The movement was almost imperceptible; the strewn furniture pile vibrated slightly as if a semi passed close by. Paul's attention was drawn back to the front when a couch cushion landed at his feet.
"MJ, how much longer on your wonder machine?" Paul asked.
MJ hadn’t even looked up at the sound of the shots being fired less than fifty feet away.
"MJ!" Paul shouted.
"What! Can't you see I'm working!" he shouted back, still not looking up.
Paul walked over towards his work station. “Listen, I understand dedication, I really do. But we've got a situation here. How much longer do you think this is going to take?"
MJ finally looked up and noted the concern in Paul's features. MJ's face sagged as he spoke. “Possibly forever with what I have here. I fried some vital components that I don’t have replacements for. Is there a chance we could make another run out to Radio Shack?" he asked hopefully.
Paul shook his head, leaving no doubt in his answer.
"Alright, there's still an outside shot I can do it with what I've got, but it's not going to be as powerful.”
"Fifteen foot gap between us and them?" Paul asked optimistically.
MJ shook his head.
"Ten maybe?" Paul asked, grasping at straws.
MJ's head hadn’t stopped moving from the previous question.
"Dude, how much then?" Paul asked in alarm.
"Three feet max,” MJ answered with a sickly smile.
Alex had come up and was listening to the whole exchange. “That's less than a few inches at most from an outstretched hand.”
"Yup,” MJ said apologetically.
Paul's stomach got queasy. “And you're only talking three feet from the transmitter of that box, with all of us huddled around that thing, that three feet is gone.”
"Hadn't even thought of that,” MJ said, removing his protective goggles.
"Well,” Alex said grasping on to another hope. “What if he finishes it, we move the furniture, and place it by the entrance so that the zombies will stop trying to get in?"
"I like the idea in theory. But first off he isn’t done, and if the furniture is moving I've got to believe that they have already broken through the doors. We could be speeding up our demise instead of holding it at bay.”
"Paul, I do not want to get trapped on that roof,” Alex said. “Sure it's spring and all, but it's still cold at night and it looks like it's going to rain.”
"And yet that is the choice before us.”
"That sounded very Mike-like,” Alex said with a sick grin of his own.
"Yeah I liked that, I've been working on it. Listen, while we've got time, let's see how much warm stuff we can get up on the roof and if they have any types of sales banners we can use as tarps to keep the rain off.”
Joann was still watching the pile as if she expected an evil leprechaun to pop out at any second.
"How did Mike do this stuff?" Paul asked aloud. Alex looked at him questioningly. “You know, keep everyone in line. Get them to doing stuff as opposed to blanking out,” Paul said as he pointed to Joann.
"He's got crazy eyes,” Alex said jokingly, “He made us more afraid of him than the zombies.”
"You might be right. Joann, come on, let's grab April and haul some stuff upstairs. Mrs. Deneaux, you alright watching the door by yourself?" Paul asked the old bat.
She waved him off with her cigarette laden hand. “And I'll be sure to put the lounger out of its misery,” she cackled.
“Hilarious,” Paul mumbled as he walked away.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR – Talbot Journal Entry 11
"Gary, slow down,” I told him.
"I'm not even going fast,” he answered back.
"Something's not right, slow down,” I said, sitting up a little bit in my seat to get a better view.
"We've been through this Mike, you do not have Spidey sense,” Gary said with a smirk.
"STOP THIS TRUCK!" I screamed. He damn near threw me through the windshield as he slammed on the brakes. The truck came to a fishtailing halt.
"Happy? You woke the boys.”
Justin and Travis were both removing their faces from the front headrests.
I quickly got out of the truck, rifle at the ready. Our front tires were literally resting on the front edge of a spike strip.
"Damn,” Gary said getting out of the truck. “You saw that from way back there?"
A rifle shot rang out from the tree line fifteen feet away on the driver's side. Gary jumped over the hood and deposited himself on my lap. The boys were out the door before the echo of the shot was complete.
"I take it that was a warning shot!?" I yelled.
"It's twenty feet at the most, how could I have missed?" came the disembodied voice from the trees.
"You could have been prior Army,” I shouted back. Why do I provoke? I don’t know, we all have character flaws, but why do mine seem to always have the potential to get me killed?
"That's funny, just so happens that I am.”
“Always with the snappy line,” Gary admonished me.
"Semper Fi,” I yelled back.
"You don't say? A lot of people know that slogan.”
"Okay how about, ‘this is my rifle, this is my gun, one is for killing and one is for fun.’”
"Better,” the voice said. "But Full Metal Jacket is a personal favorite of mine.”
"Alright, how about this, the unofficial Marine Corps motto.”
"I'm listening.”
"Lie, deny and counter blame.”
"Fine, I believe you to be a jarhead now but that sure as hell doesn’t make us friends.”
"But maybe we shouldn't be enemies either. What do you want?" I asked.
"That should be obvious, we want your truck. Our car broke down a few miles ago and this walking crap is for the birds.”
