I ignored his barb and continued, “I was only trying to make sure we were prepared for what’s coming. Jed, I’m going to pack my family up and get going. Those of you that want to are more than welcome to come along.”

“Good riddance Talbot, we don’t need your kind here anyway,” Wilbur snorted. Tinkle nodded, agreeing.

Alex looked away. “I’d like to come, Mike, but it feels safe here.”

“I understand Alex, you have to look out for your family. Good luck my friend,” I said honestly.

“Now hold on,” Carl said, standing up. I didn’t know what his relationship to Wilbur was, but Wilbur immediately deferred to the older man. It was later that I learned Wilbur was Carl’s son-in-law and Carl couldn’t stand him. Wish I had known that then. “Now I’m not in total agreement with Talbot.”

‘Great,’ I thought. ‘Jump on the ‘beat Talbot’ bandwagon.’

“But those zombies were acting peculiar, and I’ve also been thinking a bit on what I witnessed. I won’t stand here and pretend to know what’s going on but if those things are coming and in the vast numbers that showed at the armory, we’re in a world of hurt. Now I have no intention of leaving and I don’t think Talbot should either.” Wilbur was not pleased. “But I do think we should roust the populace, such as it is, and begin to buttress up some of our weaker points.”

“Thanks Carl,” I said earnestly.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Carl answered.

“I still love you man,” I said smiling.

Jed finally spoke up. “You better be careful Carl, he seems to like older men.”

Wilbur did not like being thwarted this close to the goal line but he respectfully kept quiet the remainder of the meeting.

With a newfound vigor and hope I pushed on. “Alex, you’re the engineer, how much stress can those walls take?”

Alex looked confused. “I don’t think I’m understanding the question Mike. More than likely the wall would stop a regular sized car traveling no more than 30 or 40 miles per hour. A full tractor trailer however would probably punch right through.”

“No, no I’m talking much smaller, like zombie-sized,” I said.

“I don’t think the zombies possess super human strength, if that’s what you mean,” Alex said.

“I’m sorry Alex, I need to be clearer. I have a hundred things running around in my head and they’re all fighting to come out at the same time. I’m talking about thousands of zombies all pressing up against the wall, could it hold?”

“Oh crap, I hadn’t thought about that. I mean it’s only cinder block and cement. There isn’t any rebar in it at all. There are stanchions every twenty feet, those would hold because they’re anchored but no, if you put it that way, the walls are extremely vulnerable, the zombies could push over entire sections with that much force.”

Wilbur’s fat face recoiled; it shouldn’t have made me happy but it did.

Jed spoke. “Well, if the walls are not safe then none of the gates are either. I reckon they could push that RV out of the way a whole helluva lot easier than taking out the wall.’

“Now you’re seeing my point,” I said triumphantly.

I could almost see the gears in Alex’s head churning. He quickly started reciting his grocery list of desired items to begin the fortification.

Jed wanted to talk a little more after the meeting broke up. I so wanted to. The thought of idly chitchatting small talk about zombies seemed unbelievably more desirable that returning to the horrendous reality that awaited me at home. But a father’s responsibility is to his family in times of need, and I would not break that cycle. The cold air did little to invigorate me as I slowly marched home.

Justin was out of the tub and laid out on the futon in my office. Again it was a crowded venue. He looked worse huddled under the blankets. The best word I could use to describe him was diminished. Tracy was still diligently at his side.

“Everyone out,” I choked.

Everyone seemed to be lost a little too deep in their own thoughts to even recognize that someone had spoke aloud.

I spoke a little louder. “Everyone out, NOW!” I punctuated my command by slamming my hand against the wall. That got their attention. Paul placed his hands on Erin’s shoulders and helped her up. They were immediately followed out by Brendon, Travis and Tommy. Only Tracy and Nicole remained. Nicole was wrapped up in her mother’s arms.

“I’m not leaving him,” Tracy said matter-of-factly, never looking up at me. “You just want to shoot him,” she said again in that assured tone.

I shook inside.

“Tracy,” I said as I tried to wrap my arms around her, but she angrily shrugged me away.

“You can’t shoot him,” she pleaded, this time looking me directly in the eyes. MY heart crashed to the floor and was immediately stepped on by a hippo. I couldn’t answer her. What words could possibly justify my actions in the next few minutes?

“Nicole, please get your mother to bed,” I asked.

And for the first time in Nicole’s life she did something I asked of her without putting up an argument. This was not when I wanted this new trend to start. I needed something or somebody to help me off this insane tilt-a-whirl. I could hear Tracy’s sobs retreating in the hallway as I shut and locked the door to my office. Justin was blissfully ignorant of all the mad happenings going on around him. I pulled my Glock 9mm out of my shoulder harness. Tears immediately welled up in my eyes. I wanted to get this over in the worst way, even more so than when I was 11 and had to do an oral book report in front of my class. In those days I had crippling stage fright and would dread for weeks the coming of the fated day. That was nothing in comparison.

