“Oh shit.” Travis reached out to grab the shoulder of his uncle. He came up empty.
Gary’s arms were flailing as he tried to grab onto the bark. He came down hard on the tree’s lowest branch, crotch first. The only thing saving him from jewel-crushing defeat was that his feet came down on the tops of the zombies’ heads. Even with the cushioning, he turned pale as the pain erupted from his privates and cramped his stomach. Breakfast, part of last night’s dinner, and some unidentifiable thick, brown liquid spilled from his mouth in a torrent.
Travis quickly made the jump, landing softly on the branch above that his uncle had been originally shooting for. He reached down and steadied Gary’s swaying form. Gary had both of his hands in front of him on the branch trying to keep from rolling off.
“Don’t feel so good,” he looked up.
“I get it, Uncle Gary, I do, but you need to stand up,” Travis said sympathetically.
A half gurgle half grunt came out of Gary as he flexed his arms and pulled his legs up from the zombies that were now reaching for them. “Might puke again.”
“I would expect nothing less, but how about you come up here and do it.” Travis’ grip was tenuous at best, and if Gary fell over, he would either fall over with him or have his hand wrenched free. Gary moved with slow and deliberate movements, his legs shaking as they finally got on the loin-crunching wood. Travis was concerned the outcropping might not support his weight. His uncle hugged the tree as he stood taking in deep breaths.
“You alright?” Travis asked as he gently clapped his uncle’s shoulder.
“Maybe never,” Gary replied, his forehead resting against the tree.
Travis gave his mother the thumbs-up.
Some of the zombies had moved so that now all three trees they were perched in were completely surrounded.
“We can’t keep doing this,” BT said aloud what they were all thinking. “We can’t move fast enough to get by them, and someone is going to eventually fall.” BT’s tree shook minutely as a bulker crashed into it. None of them were in any danger of being shaken loose, but it was still disconcerting.
“Hope he crushes his skull doing that,” Justin said.
“Can we fight our way out?” Tracy was looking to BT.
He shook his head. “Not enough rounds.”
“What if I jumped ahead by myself and got in front of them? I could either lead them off or maybe find some help,” Dennis said.
“And just who do you think you could find that will be willing to help a group of strangers stranded in trees surrounded by a shitload of zombies?” BT was uncharacteristically cross. Part of it was the dire situation they found themselves in, the other was that the doctors had told him he would be extremely tired for a few weeks while the concoction of medication they had administered to him took hold within his system.
“I’m listening for your better ideas!” Dennis pushed back. “Oh, that’s right, I haven’t heard any.”
“Don’t mess with me, little man! I’ll squeeze you like a zit, Mike’s friend or not!”
“Don’t let the fact that I’m Mike’s friend stop you from trying. I’ve never beaten up a half-giant.”
“Giant? Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” BT was looking up at the next branch, obviously wanting to climb up to get closer to Dennis.
Dennis had not once in his life backed down from a fight, and he knew in his heart that a fair amount resided in the fact that he was shorter than most of his friends. He’d always felt the need to constantly prove himself to them. The term was Short-Man’s Syndrome; to him it was a matter of pride.
“Don’t come any higher, or your elephant ass will topple the tree. I’ll come down to you!” Dennis told him.
“BOYS!” Tracy interjected. “You’re making a horrible situation worse!”
“Tracy, I’ll only fuck him up a little,” BT growled, rising up from his branch.
“You’re just lucky you’re holding Henry.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason you don’t want to mess with me. I could be holding Gary in my arms and still take you down a rung from that lofty ladder you think you’re sitting on.”
“Fuck it,” Dennis said, getting closer.
“TRIP!” Stephanie cried out; the potential fight forgotten for the moment.
“He’s gone!” Stephanie was looking around desperately for some sign of him in the surrounding trees.
Travis was searching the ground for the more likely alternative, but the zombies were still patiently waiting for their food to fall from the skies. If one of them had landed it would be a feeding frenzy down there.
“We have to find him.” Stephanie had tears falling from her eyes.
“Oh, honey,” Tracy said, wanting to move closer but afraid of her precarious positioning.
“Damn fool. And I’m talking about Trip, not you, so don’t go getting your locks all in a twist,” BT said to Dennis.
“Kiss my ass,” Dennis said without much vehemence, their dispute on hold at least temporarily.
“What do we do?” Justin asked.
“What can we do?” BT sat back down. “Yeah, this is real comfortable. He probably forgot we were with him and took off to see if he could find Jerry Garcia.”
“Jerry Garcia is dead.” Gary finally twisted his head from its resting spot to speak.
BT gave him a look as if to say, “That’s what I meant.”
“Any chance either of you could think before you speak, or are your male minds just not capable of such higher functioning?” Tracy chided them.
BT just looked away, the sour expression on his face nearly matching Gary’s one of induced pain.
The sun blazed across the sky, indifferent to the plights of the inhabitants residing on the small blue jewel. Travis found a small crook in the elbow of the tree and managed to get into a position that was marginable better than the others. For the time being though he was in no danger of getting comfortable enough to fall asleep.
