“Huh?” Jen asked quizzically as she shouldered on by.
“Uh, nothing, and let me know if I’m in your way,” I said cheekily.
“I will,” she responded without turning around.
‘Someone’s sense of humor had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,’ I thought to myself.
Carl was rousing himself out of sleep, buttoning his pants back up and putting his jacket on before he stepped out. Ben was busy securing the truck, okay I thought, three out of four accounted for. Then I had a slight panic attack.
“Where’s Twitchy?” I said louder than I meant to. In the cold still air of the morning it sounded like a shout.
Jen turned. “Who?” she asked
“Twitch…I mean Tipper,” I clarified. The reply was quick and forthcoming but not the one I wanted.
“Look…arghhh, oh fuck!!!! Get it off!!!” Tipper screamed.
Jen and I both turned in horror. Carl was just coming down off the truck and gaped along with us. Tipper had walked up to the front door of the armory, which looked like it had been blasted off its hinges with a tank. Who knows, maybe it had been. But what was captivating our attention was the zombie attached to Tipper’s head. Blood was streaming down the side of his face as he howled in a combination of terror and pain, the two of them staggering from side to side in a macabre dance. I brought my rifle up but I knew at this distance and their co-mingled movement I could not get a clean shot off. I never would have guessed if I hadn’t seen it myself, but Carl was moving with all the speed and agility of a man half his age, unholstering his pistol as he went. Within moments he was within safe firing distance of Tipper and his new dance partner. The zombie paid no attention to Carl as the pistol was neatly placed against its head. If I thought my voice was loud, the Colt .45 shattered any of those illusions. The open entryway to the armory amplified the affect. The noise was deafening, but not to Tipper, his right ear went down with the zombie. Tipper was clutching at the gaping bloody hole where his ear used to be, screaming for all he was worth.
“Shut him up!” Ben was saying frantically. “He’ll have half the zombie population here in a minute.”
“Yeah, as opposed to that small cannon fire,” I said sarcastically.
Jen was walking over to Tipper to try and console him, but Tipper was having none of it. He kept pushing her away. She had finally had enough.
“Either let me see the damn wound, or I’m going to have Carl finish you off!” Jen yelled.
Carl was busy wiping the gore off his gun and didn’t notice that he had been involved in Jen’s plan. But it was effective enough to shut Tipper up. He was sniffling and close to blubbering. I wanted to call him a baby and tell him to shut up, but when Jen finally calmed him down enough so she could examine the wound, I didn’t say anything. I was too busy holding my bile down. The zombie had bitten the ear clean off but the ear had not come off without collateral damage. It had stayed mostly attached to his face when the zombie went down. The force had torn half of Tipper’s cheek off. So not only was there the exposed ear hole but also the muscles that lined the side of his face. He looked worse than the poor bastard lying on the ground. Torn tissue sprayed blood as he swung his head from side to side in obvious agony. I thought the best thing we could do for him was to shoot him and put him out of our misery, I mean his misery.
“Ben!” Jen yelled. “Are there any rags in the truck?”
I didn’t see the point and I let my opinion be known. “Move away Jen,” I motioned with my rifle.
“Are you crazy!” she spat back.
“What good is a bandage,” I said dismally. “He’ll be one of them in a few hours.”
“You coward!” she screamed. “I can stop the bleeding, and I have some aspirin.”
“And then?” I said lowering my rifle. I just didn’t have the stomach for it.
Tipper was doing his best to hide his tall wiry frame behind Jen’s petiteness, his misery forgotten for a moment under this much bigger threat. Ben was watching the stand-off when for the second time that day I thought my eardrums were going to burst. Jen stood stockstill as blood and gore from Tipper’s demolished head sprayed all over her.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?” she was screaming at me.
I was looking down at my rifle. ‘I didn’t do a damn thing, did I?’
Carl was walking into the armory. “He would have been one of them soon enough, I did what I had to do.” And he offered no further explanation.
Jen still had not moved, at least not in a lateral direction. Even from this distance I could see her shivering, from either fear or rage. Ben hopped back up into the truck looking for a rag, but now for a different reason than before. He came down from the cab with a roll of paper towels. I grabbed his arm lightly before he passed by.