What could a few moments more with my son harm, as I sat down in my office chair five feet away. I sat and stared at his puffed face the entire night and into early dawn. I was playing back in my head all the fun and not so fun times we as the Talbot family had enjoyed and endured through the years. As the sun began its slow fateful journey across the horizon I was no closer to the final judgment than I had been when I kicked everyone out. I had long ago put the Glock on my desk, fearing I might accidentally shoot myself in the leg if I were to fall asleep and then jerk awake. As tired as I was though, sleep had eluded me.

Justin opened his eyes and looked over at me. Did he see his father or a tasty early morning treat? His face looked less swollen but his eyes appeared to be even further sunken. How was that possible? His mouth opened, long lines of filament thin spittle spread from roof to floor of his mouth. Without taking my eyes off him I reached out blindly to the Glock I had laid down hours earlier. Oh God, why hadn’t I done this when his eyes were closed. He still so much looked like the son I had taught to throw a baseball so many years previous. Tears filled my eyes as my hand closed around the cold indifferent composite material of my Glock 26. His features became distorted in my glistened visage. That was for the best, I thought. I could tell he was sitting up. My hands shook. Some sort of noise emanated from him. It was more something I would expect to hear from a frog on a marshy wetland, on a hot summer night. Nothing human could make that sound. My heart caught in my throat. I was fearful of passing out from lack of oxygen. I wanted to turn the gun on myself rather than ever take the life of one of my own, and I would have deserved it. I had fundamentally failed. A father’s primary mission after procreation, is protection. I HAD FAILED! The price for failure should be death, but if I killed myself I left this task to someone else while also putting everyone else at risk. I would only be compounding my errors on top of my cowardice. I was still in the midst of berating myself when Justin managed to croak out some words.

“I’m so hungry I could eat….”

My mind went into overdrive as I begged the gods that he wouldn’t finish that sentence with ‘brains.’

“… Mom’s meat loaf,” he concluded.

And then I rushed over and hugged him for all he was worth. Not even a desperate zombie would be prepared to eat Tracy’s meat loaf. I wailed in his arms. I should have been the one comforting him but I found solace in his embrace. Tracy must have at some point in the night wandered back into the hallway because she flew into the room like a mom on a mission. How had she gotten through the lock? When she saw that her son was still alive and not chewing on his father’s face she joined in the embrace. I still had the Glock in my hand, when I finally put it down, it felt dirty. I couldn’t get rid of it quick enough. Within moments the room was once again filled to the brim, only this was a much more merry occasion. We probably could have restocked our water supply with the faucet works going on. I was wrung out when I finally disengaged myself from the fray. My face was puffed out like I had been stung by a hive of pissed off bees. Although that doesn’t make any sense, I mean if a bee stings you then by nature he’s pissed off right? Like I said, I was wrung out. I left the array of family and friends tending to Justin’s needs. I staggered to my room and fell face first onto my pillow. I won’t lie and say I fell asleep before I made contact. I was, however, unconscious before I was able to register the pain of drilling my nose into my ultrathin pillow.

CHAPTER 16

Journal Entry - 14

I awoke about ten hours later, more so because of the overwhelming thirst that had even permeated my dreams than from the loud incessant snoring next to me. Now don’t get me wrong, after twenty-something years of marriage this wouldn’t be the first time Tracy had sawed a log, but it was usually few and far between and usually related to a cold or allergy. This sounded like Paul Bunyan was going for the world record in tree felling. I reached out my hand to gently shake her when I was mildly surprised to make contact with fur. I couldn’t figure out which amazed me more, the fact that a 65-pound dog that didn’t stand more than a foot tall could somehow jump onto my king-size bed or that the impact of his landing hadn’t woken me up. Henry sneezed in my face for my effort. Not the ideal way to be awoken and I let him know as I pinched his face gently. Henry again sneezed but I was already on the move. He bounded down off the bed next to me as I groped for the doorknob, doing my best not to wake Tracy. Henry’s stub of a tail began to rapidly sway at the offer of a cookie. That is, if he stayed awake long enough to get downstairs with me to retrieve it. The house was quiet, not the preternatural quiet before a loud escalating disruption, but one of peace. It made for a nice change. Henry silently padded alongside me as I went down the stairs and to the kitchen, him for his cookie, me for a drink of water. Henry seemed nonplussed as I turned the kitchen light on to find Paul at the table working on what appeared to be his seventh or eighth beer. He startled the hell out of me. Henry was upset about how long it was taking to get his proffered biscuit.

Paul looked liked shit, but what was much more disturbing was how fast he was going through my rapidly diminishing beer supply. Paul offered me one of my own beers. ‘What the hell, it’s mostly water,’ I thought as I said my thanks and sat down at the table with him. Henry barked indignantly. Oops, I got up and got him his cookie; he was asleep before he finished it. Half the biscuit fell to the floor as his head drooped and his body followed suit.

“Too tired to eat, Henry?” I laughed. “That’s a new low even for you.” Paul took no notice. I sat back down with him.