“Gonna be night soon,” Justin said as he watched the sun begin to set behind a distant ridge of hills.
“Captain Obvious strikes again,” BT grumbled.
Tracy was close enough to hear. “Listen, I know you’re not feeling well, and carrying Henry can’t be easy, but I need you, BT. We all need you. Whether you want the position or not, you are the leader of this small band.”
BT glared and then softened. “I’m sorry, Tracy. I know. I know that I’m supposed to be keeping us safe, and I couldn’t even make it a couple of hours out on my own without Mike. We’re like a treed fox up here with the hounds circling below. We’ll be lucky if we make it through the night, and then what? Eventually someone will fall asleep and roll off. Oh and those fuckers down there, they’ll wait ‘cause they got nothing better to do.”
“When in the hell did you become such a defeatist? This is a side of you I wouldn’t have dreamed you were capable of.”
“Fuck, Tracy, for all your husband’s idiosyncrasies, he brings out the best in me. And now, when he needs me the most to protect all those he loves, I’ve failed. I’ve failed miserably.” BT’s head hung low.
“We’re still alive, BT. I will not have you talk that way to me, especially in front of my sons. We will make it out of here—all of us. Mike would expect no less.”
BT could not manage much more than a satisfactory grunt; and that above all scared Tracy. If the strongest link in their chain was already getting ready to break, it could set a dangerous precedent.
Tracy, reaching down and over, grabbed his ear and twisted it violently.
“Fuck, woman!” BT bellowed.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking of a way to honor your promise!”
“You need some help?” Dennis asked, wrongly thinking that BT and Tracy were now in the midst of a battle. They sort of were, but this one was a much more one-sided event.
“What are you going to do? Jump up and punch my thighs?”
&n
bsp; “BT!”
“Sorry, sorry. Let me just work through this a little. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Henry took that most opportune of times to deliver a thick, wet, drool laced lick to the back of BT’s neck.
“See? Even he has faith in you,” Tracy said as she went back to her previous place.
The mosquitoes came out in full force as soon as the sun was completely down. Gary had nearly fallen as he swatted the pests away. He had used two hands at one point, forgetting that they were the only thing keeping him rooted to his spot. He had pin-wheeled his arms for twelve butt clenching seconds as he fought to regain his balance.
“I think you’d be better off letting the bugs bite you than them, Uncle,” Travis said, pointing to the zombies when he realized Gary was once again settled.
“Probably right.” Gary had turned as pale as a Winter’s moon. He was grateful that it was too dark for anyone to see the transformation.
Stephanie would periodically call out for her husband and cry. If Trip was out there, it would have been impossible to see him. The night was pitch dark, a thick layering of clouds covering even the meager amount of light the stars and a crescent moon could have offered. Each person was stuck in his or her own personal misery. Tracy asked how each of them were doing in turn and would then encourage them to tell a favorite story of theirs. All had participated save Stephanie, who was too far lost in concern and grief. Tracy couldn’t help but be reminded of Erin, Paul’s wife, who could not cope with the prospect of facing the world any longer without her husband and had simply walked off into the night, never to be heard from again.
Tracy hoped the woman had found a peaceful way to exit; however, the odds were extremely stacked against it. There were not too many easy ways out anymore. Growing old and dying in one’s sleep had grown out of favor, much like eight-tracks. Even Tracy, whose reservoir of optimism had seemed depthless, had her moments of doubt during the night. It was not hopeless—not yet anyway. She had to count the pluses, which in this case were only positives because they weren’t negatives. It wasn’t cold out, it wasn’t snowing or raining, and they weren’t being eaten.
The group had hoped that out of sight would equate to out of mind for the zombies. Not so much. Tracy’s eyes watered and burned as the morning sun made its entry. The dawn showed the dead in all their horrified glory. The only thing she knew was that they could not stay there another night. BT was in the same position and still looked as dour as he had when Tracy had seen him last. The only thing moving was Henry, who Tracy was concerned had to take care of some personal business and most likely wanted to stretch his legs. The dog might be the epitome of a lounge lizard, but even he liked to move around occasionally.
“BT, I think Henry has to go,” Tracy said calmly.
“He already did,” BT answered without looking up.
Gary had turned so that his back was now against the tree. His eyes would shut for a moment and then pop open in alarm when he realized where he was exactly and that he was in danger of falling off.
Travis and Justin looked tired but she knew before the zombies came the two were famous for pulling all-nighters on their Xbox systems, running campaigns of one sort or another through a gaming world. They could go for a while longer before crashing. Dennis was staring off into space, remembering a better time Tracy figured. How hard could that be? Right now sitting in a dentist’s chair getting a root canal would be preferable to their current situation. Stephanie looked washed out; hope had been drained from her the previous evening. She was already beginning to look like a shell of her former self.
“Gary, wake up!” Tracy said, startling them all.
“They’re just cups, Mom!” he cried, coming out of whatever fugue state he’d entered.
They needed to make a plan. This inaction would be just as lethal as any action. Mike would not be riding in on a white horse—or preferably a coast guard helicopter—any time soon. If they wanted to survive, they were going to have to find their own way out. She was just so exhausted that it was difficult to think clearly.
