Zombie Fallout (25 page)

Mike had finally come to his senses and seen the ruse for what it was. It was almost disastrously too late, but the light of recognition had dawned on him when he was at Allison’s apartment. She had asked him if he would help her move some furniture from one room to the other. He had happily obliged, after all, that’s what friends were for, even if his higher psyche smelled a rat. When he arrived there was a chilled bottle of wine on the table. Mike could see the shimmering candlelight emanating from Allison’s bedroom down the hallway, but the coup de grace was the sheer negligee she was wearing. Mike had always known that she was a stunning looking woman, but this vision that greeted him at the door made him weak at the knees. Mike’s mouth dropped open as panic welled up. He was at a crossroads in his life. Straight ahead lay his wife and kids. Sure, there was some cracked pavement and a pothole or two but it was a scenic, satisfying journey. All Mike could see if he took a hard right in his life with Allison was an ‘under construction’ sign: large orange traffic cones and glaring lit up warning signs that foretold of dangerous curves and hidden bumps that lined the street. That road could be fun for a mile or two. However, Mike was certain that it would end like so many roads he had seen Wile E. Coyote go down so many years before, with a huge sign in the middle of the road that told the driver ‘The End Was Near.’ That would be punctuated, of course, by a huge boulder lying just beyond it. All of this knowledge was too late for the Coyote because he had rocket skates on, but Mike had something that Wile E. didn’t: foreknowledge.

Mike took one more look inside her apartment. Then, one long lingering look at the woman that stood before him. Later he would tell himself it was because he had wanted to be absolutely sure what Allison’s intentions were. Then, without a word, he had turned and walked away. He knew if he had said something, anything, she would have had the perfect riposte and he would have caved. He would have stayed in the apartment and his life would have been irrevocably changed forever, and not for the better.

“Mike?” Allison had asked to his back. “What are you doing?” She had never been on this side of rejection and was not taking to the learning experience too kindly. “You’re turning
this
down?” she yelled as she flaunted her body.

Even without the condescending tone Mike knew not to turn around. To do so might have turned him to salt like Lot’s wife of Sodom and Gomorrah fame. Or worse yet, have him question what the hell he was doing.

“Go back to your wife!” she yelled. Her tremulous voice reaching volumes that brought out her neighbors, the better to play out this drama.

“What are you, a
fag
?” she spat. Mike’s face burned as he realized he now had an audience to this spectacle.

Relief flooded through him as he finally reached his car door but was quickly diminished as he realized he would have to turn around to get in. Even from this distance, Allison’s beauty was unrivaled. The sheer hatred that etched her features only confirmed to Mike the wisdom of his decision. Mike’s dick, however, was unstirred by the power of higher reasoning and screamed its own words of hate and discontent at him.

“Definitely not a fag,” Mike said to himself as he made some adjustments to himself, started the Jeep and got the hell out of Dodge.

Allison’s eyes burned holes into the back of Mike’s head as he made his hasty retreat. Her apartment shook from the force she had applied to her door as she slammed it home. It was from that point forward that she had begun to formulate a plan to get Mike dismissed from his job. She had hoped for a scandal of epic proportions and was disappointed when she was only able to manage a ‘job discontinuance.’ She had felt nothing close to remorse when she came to his office that final morning, only something akin to a fulfilling satisfaction.

“Last day?” she had laughed from his office door, a smug smile on her face.

Mike was fairly certain of Allison’s hand in this, but had no desire to give her any more satisfaction than she was already deriving from it.

“Yeah, it’s time for a change, I’ve got some prospects back East that I’m looking forward to checking out.”

It was all a lie, Mike was deeply scared about losing his job, but to see her smirk come off her face for just a fraction of a second made it all seem worthwhile. Mike continued to load his last box with his belongings. Allison was irate as she pushed off from his doorframe. Revenge, unfulfilled. She stalked off, looking for her next victim.

