Within seconds gunfire erupted from the upstairs windows as Justin, Travis and Brendon opened fire, widening a hole for me that I could have driven a truck through. I would have liked to have sauntered up to the front door like I was John Wayne, but I was scared shitless. Tracy had opened the front door and the security door and was yelling at me to hurry up.

“Are you kidding me?” I yelled back with what breath I had left. “What makes you think I need any incentive?”

Paul had stepped onto the front stoop and was covering my entrance. I dove through the front door like the hounds of hell were on my heels. The move was unnecessary; there wasn’t a zombie within fifteen feet of me. I stood up, dusted myself off and tried to act as nonchalant as possible. Tracy calmly locked the security door, not having any of the jitters she had experienced the last time she faced zombies in her yard.

The front door slammed shut just as the boys finished their barrage from above. In the ensuing quiet I heard the roar of the semi as the engine turned over. Someone was making a run for it. I silently wished them good luck and was despondent that I wouldn’t have the chance to get my family on that rig.

“Dude, it’s good to see you,” Paul said enthusiastically.

“You and me both, brother,” I said as I hugged him.

The boys made their way noisily down the stairs to greet me.

“Thank you boys,” I said as I grabbed Tracy and gave her a hug. She uncharacteristically hugged me back.

“Did you escape?” Travis asked.

I disengaged from Tracy, happy to be home. “No, Jed let me out.” I caught them up quickly about what I had been doing, although there wasn’t much to say. I had been sleeping for most of it. Travis told me about the Molotov cocktails.

“Yeah that didn’t work out so well,” I said. Tracy looked at me quizzically. “That must be why some of the townhomes are on fire.”

Now her expression turned to one of alarm.

“Boys, go back upstairs, make sure that no burning zombies get within fifty feet of our row of houses.”

Tommy came up from the basement. “Hey Mrs. T, all the water is upstairs now.” He grinned one of his signature smiles and waved enthusiastically at me. “Hey Mr. T,” and then followed the other boys upstairs.

“Well that wasn’t much of greeting,” I mused.

“He knew you were coming,” Tracy said matter-of-factly. “He’s the reason I had the boys at the windows looking for you. I don’t know if I would have thought to do that. I was pretty much in panic mode.”

“Ryan?” I asked, wondering if it had been Tommy’s spiritual guide that wrapped itself in the guise of television celebrity Ryan Seacrest.

“No,” Tracy said shaking her head. “Bear.”

I looked at her confused.

She shrugged. “Don’t look at me, Tommy said Bear could smell you coming.”

I knew I reeked a little bit, but there was no way that dog could pick my mellow funk out over all the odiferous odors that were pervading our atmosphere at the moment. I was going to let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak. With Tommy there was a good chance I’d never understand what was happening. All I knew was the big lovable kid was a Godsend to have around.

“What now, Talbot?” Tracy asked me. She was starting to get that look of defeatism that I had last seen Jed wearing.

“It’s not over yet, Hon,” I countered to her gloomy outlook. “We’re all safe, we have enough food and water to last three months or so.” I hoped that was enough to raise her attitude. She gave a dispirited nod of the head, apparently not.

“And then? You saw them Mike. They won’t leave. They have all the time in the world.

“I have a plan,” I said. That noticeably improved her outlook.

Unfortunately that was lie, not an out and out lie, more like a stretching of the truth. I had the outline of a plan, more of a plan per se. And it wasn’t so much a plan as an unformulated idea. In reality it was a last ditch effort which I put our odds of pulling off at a 1 in 3 chance and by 3, I mean 99.

“I don’t believe you,” Tracy said, but she hugged me fiercely. “But I love you for that lie.”

That was a first. I had never had a woman ever, EVER thank me for lying to her. Chalk one up for the good guys!