“Mom, I think there’re a few less zombies,” Travis told her as he looked around.
A hundred and fifty was marginally better than two hundred, but still too many by about a hundred twenty.
“Yeah, we can take them,” Justin chimed in.
They couldn’t, not really. There was a chance with some great sacrifice that some of them would make it, not all though. The numbers were just too greatly stacked against them.
“BT, what if you and I move over a tree and jump down?” Tracy asked.
Henry and BT both swiveled their heads to look at her. BT and, she thought, probably Henry, discerned the true message in her words. She wanted to get down and kill as many as she could to give the others a potential chance to get away.
BT began to stand with no small degree of difficulty.
“Both of my legs are asleep!” He was holding on tight to the tree, but then grabbed the branch above his head, waiting for the slicing of a thousand tiny daggers to pass as the blood circulated in his system.
“Then what?” Travis asked. He could smell something worse than the zombies below brewing.
“Then we kill a bunch of the bastards,” she told him.
“I’ll go,” Stephanie intoned. “I’ve got nothing left to live for.”
“What?” Justin asked. “Mom, I think you’ve been watching Dad too much. Even with his half-baked ideas, he would see how bad of a strategy that is. You’ll drop down right on top of them, probably won’t even be able to get a shot off.”
“That’s not really the point,” BT told him.
“Wait, you two are just planning on getting eaten?” Justin asked. “That’s unacceptable, I won’t allow it.”
“It should be me,” Gary said. “Those are speeders down there. I won’t be able to outrun them; I might as well make my death worth it.”
“NO! Dad told me I was the man of the family; I forbid any of this crap. Trip made it somehow, I know he did. Maybe we should just follow his model,” Justin insisted.
“Oh, and what model is that? Fly through the trees like a monkey and forget everything else?” BT asked.
“Sort of. We leave one at a time. It doesn’t look like the zombies will leave the main group. You’d only need to go five or maybe six trees over then jump down and make a run for it. One of us could find a car or something, pick the others up…” Justin was fumbling trying to think it through before his mother hit desperation mode and went ahead with a plan she could not come back from.
“Worth a shot.” Dennis had been watching a bird circle high overhead.
“Travis, you’ve got the youngest legs, so give it a go. I’ve got a pretty good angle to cover you,” Gary said as he stood.
“Mom?” he asked.
Tracy choked back a sob. Her son was in mortal danger and she could do nothing to prevent it. If he didn’t fall to his death, there was a high likelihood she would never see him again.
“Try it. WHEN you make it, you have to promise me you won’t come back here. That you’ll go to your uncle’s, you’ll live out your life, and maybe when this is over find a special girl, raise a family.”
“Have kids? Mom, what are you talking about?” He wanted to smile, but the pain in his mother’s face prevented that.
“How do we decide who’s last?” BT asked.
Again Stephanie spoke. “I’ll stay.”
The answer was right there, and BT wanted to take it. It could have been so simple. It should have been so simple.
“I’ll do it,” BT said instead. “I can’t make the jumps, especially with this big dog on my back. We’ll wait for you to come back.”
BT didn’t know what he was expecting—a few protests, some crying, perhaps a couple of other people stepping up to volunteer. He got none as Tracy spoke before anyone else could.
“Do you believe we’ll come back for you?” she asked.
He looked over and in
to her eyes. He saw a determination and fierceness there and maybe even a promise if he looked hard enough. “I do.”
“Travis, go. And I swear if you hurt yourself I will kick your ass.”
“Mom, that doesn’t even make sense,” he told her as he rolled his eyes.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
“You can’t even see me from there.”
“Then you don’t deny it?”
“Trav, you’d better go,” his older brother said, trying to shield him.
Travis was preparing for his first jump.
“STOP!” Dennis yelled out.
“It’s not your turn. What are you scared about?” BT asked him.
Dennis didn’t reply to the barb as there were bigger things going on. “Look,” he said, pointing down.
The zombies were, at first, looking away from them into the woods. If the term curious could be used, then that is what seemed to appear on their features. Then they abruptly turned the opposite direction and started to move away from the treed victims.
Tracy half sobbed in relief. “Is this possible?”
“They’re leaving!” Justin shouted.
“You have a gift, brother. No…really, you do.” Travis was poking his brother.
“What are you doing?” Tracy asked Travis.
“I’m getting down, Mom. I used to think climbing trees was the best thing in the world. Now I only want to chop them all down in the hopes that, if I ever need one again, there will be none left standing.”
“The zombies—”
“Looks like they’re heading to greener pastures,” BT said as he dropped down on the ground. Henry was squirming around, BT had no sooner let him down when he squatted and left a present that rivaled the smell of the zombies.
“Thank you, dog, for not doing that on my back.” BT took a couple of steps away.
Henry had a look of concentration as he finished up. It must have been particularly brutal, because he didn’t even do his usual turn, sniff and back leg thrust to cover it up. Like BT before him, he moved away. Justin and Travis had gotten down and were making sure the zombies were really leaving. Tracy helped Stephanie down, who was almost a ghost of her former self. Dennis had also dropped down and was staring up at Gary’s form.