Mike had told Tracy everything about that day, except the part about his traitorous penis. The liabilities of that disclosure far outweighed the benefits. Tracy had on more than one occasion wanted to confront Allison and let her know what she thought of her. Unlike Mike, Tracy was completely convinced that Allison had engineered Mike’s employment demise and had since wanted to exact revenge. Now the demon spawn stood before her, in all her deadly regal beauty.

“How does a zombie look so fucking good?” Tracy asked as she finally got to her feet.

“Mom?” Nicole was still bewildered, but finally took her mother’s words to heart and looked at the monster in front of them.

Except for some unkempt hair and a grayish sheen to her skin tone, the zombie was a knock out. For a second or two Nicole wasn’t sure if they were being confronted by a monster or just a starving civilian. All pretense of a peaceful outcome was shattered as the Allison-thing reengaged her one-track mind. Her mouth opened wide, revealing bits and chunks of her last conquest. Like the door of an ancient mausoleum creaking open, the stench of death issued forward. Nicole brought her pistol up to bear, her hand shaking wildly as she pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Nicole waited impatiently for the terse spring of the recoil and the acrid smell of gunpowder. All that happened was her hand shook wildly from side to side and the acidic smell of decay flooded her senses.

“Shit!” Nicole yelled as she pulled the trigger again and again, but still nothing happened, not even the satisfactory slamming of the firing pin hitting home.

Tracy had not been stationary during this brief interlude; she had also brought her rifle to bear. The Allison-thing was so close that her mouth closed around the barrel of the rifle.

‘Gonna be tough to miss from this distance,’ Tracy thought with a certain sense of satisfaction.

“This oughta take care of that shit-eating grin, BITCH!” Tracy yelled just as she pulled the trigger.

Yes, Allison-thing’s grin did expand, but not because of any hot lead injection. Tracy realized the gun wasn’t loaded. It was more useless than Viagra at a Promise Keeper's Convention. Allison-thing was held at bay as the muzzle of the weapon pressed against the back of her throat. Tracy wanted to scream in rage and frustration, in revenge unfulfilled. Meanwhile, Nicole picked up the closest object that she could find. Tracy reeled as the flying box of condoms narrowly missed hitting the side of her head.

“Really?! That’s the best that you could do?” Tracy shouted.

“Sorry Mom. What are we gonna do?” Nicole shrieked, hysteria rising dangerously close to the surface.

“Go behind the register and see if there’s a bat or a crowbar or something to hit her over the head with,” Tracy said as she struggled with the Allison-thing.

The zombie still hadn’t figured out that to get to the meat it would have to dislodge from the bitter metal stick. The barrel was coming dangerously close to pushing through the back of her slender neck.

“There’s only a cane!” Nicole shouted from the register station.

“That’ll have to do. Hurry, I don’t know how much longer I can hold her back.”

Tracy was struggling under the relentless assault. The Allison-thing would never stop. Tracy knew that even as her arms ached with the strain of holding the undead bitch away from her. Tracy was proud as her daughter conquered her rising tide of fear and approached the zombie, cane upraised. Nicole swung with all her might, but between the mass of the cane and the lack of muscle Nicole possessed, the blow did little more than irritate her mother’s assailant. Again she raised the cane and struck. The zombie finally noticed that she was being attacked. It backed up, dislodging itself from the gun and turned her full attention on the small morsel of meat to her side. ‘Succulent’ was its vacant thought.

“Mom!” Nicole wailed as she dropped the cane and backed away.

Tracy’s arms were burning from the exertion of holding the zombie at bay. As the Allison-thing came loose, Tracy’s arms fell. The rifle in reality weighed only seven pounds, but right now it might as well have been seventy. She caught her breath as the zombie turned all of its attention to her daughter. Nicole was moving backwards, her eyes wild with fear. The look of sheer terror on her face got her mother moving.

