Zombie Fallout 9 (4 page)

“She's getting better; she's been practicing.”

“A spider can practice looking cuddly its entire life; still not going to change anything. I can't believe you're trying to kill me.”

“Who's trying to kill you?” My sister came out onto the porch. She carried a muffin tin. Flour streaked the side of her face and doused her hair. A burn mark was on the back of her hand and what looked like blueberry pulp hung out of her right ear. “Want a muffin?” she asked.

“Already ate one! Thank you so much.” I stood, hoping to shield her from the one I'd tossed.

She smiled and went back in. I stayed an hour longer only because I wanted to see if the birds, any bird, a single bird, would take that fucking thing off the yard. A squirrel had come up to it and sniffed before quickly making his way away. “He's probably freaked out realizing he was so close to death.”

Tracy swatted my arm.

“I think I'm going to get some sleep,” I told her as I stood, popped my back, leaned over, and gave her a kiss.

Her hand touched mine; our eyes locked. “It's going to get better.”

I believed that she believed it, and that was good enough for now.

I walked into the living room, stretched again, heard something shift around in my back, and started walking to the stairs. The radio that Ron had used to keep in communication with us was still on the living room table as it crackled to life.

Loud static fizzed throughout the space before a woman's voice came through. “…please help … is any … please.”

I stared at it as if it were an apparition. I tried to convince myself that I had already gone upstairs and fallen asleep, because there was no fucking way Jen could be talking through that radio.

“
W
hoa
.” Trip said as he came into the room. He reached out, looking like he was grasping at floating dust bunnies. “Is this one in my head too, or can you hear it?” he asked.

Now normally, it's great to have what you think might be a hallucination validated, but this time I had to consider the source. “You hear that? Or you heard that?” At that very moment, the radio had gone silent.

“Yeah, man. Sounded like someone was having a rough time with their peas. I don't blame them, I mean in a world filled with Frito's, who wants peas.”

“Not peas, Trip. They were saying please.”

“Oh!” he said excitedly. Then more softly. “That makes more sense.”

Mad Jack came bolting in from somewhere. Whatever he'd been doing, he'd been working hard at it because he was covered in sweat. “Did anything come over this radio?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yeah a woman just talked. What did you do?”

“Put a box with some new circuitry up on the roof so we could extend and clarify the send and receive signal.”

“Like how much range are we talking?” I asked, wondering if he'd somehow penetrated the Pearly Gates.

“Well theoretically, this radio can communicate around the globe, but whoever is sending a message is using something a lot less powerful.”

“Did you know someone was out there?” I moved closer to the radio, reluctant to touch something that I thought was now directly linked to the heavens. Who knows? Something like that being touched by someone like me could result in some serious third-degree burns or something worse.

Mad Jack seemed to be getting perturbed with me peppering him with questions while he messed with the dials, pulled off the back of the radio, and then did some techno-wizardry back there. The smell of cooking solder was strong.

“Shouldn't you have maybe shut that off first?” I asked, backing away. The experiments of his that tended to go awry did so quickly and with explosive results.

“I'm an engineer. I think I can handle this.”

I swear to God his next words were “Uh oh.” I backed up further.

“That's what happens when you start listening in on God.” I told him.

He looked up at me like countless others before him had, basically like I'd lost my fucking gourd.

There was a puff of bluish smoke from the back, and then he got back to his work, furiously creating a miniature atom bomb or perhaps wormhole. Who can tell?

“I thought you were going to get some sleep.” Tracy had come in.

I pointed to the radio. “Heard someone over the radio.” That in and of itself was big news, considering the last voice heard over it was mine.

“You don't look so good,” she said, coming closer. I waved her off and pointed to MJ. She got the point and waited for me to come closer to her.

“I know it can't be, but I swear I heard Jen.”

Tracy paused. “Maybe you should have gone to sleep earlier.”

“Probably.”

The radio came back to life in fits of static and bursts of light. “…I'm trapped, zombies everywhere, need help! Can … hear … please.”

MJ seemed too busy with whatever the hell he was working on to respond, so I ran to the microphone.

