billy's stomach began to expand outward, I was thinking of the
Alien
franchise and the little babies shooting through the chest and belly. It was kind of like that, but it was a full-grown zombie head instead, pretty much just as terrifying. It had literally eaten its way through one of its own. That was the first time I'd ever seen anything of the sort. I'd like to say it was because they were now looking at each other as food sources and would continue to kill each other, but I think this had more to do with frustration on the zombie's part. I mean the one stuck behind at least. He was starving for human flesh, and Billy was in the way, plain and simple. And until Eddie Eater could wield a chainsaw, he was using the only means available to him to rectify the situation.
He tore through the abdominal muscles and thick layers of fat, trying to get his shoulders through. Yellow ropes of gelatinous mass hung in his way, giving him a very jaundiced look as he kept gnawing away. The pure visceral horror I was feeling was directly the cause of my inaction. I cycled between running for my life and sanity, unloading a few dozen magazines of bullets into the creatures in front of me, or the more passive, just staring in blazing confusion with my mouth hanging agape. The level of revulsion was far and beyond anything I have seen in all my years, except for maybe the inside of a port-a-potty after a weeklong music festival in the heat of summer down in southern Tennessee, that is.
I did shoot a few rounds into the stomach of Billy, doing my damnedest to kill Eddie. I didn't stick around to see if I succeeded because Billy was beginning to bulge in another couple of places, and I'd taken all the mind-fuck I could for the remainder of my lifetime, no matter how long it may be. I nearly bowled Jesse over as I came rocketing out the sky hole.
“What's going on?” My nephew asked.
“Nothing you want to know, or that I ever want to talk about.” I closed the lid, flipped the latch that was designed to hold a padlock, and frantically looked around for something to stick in the small hole to keep anything else from coming up. I ended up pulling out a drawstring from a hoodie and tying it around the locking device.
“Yeah, that should stop them.” I said sarcastically.
“Can they climb ladders now?” Jesse looked about how I felt.
“Just being safe,” is what I told him, but I was thinking in another week they'd be flying jets. Wouldn't that be fantastic to be hit by zombie strafing runs? Again, with some sort of silent cue, the zombies knew the building had been opened and were amassing around the ingress. They were beginning to flood in. In a perfect world, they all would have shoved themselves in there, and we could have sought help for our loved ones below. My heart panged knowing that zombies were directly above them and we could do little, if anything. I had everyone halt their shooting. At this point, there was no point to continue. They were inside, destroying everything, if the sounds of crashing furniture below were any indication. For a good long while, we watched those still outside, then when it became evident they were not going to give up their vigil, we retreated to the center of the roof where we could no longer see them nor them us. The smell was better, only marginally, but still better. Not much was said. We were all coming to grips with what was happening; then, just as the sun was going down, we got our first cosmic joke in the form of a far off thunder crash.
“Maybe it won't hit us,” I said hopefully. That's when I knew weather was of the female persuasion. The wind picked up, and the temperature rapidly began to cool.
“Probably not, Dad,” Travis said, good naturedly, just as the first drop nailed my forehead. It was a long, miserable night. Rain fell through its entirety. At first, we tried to use the knee wall that surrounded the building as cover from the elements, but that soon became an exercise in futility as swirling winds carried the water in every imaginable direction. There was not one part of me, or any of us, who was not completely soaked. I was sure that I'd gotten less wet while swimming. Shivering came in uncontrollable fits as muscles rubbed against each other doing their best to create heat from friction.
We amassed as one large ball of humanity in the west corner, doing our best to share what little body heat we had. Due to my enhancements, I was feeling the effects of the weather less than those around me, and still I was freezing. I must have told them a dozen times I was so sorry for getting them into this mess. Sometime during the night, we'd somehow fallen asleep still huddled together. I awoke to a small songbird sitting on the wall above me. He chirped happily, his head swiveling back and forth while he looked down on me. The sun shone on my back. I could see mist rising up off of the kids as the water began to evaporate. We'd made it through the night. Now, I had to hope none of them had developed pneumonia. I stood. The bird took off. It wasn't the first time I'd wished I'd had wings so I could leave as easily.
I stretched and let the sun touch as much of me as I could allow. If I were alone, I would have peeled off all of my drenched clothes and let them dry. The squishy wet feeling of stuck on clothing was not one I relished. I figured the kids were already traumatized enough without me walking around nude. Oh, to be Trip for just an hour; he wouldn't care. Travis was up next. He stood and yawned then did what I didn't have the foresight to think of. He looked down the side of the building. I hoped that the rain had somehow dissuaded the zombies from pursuing us. From the look of resignation on my son's face, it was easy enough to say it had not.
He peeled off his shirt and laid it on the wall. I followed suit.
He shielded his eyes. “Shit. Dad, you should warn someone before you try to blind them.”
“Hilarious. I haven't had much time to get a tan.”
He sat back down, undid his shoes, and took his pants off. “That's much better,” he said as he laid down against the roof. His boxers would dry soon enough. Jesse and Meredith were awake and noticed our various states of undress. Meredith was down to her bra and panties in under half a minute. I had previously figured her to be the most shy of the bunch. If anything, she cared the least. Jesse seemed slightly uncomfortable in his tighty-whities, but I also noticed he was in no rush to get his wet clothes back on.