It snowed that night, if not for our locale I would have called it a Nor’easter like back home in Boston. The snow thankfully blanketed out the few remaining zombies who were still human roman candles, and it also had the added benefit of muffling the screams of the few remaining Little Turtle inhabitants. There were still some holdouts yelling out of their windows looking for anyone else that might be alive, but I didn’t see the advantage in yelling back to them. They couldn’t get to us and we couldn’t get to them. All it could possibly do was bring further attention to us. Once the fire danger had ebbed, I had everyone in the house help with covering the doors and windows with plastic. Mostly it was trash bags but I also had some of that shrink-wrap film that is supposed to help with energy costs. The power had stopped about an hour after the zombies had broke through. I wanted to be able to preserve as much heat in our house as possible and I also was hoping the plastic would keep the smell of us away from the zombies. Did it work? I don’t know, that had mixed results, they weren’t rushing the house but they weren’t leaving either. My thought was that they still had the memory of us being here. I know it sounds crazy, but these also weren’t the mindless zombies we’d watched in the movies either, they had rudimentary skills.

We spent most of the next day in my office, which had been converted into Nicole and Brendon’s sleeping quarters. The window had been covered with a green trash bag and no light seeped in. This also had the added benefit of not letting any light seep out. So between me, Tracy, Nicole, Brendon, Justin, Travis, Tommy, Paul, Erin, Henry, Bear and half a dozen candles the room was toasty and downright stinky. Henry was ripping farts like there was no tomorrow. Maybe he knew something we didn’t. Even Bear was doing his best to keep his nose under the covers and away from the odoriferousness that emanated from Henry. Henry seemed blissfully ignorant of the whole affair as he slumbered through our protests. A couple of times I was fearful the natural gas would blaze and we’d have a blue fireball spiraling through the room. I was considering sleep, there wasn’t much else to do, when Erin started to talk.

“Do you think they can starve?” she asked out loud, to nobody in particular and anyone who might be willing to answer.

I had been thinking about this but hadn’t had enough time to just sit and contemplate until now, at least. Nearly everyone in the room had been either dozing or in the process of doing so, but when I answered Erin, eyes began to open. I had a captive audience. What can I say.

“I think, now this is just my opinion,” I clarified. Erin nodded. “I think they are alive, they are not the living dead like we think they are. Whatever has these people acting the way they are, whether it’s a virus or a germ, a parasite or a damn alien, they are alive. I haven’t seen any zombies that looked like they clawed their way up through a grave. And judging by the stains in most of the zombies’ pants they still have their digestive processes going on.” Nobody, and I mean nobody wanted clarification on what was being digested, that was to remain unspoken.

“Dad, what about the wounds some of them have?” Nicole asked. “I mean I’ve seen some of them with their chests blown open and half their faces missing.” She shuddered.

“I’m not gonna B.S. you, Nicole, I don’t have all the answers, but the human brain is a powerful thing. Somehow it is rerouting all function up to it. I mean, how it can keep circulating blood with a damaged heart or keep someone from bleeding out with a blown off leg, no clue. It might be that these zombies are using way more brain function than we can even understand.” This comment got me more than one upraised eyebrow. “Okay, okay, tough room. I’m obviously not saying smarter, except for maybe Paul.” That got some laughs, which I was happy for, those had been scarce. Paul flipped me the finger. “I guess this brings me back to Erin’s original question, can they starve? Yeah, I think they can.” I finished the rest of my thought quickly before anyone could have their hopes raised too high. “But I also think it would take months for them to show any ill effects.” I thought they could go for years but I had already run over everyone’s hopes. I didn’t see the need to back up and finish the job.

“Dad, we don’t have that much food,” Nicole had only said out loud what was on every one’s mind.

“The zombies should be gone long before our food is gone,” I said confidently, hoping it was true.

