Authors: Mark Tufo

For the Fallen (5 page)

“Can I look yet?” BT asked.

“Um…sure,” I told him, “but don’t look back. Everyone out.” More superfluous words
had never been spoken; even Henry was halfway out by the time my words ceased.

Tracy looked at me questioningly. “The windows,” I told her, pointing.

Travis, Justin, and Tommy were busy gathering all our supplies. I grabbed the shotgun,
went down the stairwell and off to the left, blowing a hole in the closest window.

“BT!” I shouted. I was going to have him toss me in, and then I realized I could do
               it on my own. I may have lost my soul, but at least now I could play in the NBA. I
               got onto the ledge of the window and cleaned the broken glass with the butt of the
               gun. I hopped inside the building, taking a real quick glance around, making sure
               we weren’t jumping into a mess worse than the one we were leaving.

I was pretty certain all was well when I turned back to the window. What I saw, I
did not like. The truck had been losing speed for a long way, but I didn’t think it
was enough to allow the zombies to catch up. They were streaming onto the roadway.

“Tracy, get over here!” I shouted.

She must have seen them, because she didn’t so much as tell me to ‘hold one horse’.
With her hand outstretched I pulled her up easily.

“Grab my gun and make sure nothing bites me in the ass, please,” I told her as I put
her down.

BT handed up Henry who apparently thought playing Superman was the coolest thing ever.
               His stubby tail was wagging rapidly. The boys were now tossing me up the ammo and
               food and whatever else was in the truck. Most of my attention was on the zombies coming
               our way.

“How much more shit is there?” I asked as I deposited another box on the floor.

“Last one.” Travis jumped up to grab the ledge. I reached down under his arms and
yanked him in.

Justin stuck his hand out, I was somewhat alarmed at how light he felt; it was as
if the disease were eating him from the inside out. “Travis, Justin, carefully check
out this building, make sure there’s no zombies and no way for them to get in.”

Travis nodded and then they were gone.

“Go,” BT urged Tommy. I stepped aside as Tommy effortlessly jumped up and through
the window.

“Show off,” I told him. He smiled and turned back to help me with BT.

“Any time,” I told BT who was watching the zombies. The fastest of them were now on
the walkway.

“You going to be able to pull me up?” He was looking pretty scared, and who could
blame him.

“Don’t worry, fat is lighter than muscle,” I told him. He glared at me as he stuck
               his hand out. Even with my added strength, he was heavy. Luckily, Tommy shouldered
               his way into the window frame and helped me—okay, more like did it himself. It got
               a little awkward when we had to turn him sideways to fit through the frame, but other
               than that, we were all in and at least safe for the moment.

“Couldn’t you have just checked to see if the window was unlocked?” BT asked when
the waft of zombies drifted through the opening. Even Henry seemed repulsed as he
walked away to investigate his new digs.

I was still looking at the broken window when Travis came back. “There’s a basement
door and a fire escape on the second floor. Both open outwards, are steel, and definitely
locked.”

With the front doors blocked by the truck, we were in pretty good shape. I mean other
than being surrounded by a thousand zombies. Yeah all was grand.

“Could be worse,” I told Tracy. “We could have got stuck in the shoe store.”

She laughed. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Make me laugh in these situations.” She squeezed my hand.

I didn’t ask her what the alternative was. “Want to go play librarian?” I asked huskily
as I playfully swatted her butt.

“What does that even mean?” she asked.

“Who cares?” I told her.

“Wait, I really need to get all the facts in a row here. Okay, first we’re in a library
with two of our children, three including Tommy. We’re surrounded by zombies waiting
for your brother to rescue us somehow, and yet you have time to think about sex?”

“Well, duh,” I told her. “The day I stop thinking about having sex with you, I hope
I’m dead.”

“Let’s go see if we can find a quiet area.”

“That worked?” I asked as she led the way.

BT was griping as he tried to find things to cover the broken window. He looked over
as he watched us leaving.

“Umm, we’re going to check to make sure the books are stacked properly,” I told him.

“Holy crap, Talbot, you finally started shitting gold coins.” He was smiling as he
pulled the Maine state flag down and pinned it up over the opening.

Chapter 3 – Mrs. Deneaux

“What the hell is this?” Mrs. Deneaux asked the empty cab of her eighteen-wheeler.

She had decided to forgo the main highway leading out of the state, preferring to
               drive the coastal Route 1. It was slower going, but she felt like she would be less
               likely to encounter trouble. And that had been the case right up until she saw the
               obvious trap set-up. A small SUV was parked perpendicular to the roadway straddling
               the median line and most of the two lanes. The driver’s side door was open, and a
               man was on the roadway lying on his stomach with his face pointed towards her.

She had stopped the truck a good fifty yards from the ploy, the engine was idling
               as she surveyed the scene. She cackled, the truck hitched as she placed it into first
               gear. She was about to pop it into third when she blatted the horn loudly. The man
               in the roadway’s eyes got large as he saw the huge truck barreling down on him.

“Feeling better?” she asked his retreating form as he ran to the side of the road.

She was laughing as she sent shards of the SUV hurtling into space. The truck barely
slowed.

“Crazy bitch!” the man yelled at her.

She heard a shot ring out from the other side of her, and then nothing, as if whoever
had shot had thought better about wasting bullets.

“Idiots.”

She continued down the road. She was unsure of her future when she’d left Michael’s
               brother’s home. And she’d certainly never foreseen Eliza falling to that idiot; well,
               technically the idiot’s wife. She would have never thrown her lot in with the vampire
               if she’d known that.

“Can’t know everything, Vivian. Otherwise you would have cut your husband’s balls
               off
before
he cheated and shut off the money.” She cackled again. “It wouldn’t have been too
               hard, they were just dried up little nuggets anyway, looked like prunes. That would
               have been so much more satisfying than killing him. I don’t know what it is about
               men and their precious little packages. Looks like a worm carrying worn leather luggage.”

She was thoroughly enjoying her wit when she saw her second human encounter of the
               day. Her shriveled heart accelerated a bit as the person had a slight resemblance
               to Paul, Mike’s friend who she had pretty much killed by proxy, sending him away with
               no shoes and no weapon.

The momentary heart hiccup evened out when she realized the hitchhiking stranger was
               not him. Same color hair, but it was receding slightly, and this stranger had a thick
               beard with some reddish undertones. She looked around to see if this was again some
               sort of trap. She stopped the truck well ahead of the man, he started to run towards
               her. She beeped her horn, he looked up and she motioned for him to come over to her
               side.

“Thank you, thank you,” he was saying over and over again.

“Don’t go getting all excited just yet,” she said down to him. “Turn around.”

When he didn’t immediately do as she requested she aimed her seven-inch barrel Colt
.45 at him. A small hatchet was in the small of his back, held in place by his belt.

“You planning on burying that in my skull?” she asked.

“There’s zombies, did you expect me to be unarmed?”

“What else you have on you?”

“That’s it.”

“Strip,” she told him.

“I’ll do no such thing.”

“Bye,” Mrs. Deneaux told him as the truck slid effortlessly into first gear.

“Wait, wait!” He started to unbutton his shirt. She brought the truck to a halt.

“Hurry up, I don’t have all day,” she told him as he sat on the pavement to pull his
shoes off.

“Shit there’s zombies!” he said in a panic. A small group was coming up on them. “Let
me in,” he pleaded grabbing his things.

“Not until I see everything.”

“The zombies.”