“Uh Ben, after you get her cleaned up could you stay out here on guard duty?”
He nodded sternly. I think Ben was doing his best to not let the situation affect him. If so, he was doing better than I was. I hastily passed Jen who was too intent on the gore running down her face to pay me any attention. I wanted to catch up with Carl before something else happened.
The blown apart doors were only the beginning of the destruction to the armory. The inside looked as if an F5 tornado had swept through. Um, maybe that isn’t right, it was more like an F3. There was still SOME stuff lying around. Rows upon rows of empty racks that at one time contained M-16’s were now empty. As I walked to the left I discovered even more foreboding news, the heavy stuff was gone too. You could see where there had been a few 50 caliber machine guns, about 10 SAW’s (light machine guns) and two rocket launchers that were now missing. Just wonderful, there was a band of somebodies out there more heavily armed than an average battalion. Getting razor wire seemed like less of a priority; whoever had all this stuff wasn’t going to be stopped by any glorified chicken wire.
“Hey Talbot,” Carl beckoned. “Could you come over here and help me with these?”
I walked over to the armory repair station. Carl was rounding up about a dozen or so M-16’s in various states of disrepair. I looked at him questioningly.
“We should be able to get at least a couple of these working, with all these parts,” he answered me without even looking up.
Seemed like a worthwhile venture to me. I shouldered my weapon and grabbed a handful of rifles. There was loose ammo all over the place. Whoever had been here before us must have been in a hurry. Maybe they were leaving town. That would be awesome. They had spent enough time to clean out every working weapon and the vast majority of ammo, but it appeared as if some of the cartons had fallen and spilled out on the floor. They hadn’t warranted those bullets important enough to pick up. There had to have been at least a few thousand rounds on the ground alone. God, how many did they take with them?
As I walked out into the brightness it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Ben was just finishing getting most of the viscous material off Jen. They both looked more than a little green-tinged.
“Jen, when you’re done here, could you go into the armory and start grabbing all the ammunition that’s on the floor?” I asked. I’m not a psych major. I didn’t know if I should approach her in a caring tone or a conciliatory one or any other damn method. I needed a job done and that’s how I went about it.
“No,” came her monosyballic reply.
I stopped short, one of the rifles threatening to fall out of my arms.
She started back up again. “I’m not going in there and I’m not staying out here. I’m getting back in the truck and lying down.”
I wanted to throttle her. We were all a little thrown off by what had just happened but we had a mission to think about. That’s what you get when you take civilians on a military endeavor.
“Jen, we have more to think about here than what just happened to Tipper. He messed up by running ahead and trying to be a hero. We have to get the remainder of this ammo and wire for the people back home,” I almost pleaded. We were already one person short if Jen flaked out now, we’d be out here for hours longer than I had expected.
She turned to look at me, and fire flashed across her eyes. It was more likely sunlight reflecting off her sky blue irises, but the affect was staggering nonetheless. “See, that’s where you’re wrong Talbot! I don’t have anyone at home! There’s nothing for me there! I lost everything! I don’t care whether we all live or die, I just don’t care!”
“Then what the hell did you come out here for!” I yelled back. She flinched a little but nothing worth writing home about.
“Revenge! I thought I could exact some sort of pay back for what they did to Jo and to me! But I know that’s useless now. They just don’t care. No, it’s even worse than that, they just don’t know. They are mindless, one-track mind, killing and eating machines. They’re almost as bad as MEN!” she shouted.
Wow, I guess there isn’t going to be any hetero conversion there. Men and zombies were near enough equals in her mind. I didn’t want anything more to do with Jen. She was a pulse away from going into shock and I had enough problems. I didn’t bother answering her as I headed for the back of the truck.
A few seconds later, I heard the cab door shut as I exited the rear of the trailer. I hurried over to Ben.
“You have the keys?” I asked him apprehensively.
“Oh, you betcha,” he replied.
“Any chance you could pick up the stray ammo?” I pleaded.
“I’d love to Talbot, but I’ve got a bad back, I couldn’t bend over to save my life,” he replied.
“Wonderful,” I said scornfully. Ben looked a little taken aback. I had no desire to stroke his bruised feelings. “Keep guard then.”