What I was leaving unsaid was much more potent than what I had said. Before the zombies left they would have to completely deplete their food source. Now, this wasn’t some wild grass in the savannah, these were our neighbors and friends. It was not a bright moment in the Talbot household. I feigned sleep so I could turn my head. I didn’t want anyone to see my face as I wept silently for those I would never see again. For my mom and dad, my three brothers and sister, for the friends I loved, and even the ones I had fallen out of touch with hoping one day to reconnect. Hell, if given the time, I’d weep for the Barista who made my coffee every morning. I was so tired of this shit. My stress level was through the roof. I couldn’t even conceive of how I was going to keep everyone in this room safe, but the responsibility rested on my shoulders. I had fallen asleep sometime during my moments of doubt and shame. As I stirred awake, I had not a clue what time it was. Someone had blown out the majority of candles and the room was nearly coal black. I surveyed the jumbles and bunches of bodies that lay in every conceivable position. My gaze came to rest on two eyes that shone with a light of their own. I thought that possibly I hadn’t fully awaken and I was in the midst of lucid dreaming, but Henry’s flatulence erased any of that notion, unless of course I had received the special ability to smell in my dreams now. The eyes bore into mine. Searching through my mind, they found that worm of doubt that was wriggling around dementedly, and like a boot to a cockroach squashed it out. Tommy laid his head back down. I was released from my trance. I wanted to thank him for what he’d done but I wasn’t sure if he even knew.

I had always been a spiritual person and believed in the Yin and the Yang. There must always be a balance in the world. Love balances out hate, peace balances out war and in my mind, Tommy balanced out the zombies. Had he been this gifted before this shit storm began raining down on us? Probably not. Thank God for Wal-Mart and their affirmative action hiring processes. I disengaged myself from my sleeping bag, doing my best not to disturb the four or five people that were between me and the exit. This was worse than having a window seat on a jumbo jet. After stepping on a few body parts and receiving some rather colorful protests I made it to the door and to my ultimate goal of the bathroom.

There were times, especially recently, where I missed my youth. My carefree days in my late teens and early twenties, when the world was maybe not my oyster but definitely was my playground, when I didn’t yet know the next girl I was going to kiss. Responsibilities were someone else’s concerns. Then I would come back to the life and love I shared with my wife and kids, the unconditional love I felt for all of them, even stinky Henry. And I remembered that getting older was not necessarily a bad thing. I am telling you this because I just want to give you a glimpse of how my brain works. I wasn’t really reminiscing on the past so much as reveling in the present. My actual happy thought came from the fact that I was not a couple of years older with an enlarged prostate. All I could keep thinking was how much of a pain in the ass it would be to have to get out of that room four or five times a night to piss. Yeah, welcome to my world.

CHAPTER 25

Journal Entry - 22

The air temperature in the hallway dropped a good twenty degrees. I had almost forgotten why I was even out here when my bladder gave me a refresher. I finished my business and was reluctant to head back into the sauna. Between Tommy and the chilled air I was feeling invigorated, maybe not enough to go on an early morning jog but enough to do a circuit around the house. I had made it downstairs and into relative safety, or so I had thought. I let one rip that Henry would be proud of, then laughed to myself.

“God, I’ve been holding that beauty for two hours.”

“Hey Dad.”

Busted, dammit! “Hey Trav,” I said. My first inclination was to go on the offensive, ask him why he was down here. It would have all been a ruse to hide my embarrassment at getting nailed. Eh, what was the point. The smell alone should be punishment enough. I was quick to leave the room, so was Travis.

I went to the fridge and poured a glass of milk. I wanted to go through the perishables before they went bad. “Want some?” I asked Travis before I put it away.

He shook his head no, that was of course until he saw my secret stash of white fudge covered Oreos. We sat in silence for a few moments, relishing in the moment. Cold milk and Oreos, father and son, it could have been a commercial except for maybe the darkness and the threat of being eaten alive. Yeah, Nabisco probably wouldn’t be knocking on our door anytime soon. I sat back, my stomach content, hands on my belly. Travis looked over at me in alarm.

“You’re not gonna rip again are you?” he asked genuine concern across his face.

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The last time I had been that busted, my mother had walked in on me just after the newest National Geographic had arrived. There was no such thing as the Internet back then! I was 13. Stop being judgmental.