“Hello! Hello! Can you hear me!?”

“…hear you … help!”

I was getting every second or third word.

“Where are you?”

“…reservoir…” The radio cut out like the plug had been pulled.

I stared at the mic. “Get her back, MJ.”

“I'm trying, I'm trying.” Heavy beads of sweat had broken out across his brow.

“It certainly sounded a lot like her, but you know it wasn't though, right?” She looked deeply into my eyes to make sure I'd not slipped and fallen; we all know to where.

“I know. It just kind of floored me is all. Doesn't change the fact that there's someone out there who needs our help.”

“I'm sure there are thousands of people out there who could use our help. We don't have the resources to help them all, Mike.”

“I know that. I'm going to start packing some gear.”

“And do what? To go where?” she asked.

“She said reservoir clear as day.”

“I'm sure there's what? Only one, maybe two, reservoirs in the entire world?”

“She needs our help. Maybe it isn't Jen. Okay, I know it isn't Jen,” I amended when she threatened to smack me. “Maybe this is my chance for redemption.”

“It's not your fault she died, Mike.”

“Part of me knows that; another part harbors deep guilt. If I had just reached out a fraction of an inch more.”

“You cannot beat yourself up about everything that has gone wrong. You have done all you could each and every time. I already see your argument. I don't want to hear that crap about your best not being good enough.”

Sometimes she made me feel like an open book, and she didn't even have to read it. Like I was being narrated by some incredibly talented narrator with the ability to hit all of my inflections and quirkiness.

Another puff of blue smoke arose from MJ's workstation. He looked up at me with an expression that resembled something one might display when they have a moderate case of diarrhea and just had an accident. The lights on the radio face dimmed and went out. Seemed like a good time to take my leave before Tracy rooted around anymore in my closet and found some old, haunting demons lurking in there.

“I'm going to get some sleep.”

She seemed slightly confused that I had yielded so quickly, like I had an alternate plan up my sleeve or something.

“Well, okay, you get some sleep then.”

I kissed her on her furrowed forehead before heading up.

A
s plagued
as my waking thoughts were with failure and ruin and the potential for disaster, my subconscious seemed to give me the day off. I dreamed I was a kid and I was flying much like superman. The sky was a purple hue, and the grass below had a distinctive blue tint, yet the flying me did not see this as unusual at all. I enjoyed the splendor of it and the wonder of flight. I suppose Freud or someone like that would tell me I was expressing my desire to be free from the yoke of this new life, or maybe a cigar is just a cigar. All of my dreams revolved around the nonsensical, and more importantly, non-threatening. When I awoke some hours later, it was dark, and I felt surprisingly good for the first time in days.

Tracy was not beside me. The moon was bright enough that I could tell she was not in the room. Either she couldn't sleep or it wasn't necessarily that late. I went downstairs. Nearly everyone sat at the dining room table. Their conversation was hushed, at least until they discovered that I was present, then it just stopped abruptly.

“Yeah that's not suspicious.” I said to the myriad guilty looking glances. “What's going on?”

“Mad Jack got the radio working again.” It was difficult to gauge Tracy's reaction to this. I sensed more that she was pissed about it. Then she just stared at me along with everyone else.

“Can we maybe pretend I just got up from an extended nap and have absolutely no idea what the fuck is going on here?”

Tracy sighed. “It wasn't Jen you heard, but there's a reason it sounded familiar.”

Before I even had a reason, shots of adrenaline started pouring forth from my adrenal glands.

“It was Erin.” Before I could ask all the particulars, she filled the rest in. “She's at the Quabbin reservoir along with a small group of survivors. They're out of food, they have limited ammunition, and they are surrounded by zombies.”

I was too surprised to do anything, even to say anything. My best friend's wife, who had walked out into a cold and wintry night, was alive and some three hundred and something miles away. What was my response supposed to be? She'd left us; she'd willingly put herself in harm's way. Was I supposed to risk everything
again
to save her? Justin had suffered the worst of it, and perhaps he still was. She'd chosen her path; I owed her nothing.