“First my husband! Then me! And now you want my
daughter
?!” Tracy screamed. She turned the rifle around so she was holding the barrel. “Well, you can’t have any of us! BITCH!” Tracy said, as she swung the beefy end of the stock with a strength and aim even Babe Ruth would have been proud of.

With contact came that disgusting sound that only a collapsing skull can make. Some compare it to the sound of a watermelon exploding after a three-story drop. In reality this isn’t even close. It is a much more visceral concussion. The sound assails the senses with the ire of a screeching cat in the dead of night. It is as repellent as a horde of spiders crawling on your head or getting your sternum poked or watching people chew with their mouths open. You get the point. It is a sound that is not meant for human ears. The stock of the rifle nearly stuck in the caved-in cranium of the Allison-thing. As Tracy pulled the gun back she was greeted with an audible pop as the suction between bone, blood and wood separated. Allison-thing’s head hung at an awkward angle. Her body stopped in midstride. It attempted to swivel its head to see its attacker but the bones in her delicate neck were in no better shape than her mashed in melon. Tracy heaved a cry of satisfaction and relief as the Allison-thing collapsed to the floor. Some violent twitching from her extremities kept Nicole and Tracy engrossed for a few long macabre moments. Tracy had more expletives she wanted to shout at her downed adversary but was fearful if she opened her mouth only the contents of her roiling stomach would issue forth. Finally the Allison-thing lay still.

Tracy grabbed Nicole’s arm and pulled her through the exit. Not a word was said on the ride home, or ever again on the matter. Mike would learn of the cigarettes, eventually, but when he questioned his wife, the stern look on her face kept him from pressing the matter. He didn’t see any reason to pry any further. Women were a complete and utter mystery to him but he knew enough about when to keep his mouth shut.

CHAPTER 15

Journal Entry - 13

It was not difficult to see the source of Justin’s fever. The scarlet wound on his cheek screamed for attention. The sight of a thousand ravenous zombies could not compete with the fright one sick boy placed into me. If Paul hadn’t been sitting on the toilet I would have used it for some dry heave practice. It was then I finally REALLY noticed my lifelong friend.

“Paul?” I asked. I had to blink and rub my eyes, how cliché is that?

“Hey buddy,” Paul said, his voice strained. He was feeling extremely guilty for his part in this progressing drama.

Paul and Mike had talked occasionally, usually in drunken stupors, about what they should do in the event of a disaster. Now in Paul’s defense, most of these scenarios involved terrorist attacks, not zombie infestations. But after much debate and loud obnoxious rants, it was agreed upon that Mike’s house was easier to defend and had more supplies including armament. At the first sign of trouble, Paul was supposed to get his ass over to Mike’s, but he had let indecision rule and that had threatened the lives of his nephews. He knew Mike would have a hard time ever forgiving him this transgression.

I was torn between figuring out why and how Paul was here and the health and welfare of my son.

Paul saw my distress and eased at least one burden. “We’ll talk later, it’s a long story,” he said as he waved me away to the front of the crowd huddled around the bathtub.

Tracy didn’t look up from Justin as she sought out my hand for comfort. Words didn’t seem necessary. I could see the jagged groove of flesh missing from Justin’s right cheek. His face had swollen to almost double its proportion. If it had been caused by a bee stung, it would have been hilarious. As much as his cheek stuck out, his eyes had sunken in. He looked more like a caricature of himself than the real article. Red lines of infection radiated out from the unsightly wound.

I would have already thought he was a zombie if not for the next few moments.

Justin’s eyes gained a measure of focus as they found mine. His next words were strained and choked as he tried to force air over his tortured tonsils.

“I’m s...sorry Dad,” he cried.

I took a big intake of air as I sobbed. My heart wanted to leap out of my chest. Paul stifled his own keening. Tracy didn’t hold anything back as she let loose as only a grieving mother can. Her sobs racked her body; she released my hand in order to cover her face with both of hers.