"Now I know you're an Army dog and all, but what makes you think we carry four spare tires around with us?"
"Well, hadn't really thought it out until you said that.”
"There's gotta be ten thousand cars in the general area, why take ours?"
"Well we DID think of that,” he said defensively, “but we keep coming across these hives of zombies and if you get anywhere near them they get real hungry real fast.”
"Been there, done that!” Travis shouted.
"Gary, hold my rifle. I'm standing up! I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me.”
"I'll do my best.”
"Comforting.”
"Don’t worry we aren’t the Air Force,” the voice said mockingly.
"Hey!" Gary said as he stood up. “I was in the Air Force! It was a very honorable branch of the military!"
"Don't get your feathers ruffled, friend,” the voice said apologetically as its owner emerged from the tree line, rifle in one hand off to his side.
"How many of there are you?" I asked as Gary handed me my rifle and I placed it over my shoulder.
"Four,” he answered. “Two on this side and two on the other. Yeah, you were pretty much goners.”
All of the people came out of the woods looking like they had just come from a camouflage expo.
"It's not what you think,” our initial contact person stated. “All of us know about camouflage but we're not those crazy survivalist types.”
"You say that as if it's a bad thing,” I told him.
"Yeah, I guess there's nothing wrong with being alive,” he mused, “This whole thing started while we were in cami’s so we figured we should stick to what works. We were up in the hills, a place called Oak Ridge Hollows, it was a company sponsored paint ball event. Hell, we were having a good old time, drinking beer, barbequing, shooting our bosses multiple times with paint balls.”
‘Oh, what I wouldn’t have done to have been able to do that,” I thought wistfully.
"And this one guy, Sully, he starts getting sick. I mean violently. It was shooting out his mouth and his ass. I could see his trousers stained in crap
and blood. I just thought the fat bastard was getting sick from running around all over the place. Most exercise he probably ever got was when he squatted on the shitter and made a toilet baby. Somebody thought to call an ambulance, but hell, we were forty minutes out of town, it was going to be a wait. So everyone kind of sat in their cars or branched off in small groups. A few were with Sully, but you didn't need a medical degree to figure out that he wasn't going to make it. I'd seen guys in combat with limbs blown off that looked better than he did. He died twenty minutes before the ambulance even got there. That was kind of the end of the event.”
"Yeah, I could see how that would put a damper on things,” I told him.
"You from Boston?" he asked.
"Yeah, the accent gives it away,” I told him.
"No, it’s the sarcasm, had two guys in my unit from Southie. Their accents were a little thicker than yours and just about everything was 'Wicked Pissah.' But the sarcasm man, they just never let up.”
"Yeah, that sounds just about right for Southie boys.”
"Still, I was pretty sad when their Hummer got blown up. The camp lost a lot of color when they moved on.”
I took my hat off to pay my respects.
"Anyway,” he said, trying to pull himself away from that unhappy thought, “You remind me of them.”
"Yeah, but in a live way right?" I said to him.
"Yeah, but in a live way,” he reiterated. “So a bunch of people start heading home. I mean, what the hell else could they do? But Sully was in my department and for some misaligned sense of duty I figured I should stay with him. My girlfriend here Cindy, Cindy Martell and my buddy Jack O'Donnell and his girlfriend Perla Tirado, we all stayed behind with most of the bosses. Me and Jack were sharing a smoke a few feet away when Cindy came up the large entryway to the playing field, she and Perla were leading the ambulance in. I threw my cigarette down and started walking over to where Sully was and by now it was dusk. The red and blue lights of the ambulance were making everything dance. I looked down to the cigarette wondering if Jack had laced it with anything because Sully was up and the fat bastard was eating, he was eating Lipstein. I mean literally gnawing through his neck.”
I don’t know why he thought I needed extra explaining. It wasn't like I was going on the faith of his words alone.
"I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but all I had on me was my paint ball marker. I started running towards the scene, pelting Sully with yellow and green balls. He didn’t even look up as blood spewed out of the side of Lip's neck. The other higher ups had just taken off, left their own to die. Jack comes running up beside me, asking me what the hell I'm doing,”
"Thought I was going to puke,” Jack said succinctly.
"Yeah, that's the usual state of affairs when you first come across them,” I said to him, sharing in his pain.
"I guess I finally pissed Sully off when I nailed him in the eye. He dropped Lip and started heading my way. I kept pulling the trigger but what was the use. Jack pulled me out of there.”
"We were in Fallujah together,” was all Jack said, and that really summed it up. Looking out for your buddies was the main thing you did in combat.
"I don’t know what happened to Sully,” our 'host' said. Cindy wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, remembering the events of that night. “So that's about it, the four of us have been on the run ever since. Oh yeah, and my name is Brian, Brian Wamsley.”
"Dude, I don’t need last names,” I told him.
"Is it because you don’t know us well enough and if we die you can keep yourself emotionally distanced from us that way?" Perla asked.