“Sucks for her.” With that, I went out to the deck. Tracy joined me soon enough, after some soft murmuring from the living room.

“That's it? No call to arms? No rallying of the troops?”

“Should there be?”

“I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe for you to care.”

“Don't spin this on me. What would you be saying to me if I told you I was going to get her? We both know you'd be digging your heels in and telling me in absolute terms ‘no.' Now that I have no intention of going, you're going to give me a hard time about it?”

“You're right. I would be telling you to stay. Most likely you wouldn't. But this, this is scarier, Mike. You not caring.”

“Oh, I care.” I spun on her. “I care enough that I'm not going to risk anybody who wants to stay with us on someone who chose not to.”

“She's pregnant.”

The bottom fell out on me like my ass was on a large hinge and it popped open and everything in me just fell to the floor.

“And before you can ask, yes it's Paul's.”

My dead best friend's wife was pregnant with his legacy. I leaned far enough down I could place my forehead against the deck railing. “I have to go.” I sighed.

“I know.”

“That's it? You're not going to stop me?”

“Do you want me to?”

I stood up. “The Quabbin isn't that far. I could be there and back in a day.” That was a lie. Even back in the day, it was a seven-hour drive to the reservoir that contained the water for the city of Boston. And after seven hours of driving, I'd be spent, not able to immediately make the return trip. But there was still the small matter of rescuing her from whatever she'd gotten herself into.

“Go get her, Mike, and be safe.”

“You're not coming with me?”

“Your daughter needs me; her pregnancy has been difficult. Besides, you'll be back tomorrow, right?”

I lied, “Of course.”

I went back into the house to start getting some things together.

“Where you going?” BT asked.

“Was thinking of going to the store and getting a pack of smokes.”

“Great, I'll come with you.”

“BT, you don't have to.”

“Oh, so you're just going to smoke them all up yourself?”

“Someone say smoke?” Trip asked.

“Thanks, man,” I told him. “Ron, I'm going to need a truck.”

“No fucking way, baby brother. I've seen tornados with less destructive power. If you want one of my vehicles, I'm driving it.” This was a shock to everyone including myself and Nancy.

“What do you think you're doing?” his wife asked.

“I'm being irresponsibly responsible,” he replied. “I will not have another car reduced to salvage. These aren't in an unlimited supply.”

I wanted to tell him that they kind of were; there were vast parking lots full of cars and trucks that would never be used again. Ripe for the taking. Ron had a funny way of looking at things though. If he hadn't earned it, he would not beg, borrow, or steal it. Fortunately, I had no such limiting compunction.

“Are you sure, Ron?” I wasn't sure how I felt about him joining. He was an untested quantity, at least out in the open. Plus, I feared he would start pulling that “big brother” card, like he would always know the best course of action.

He nodded.

Trip began to stand. BT placed a large hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. “You're staying here,” he told him in no uncertain terms.

I looked over to Tommy. “What about you?”

“I … I think I need to stay here.” With that, he left the room. That had kind of been Tommy those last few weeks. He said little as he traveled realms only he was aware of.

It was us three, and I was fine with that; we'd be more nimble: quick in, quick out. That was the plan. And right now, that was about as in-depth as it got. Actually, pretty good for me. Within an hour, we had all we thought we'd need. We spent the next ten minutes saying our goodbyes. And just like that, we were on the road, though this time Ron drove.

“You just let me know when you're tired, and I'll take over,” I told him.

Ron raised a thermos the size of a traditional pitcher. “Full of coffee, I should be able to stay awake this entire trip.”

“Praise be to Jesus,” BT said, and not in mockery. He meant it.

We drove in relative silence. There was a little small talk, but we're like most guys—we don't tend to have a lot to say, and now that major league level sports were no longer played, we didn't even have that on the table. There was still the weather, I suppose.

“The Quabbin is pretty huge, Mike. Any idea what to do when we get there?” Ron asked.

“You guys are the ones that heard her call. Didn't she tell you anything else? Not that it's really going to be all that hard to find her.”

“How can you say that?” Ron asked. BT got it right away.

“The zombies, it's going to be hard to miss them,” he said.

