“What about the noise?” I asked with some dread. Killing zombies to save my ass was one thing, killing them like that made my blood run cold.
“What about it? Use your little pea shooter,” he said pointing to my M-16. “It’s a lot quieter than my Colts are, and we’ve been here for over an hour and we still only have five of the original six here.”
I saw his point. It’s just that I didn’t want to.
“Besides,” he continued, “we now have way more ammunition in your caliber than we do in mine.”
Again I understood his damn point. I grabbed the keys from Ben and headed for the truck. Jen looked pissed that I was invading her space as I climbed into the cab to turn on the heater. I couldn’t have cared less. Those that didn’t pull their own weight were chattel and didn’t deserve my consideration.
“Are we leaving now?” Jen asked hopefully.
I merely revved the engine a little more hoping the heat would kick on sooner rather than later.
“Are we leaving?” she asked again. This time she leaned over, grabbed the gearshift and shoved it into gear. The truck lurched forward and stalled. I was thrown forward and almost broke my damn nose on the steering column as I was already leaning forward trying to garner some heat. Both Carl and Ben were looking up at me, puzzlement on their features. I shrugged and over-exaggerated ‘sorry’ gesture.
I hissed at Jen, “You touch that shift box again and I’ll break your fucking wrist!”
She pulled back as if I had slapped her.
“If you’re so concerned about getting out of here quicker maybe you should be helping instead of hiding.”
Defiance was on her face, but defeat was in her features. She wanted to lash out but she didn’t have the intrepidity to go through with it. She settled back into her uneasy crouch, this time however she sat with her back to me. My hands began to defreeze by small degrees. The pins and needles affect gave way to nails and tacks and then finally to spikes and stakes. The pain was more intense than I was expecting. I must have been close to frostbite. As the torture began to subside I looked around the cab; I knew I had seen a pair of work gloves. They were cheaply made and would do little to stop the bite of the razor wire but I hoped that it would at least keep some of the bitter sting of the cold away. I stayed a few minutes longer than I needed to, gathering my reserves to go deal with our unwanted transients.
“Damn it,” I said as I shut off the truck. Jen jumped a bit but didn’t turn around. My feet had no sooner hit the ground, when I heard the telltale sound of the lock being engaged. “Useless!” I said a little louder than I needed to.
I was having a difficult time empathizing with her. Here we were in the fight of our lives and she had just given up. The side of me that didn’t want to kill, not even zombies, spoke up. ‘How would you feel if Tracy had become a zombie?’
‘Don’t even think it!’ My internal dialogue continued.
‘Or one of your kids?’
‘I’m telling you! Shut up!’
‘Well?’
‘Damn you! I’d probably want to curl up into a ball and die.’ My masculine side finally iterated.
‘Hmm.’ My feminine side mocked.
‘You can still kiss my ass.’ I aimed my rifle and fired off 5 rounds, killing all of our nonhuman visitors. My feminine side had been stilled.
The ensuing quiet was only briefly interrupted by the twang of wire cutters severing through wire holders. Carl hadn’t so much as turned to look as I had mowed down the noxious audience. My breathing had quickened as if from heavy exertion. Sweat formed and quickly began to freeze on my brow. I had yet to put the rifle down, gravity finally taking over and pushed the barrel towards the ground.
Ben, noticing my distress came over. “You all right Talbot?” he asked with concern.
It took a moment for me to acknowledge his presence. I turned towards him, my pupils dilated, my face as pale as the breath I exhaled.
“I could get real philosophical with that question, Ben.” And that was my only answer to his inquiry as I went to the ladder to see if Carl needed any assistance. Ben scratched his head and began zip tying the coils again.
Not much was said as the three of us worked, I know at least for me I was thankful for the lack of speech. It was much nicer to be lost in the hard work. Carl and I switched off on climbing the ladder. My legs were burning from the strain of going up and down and I would have said something but Carl didn’t so much as utter a heavy sigh and the guy was twenty years my senior. There was no way I was going to let him know I was hurting. Between my shifts on top I would help Ben coil and then pull the coil into the truck. We had a system and it was going well. I was thinking at this point we wouldn’t have to spend the night. The remainder of the day was eerily quiet, no more zombies, no other people and not even any animals. I could understand why there were no people, either they were zombies, dead, or fled. The animals had most likely taken off too, please don’t let there be zombie rabbits! But if the animals had fled because of the zombies, where were they? And as if my questions materialized into reality, I smelled them first. At first I had thought Carl had let one rip, but unless he had eaten rotten fish tacos the previous night, it couldn’t be him. I must have turned a shade of green because Carl finally broke his vow of silence.
“What’s a matter Talbot, you look like something’s disagreeing with you? It’s not all this hard work is it?” he asked, laughing a little at his own humor. I didn’t have to answer him, I watched as his face took on the same hue as mine. “Oh sweet Jesus!” He magically produced a bandanna, as only people of his generation can, and began to tie it around his face to block at least some of the odor.
Ben had at this point just emerged from the back of the trailer. “Oh geez! What is that smell!” he yelled.
“Talbot, we’ve got fifty more yards of wire to go,” Carl began. “Do we cut and run so to speak or stay and finish? But from that stench you know we’re not dealing with some onesy and twosy lost zombies, that smells like the mother lode.”
“Cut it,” I said as I made the executive decision. “All this wire does no good if we can’t get it there. I was wondering why there were no animals around here.”
My last words fell to the grounds without an ear to pick them up. Carl had already ascended the ladder to this time cut the wire itself and not the holders.
“Look out below!” Carl yelled a moment too late.
The razor wire sliced past my face at an alarming rate, a couple inches more to the right and my facial features would have been neatly severed from their resting place. I looked up at Carl more in shock than anything.
He shrugged a bit and said, “Eh it didn’t get you did it? Quit your belly aching.”
I didn’t know which was worse, the close call or the smell. I wanted to give Carl a little ‘what for’ but speaking meant that I would have to suck in more of the foul stench-laden air. I flipped him the finger and he laughed, so much for making a statement.
The armory sat on a lot by itself and afforded luxurious views on all sides. The closest homes were across Buckley Avenue and a small greenway lay between the street and the houses. All in all it was about 500 yards away, and it was from there the zombies began to spill forth. At first only a few ambled out, then half a dozen and almost within a blink of an eye there were hundreds. They stood in the greenway, some swaying like abhorrent stalks of corn. Their numbers swelled; standing room became a premium commodity as their numbers increased and still they didn’t move. We lost precious time as the three of us just stood in awe wondering what kind of manifestation we were witnessing. Of course it was at this point that Jen decided to peek her head over the dashboard. The détente was broken by her shrill screams. Like the prince’s kiss to Sleeping Beauty, the noise got the zombies moving and in turn so did we. We had about a hundred and fifty yards of wire that still needed to be loaded into the truck and I was a moment away from having to cut it loose when the zombies made it to the sidewalk. Again they stopped.
“What are they doing? Are they afraid of traffic?” I said aloud.
“Maybe they’re looking for a crosswalk,” Carl snorted.
Of us all he looked the least nonplussed, as if this were just some normal ordinary occurrence. We kept loading the wire, and I kept a wary eye on the zombies waiting for any indication they would make their move. It didn’t happen.
Ben asked me what they were doing as we closed up the rear of the trailer. I wanted to scream at him, ‘How the hell would I know, do I look like a fucking zombie expert you dumb hillbilly illiterate turd!!’ Instead civility got the better of me, and I shrugged. “Hell if I know,” I told him instead.