“Uncle, there's no need to be bashful.” Meredith was poking fun at me for still having my pants on.
“I don't think bashful is my problem,” I told her.
“Geez, Dad. Your legs can't be any whiter than your chest.” Travis was lying down, but still had it in him to give me a hard time.
“I'm fine,” I told them.
“I bet his underwear is dirty,” Meredith said to Jesse and Travis who both laughed.
“My underwear is
not
dirty!” I protested a little too loudly.
“Holes?” Meredith prodded. “Didn't your mom ever tell you to put clean underwear on in case you're ever in an accident?”
“She did, and I never understood why. If I was in a bad enough accident, I would need to go to the hospital, I would be covered in blood, and they would just cut the damn things off and start working on me without a care for the state of my undergarments. I was always of the belief that it was best that medical professionals be able to skip that particular step.”
Meredith's eyebrows furrowed then spread as she smiled.
“What's he talking about?” Jesse asked.
“Our uncle, in addition to being a Marine, is also a commando,” she said.
“A commando?” he asked.
“You know.” She pointed down below.
“Oh, commando!” Jesse laughed.
Travis sat up. “Oh gross, Dad.”
I shrugged. “It's always been more comfortable, I mean right up until this point, anyway.”
“You can strip if you want to.” Meredith giggled.
“Umm, no. Some of us are a little more modest.”
“You do know things shrink if they stay wet too long, right?” Now she was outright laughing.
“I am not having this conversation with my niece!” I walked away. Okay, so maybe sloshed away is a better word. I ended up taking my boots and socks off and rolling my jeans up as best I could. When I was certain they were all lying down with their eyes closed, I went to the far side of the roof and just gave a quick once over to make sure there was no truth to what she'd said. I mean, I know on a fundamental level she was just screwing with me, but any men reading this know that you just don't take any chances when it comes to your junk. I'm happy to report everything seemed intact, even if there was some water-induced shriveling. Actually, more than likely, you couldn't give a shit, but I was happy, and this is my journal, so the entry stays.
It was about noon when my pants had really begun to dry off. It was at about this time when, ironically, I discovered I was pretty thirsty. We'd almost drowned in fresh water last night, and now, I felt like I was walking in the Sahara. Life is a funny fucking thing, and then you die. The kids were in various states of putting their clothes back on. The day wasn't overly warm, but the sun was out in full force, and we were on a black tar roof. It was plenty warm enough up there. For the first time in a very long time, I was completely at a loss as to what to do. I could tell they were starting to feel the beginning effects of exposure. They were much more lethargic than they had a right to be. I made sure everyone drank some water and ate a little. As I chewed, I looked at the hole to the floor, wondering if we could possibly fight our way out, when I looked up to see Travis grabbing at the electrical cable coming into the building. The parent in me nearly seized up as I saw him doing something so foolhardy, then it dawned on me that it wasn't live, hadn't been for months.
“Dad,” he called, but I was already on my way.
“What do you think?” I asked him. The wire didn't look like it could hold a stuffed teddy bear much less a full-grown man.
He leaned over and started yanking on it. I couldn't help it; I grabbed his pant waist.
“I'm not going to fall, Dad,” he admonished me.
“Not with me holding you, you're not.” I didn't let go, even though he clearly wanted me to. Hell, I was still holding on when he stood back up and had two feet firmly planted on the roof next to mine.
“You mind?” he asked. That's when I got the hint.
The cable stretched from the post office about fifty feet to a small series of shopsâa mini strip mall, basically. It housed a furniture rental store, and once upon a time an awesome Chinese food restaurant, which I would just about give one prune-like right nut for some of right now. I think the other store was like a ninety-eight cent store. Apparently, this is where people went when they were priced out of the dollar store. I once passed this store, and they had a sign on the window advertising ninety-eight cent steak. I had to see it with my own two eyes. At a time when stew meat is $4.99 a pound, what the hell can ninety-eight cents buy you? I was picking up an order my brother had made for us and some other guests that were visiting, and I was starving. But come on, how many times are you going to come across something like this?
There was a huge freezer right by the doors stuffed with packages of this magic meat as if in preparation of hordes of shoppers coming in just for this special. I guess it worked because there I was. I picked one up. My first thought was it was pretty heavy. I was expecting something as thin as a slice of baloney. I was sort of right. The front of the package was a solid white. When I turned it over to peer at the contents, I thought I was looking at one of those old-time oddity displays they used to have for the traveling shows. Some
thing
hung in a suspension of frozen liquid; looked like the aborted fetus of a pigeon. It should have had little hands pressed up against the package in a nightmare inducing “let me out” pose. It was a shriveled up gray wad of a meat-like thing in about a pound of dirty water. I, for the life of me, could not imagine in what scenario this sounded like a decent item to buy. I think I would have picked up the cherry Pop-Tart knock offs, the savory sounding Fruity Squares, before I would have ever touched this experiment gone awry. Funny thing, though, three days later, and the day before I was heading back to Colorado, I went into the store. The fridge was no longer there. I figured the USDA or Inspector General or maybe the CIA, realizing that someone was trying to poison the populace, had removed the offending display.