"Perla,” Jack said. “We don’t know them at all, I'm sure he has his reasons.”
"It's pretty basic reasoning actually,” I told them. “I'll just never remember them.”
Cindy laughed. “Yeah, the 80's were a great time. So what's your story?"
I gave her the super stripped down version that did not contain Eliza or Tommy, and even that was a pretty far-fetched scary tale. Friggen’ hate when I give myself the shivers.
"So now you’re going to try and get to your friends?" Perla asked.
"That's the idea, we think they might be in trouble,” Gary said.
"How would you know any of this?" Brian asked suspiciously.
My story had gaping wounds that you could drive a Mini-Cooper through. I had watched knowing exchanges passed between Jack and Brian. I didn’t have time to appease their suspicions.
"Listen, I've… we've got someplace we need to be,” I told the foursome. “I will be more than happy to drive you somewhere until you get a set of your own wheels and then we've got to go,” I told Brian directly, basically telling him that I was done answering his queries. We owed each other nothing and I was holding good to that.
"What if we went with you to this rescue?" Jack asked, “And then you helped us find some wheels.”
"Listen, everyone here knows that I didn’t tell you half of the truth.” Gary nodded, I smacked him in the arm. “What's going on with the zombies is horrible, but being around us is not something most would want to do willingly.”
"Yeah, we're sort of trouble magnets,” Gary said.
"That's one way of saying it,” I added, agreeing with Gary.
"We're in,” Brian said with conviction.
"You speak for everyone?" I asked him.
"We're thrill junkies,” Cindy said as she hopped into the back of the truck.
"I don’t think you’re getting it,” I said.
"Ooooh, zombies,” Perla added, throwing her hands up in the air. “Dammit, I think I chipped a nail,” she fake whined as she climbed into the truck bed.
"Jack,” I said grabbing his arm. “This is no joke.”
He looked me straight in the eye. “Nothing better to do. Can we go now?"
I let his arm go. “I thought I was nuts,” I muttered as I climbed into the driver's seat.
"Oh you are,” Gary said wisely. "But apparently you’re not alone.”
"Comforting,” I said as I was about to put the idling truck back into gear. “Gary, we're just about the same height but I've got to adjust the damn seat every time. Why do you like to drive with your knees in your face?"
Gary shrugged.
"DAD!" Justin yelled.
I jumped. “Boy, you almost made me crap myself. What's the matter?"
"Spike strips!" he yelled.
"That would have sucked,” I said as I got out of the truck to remove the pointy bars.
"Whoa, that would have sucked,” Brian said as he looked over the edge of the truck bed.
"You want these things?" I asked him, holding them up.
"Not so much.”
I tossed them as far from the road as I could so that some other unsuspecting traveler would not find their forward progress hampered by them. It wasn't nearly as far as I would have hoped, and leave it to Travis to let me know.
"Nice toss Curt,” he mocked from the back of the cab, referring to the great Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.
Tracy would kill me if she had seen this, but I flipped him off. He laughed as I went to make sure the strips were off the roadway.
"Zombies!" came the shout.
"Well, forget the strips,” I said as I got back into the truck and got going, “Speeders,” I said looking into the rear view mirror. “I hate speeders.”
"We would have been screwed if I hadn't remembered about the strips,” Justin said boastfully.
"Yeah, you definitely deserve a pat on the back for that one,” I told him. We would have been FAR better off dealing with the twenty or so that were following than the hundreds that were in the process of surrounding the furniture store, but then again I hadn’t a clue what we were driving into so I forged ahead.
Brian tapped on the glass window that separated the crew cab from the truck bed. Travis slid it open.
"So how far to the rendezvous point?" Brian shouted to be heard over the sound of the wind
and the road.
Gary pulled out the Atlas and tried to get a bearing from our surroundings. “Damn,” was the only thing he said.
"Did we pass the exit?" I asked him.
"Not yet, but if Brian hadn’t of asked we would have.”
"You’re the navigator, you’re supposed to be watching out for this stuff.”
"Well, technically, I'm still supposed to be driving.”
"Yeah, well, that was before having your knees all up in your face nearly hindered your view of the roadway and you almost gave us four flats.”
"That’s one way of looking at it I guess. About an hour,” he turned to Brian to answer the original question.
My stomach began its internal churning, bile mixed with acid. Oh boy, yum! I didn’t get flashes of images for my prescience, no, nothing quite so noble. I got to feel like I was going to either throw up or crap myself when I felt like we were getting into some trouble.
"Brian!" I yelled. He stuck his head through the small window. “You sure about this?"
"About what, Mike?" He asked. “Listen, you guys are the first folks we've run across in a long while that I feel even remotely comfortable around. That you guys are risking your lives for your friends says a lot about your character. We're in for a while Mike, and unless you prove me wrong, who knows man, maybe you'll be stuck with us for the long haul too.” He pulled his head back through, satisfied that he had spoken his peace.