“Dude, I am so sorry,” he half sobbed. I wanted to simultaneously kick his ass, hug him, tell him everything was all right and tell him he was an idiot. If I could have somehow pulled all that off I would have. Instead I kept quiet, taking a long pull from my beer. He wasn’t finished talking, and I wasn’t finished listening.

“Man, I knew something was going on when I stopped for gas on the way home from work. I was just about to start pumping my gas when I saw what I thought was a homeless guy heading my way. All I could think was that this guy was ‘effed’ up, I mean he was staggering and even from twenty feet away he reeked. I was like ‘hurry up and accept my credit card already.’ I didn’t want the guy to come up and ask for change. If his breath was anything like his body odor I would have puked. So the guy is still stumbling my way and the pump finally authorizes my card but I said ‘screw it’ and hopped into my car to get away from him. I didn’t even care if the next guy to get gas used my card, that’s how spooked this guy had me. I was so happy to be done with him, I figured as soon as I shut my door he would veer off and go bother someone else, but he didn’t. He walked straight into my door. I was about to get out and give him a tongue-lashing but I…I couldn’t get out of the car. This hobo bum, 120 pounds soaking wet, scared the crap out of me. Something wasn’t right about him. He never asked for change, he just kept looking me in the eye. His mouth was moving but no words were coming out. And his…his skin, I couldn’t tell if it was from the twilight or the crappy lighting at the gas station, but his skin looked blue and streaked with veins. His eyes looked like every capillary in them had burst at the same time. I couldn’t get my keys in the ignition fast enough.

When I finally sped away he started walking the way I had gone, like he was going to follow me. I was still shaking when I got to the house. Erin was in the shower and I had time to collect my nerves and get some liquid courage (cognac) in me. By the time Erin had got out of the bathroom, dried off and changed, it all seemed like a bad nightmare that was rapidly diminishing from my memory. You know we don’t have a television in the house.” (I so wanted to stop him there and ask him how in the hell that was possible, hadn’t he ever heard of ESPN? How do you not have a TV in this day and age, that’s like a stone age man not having a cave. It’s just not natural, but again this didn’t seem the appropriate time to interject.) “So we didn’t get any news reports. We were just sitting in the living room talking about the day and listening to one of my CD’s, when I heard this thud.” (I knew that thud.) “It wasn’t at the front door, it was at the living room window. So I’m figuring it’s some bird that smashed into the window, but how stupid does the bird have to be to smash into a shade drawn window? I guess that’s why they call people bird-brained.” He strained a small laugh through his teeth.

“It wasn’t a bird though,” I finished for him. The memory was traumatic for him and he was having difficulty relating it.

“No,” he choked out. “It was the guy/thing from the gas station and he was holding what was left of Rebel.” Rebel was Paul and Erin’s beagle, about as mellow a dog as ever lived, quick to wag a tail and give a lick. I felt bad for his loss. “I could hear Erin screaming behind me as she was looking at the same thing I was. At first I wasn’t sure what he was holding. It was just a jumble of fur, splintered bone and blood. It could have been anything, I guess,” he sobbed. After a few minutes he continued. “I had just let him out. He...he was adamant about going outside. I thought he really had to pee, so I let him out. Even with Erin screaming and the horror of what that thing was holding began to dawn on me I was still with it enough to notice there were about six or seven more things rummaging around in my yard. My blood was boiling, I wanted to go out and start swinging a bat at these people to get out of my yard, and then Gas Station Guy took a big sinewy bite out of Rebel’s back, he was eating Reb like he was a corn on the cob.” Paul stopped and sobbed for a moment, then gathered himself together to finish his story. “Dude I FUCKEN heard him crunching Reb’s spine, he pulled strands of fluid away from Reb’s back. My blood froze. I pulled the shade so hard I ripped it off its moorings. Gas Station Guy was looking right at me. Erin had gone to get her gun. She came running back into the living room waving the thing wildly around like the thing was on fire and she was trying to put it out. I turned to grab her gun hand before she put a bullet in my ass. She was sobbing about how she had to save Rebel. That train had already left the station minutes earlier. Dude, I couldn’t think of what to do. I was shaking like a leaf in a gale. I turned off all the lights on the main floor and half dragged Erin upstairs. I was able to finally let her arm go when I realized in her haste she hadn’t even put a clip in the damn thing. So for about half an hour we’re up on our bed in the dark just holding each other. Every couple of minutes I start thinking to myself that we need to get out of here, we need to go be with Mike.” At this point he looked up at me and gave me an anemic smile. “But dude, every time I thought of leaving, my next thought was of opening the door to the Gas Station Man. Staying at the house seemed like a much better and much easier thing to do,” he admitted reluctantly. “After a while the thudding on the house got more and more frequent, it was to the point where the house was vibrating from the impacts. By the time the glass started breaking downstairs it was way too late to leave. I grabbed Erin and pulled the attic stairs down and that’s where we’ve been since I called.”

That was news to me. “You called?”