“Right.”

“You all right, Ron? You look a little green.” I laughed.

We made it through the entire state of Maine without seeing a soul. I've heard of ghost towns, never a whole fucking state though. As we passed Portland, the only things we saw moving were small groups of zombies out on patrol. They turned and followed for a bit before they realized we were a meal out of their grasp, and then went back foraging for whatever was left. There had to be holdouts there, or why would the zombies bother? And what could we do about it? I watched the wasteland pass by. It was stranger than I could have ever imagined to be traveling through the end of times. I'd read tons of science fiction and apocalyptic horror when I was younger, always fantasized about a world with little to no people in it. Sounded glorious back then. What a fool I was. As much as people could suck, it was so much better than this.

Some people were good, some were bad, but most of us had varying degrees of both elements. Did I believe the earth itself would be better without us? Of course, we were a destructive parasite as far as the Great Mother was concerned. Most animals would also celebrate our passing. The lone holdouts being dogs and rats. Cats didn't give a shit about us when we were here; no reason to believe they would care now that we were gone. I don't want to wax poetic because I very rarely live in the past, and I'm definitely not a poet. The thought of no more music, no more movies, no more books, none of the marvels of man's imagination coming to fruition was damn depressing. Of course, that also meant no more weapons of mass or even minor destruction, no murder, no crimes against humanity, no greed and all the other less-than-fine qualities of our kind. Was the trade-off worth it?

We'd effectively taken ourselves out of the loop. We talked about super-volcanoes and meteor strikes being our undoing, but it really was a foregone conclusion that we were going to pull the trigger that would blow us away. We'd been trying for so long (and man wasn't predisposed to taking “no” for an answer) that he'd finally gotten his wish. I don't know what the tipping balance was that made a recovery for human population a possibility, but I had to figure we'd long ago crossed over to the other side. As far as I knew, zombies could survive for years without food, going into their stasis mode to preserve resources. Even if we started to repopulate, we would just activate the zombies again to repeat the cycle of devastation. We'd scratched a rut into the record, and it was just going to keep playing the same shitty little part of the tune before repeating. Yeah, that was my mindset as we traveled down the road. Then the truck began to slow.

“Something wrong?” I asked, first looking over to the instrument panel to see if the truck was breaking down. When I realized that wasn't the case, I checked the magazine on my rifle, pulled the charging handle back, and got ready.

“Relax, just some people on the other side of the road. Looks like they had car trouble,” Ron said as he put the hazards on, came to a full stop, and put us in park.

“Are you fucking insane?” I asked. I rolled down my window, ready to get my rifle up and target someone. I noticed that the driver had already gotten behind his car to use as a shield. “This isn't the morning commute anymore. They'll just as soon kill us and take our ride as say ‘hello.'”

“I think you're being a little dramatic.”

Dramatic had not even got out of his mouth when the first bullet came in our direction.

“Get out of the truck!” the driver shouted. “Or the next one is in your head.”

Ron reached for the door handle. “Duck the fuck down and get us out of here,” I hissed.

“He'll shoot me.”

“He'll shoot you anyway. Fucking do it, Ron. This is my world now.”

Ron placed the truck in drive and ducked down just as I brought my rifle up. I peppered their car with rounds, forcing the driver to dive for cover. Rounds were still coming our way, striking the truck with heavy metallic
thumps
. We were picking up speed, getting away from our potential way layers. The rear windshield exploded inward as one of the men ran out onto the highway to get a better angle. I put at least one, maybe two, rounds in his stomach for his efforts. He would die a slow, miserable death.

“Mike, you hit?” BT asked, alarmed. He'd turned to look at me. I put my hand up behind my ear. The bullet had grazed me right behind it, digging a groove into that bony protrusion. Now that I knew I'd been shot, it hurt like a motherfucker. That was the least of our problems as a funnel of steam shot up from the hood in a newly formed venting hole also supplied by our fellow highwaymen.

“Mike, I'm sorry!” Ron looked on the verge of panic.

“Looks like I'm not the only one that can fuck up a truck,” I said, trying to stem the flow of blood from my head.

“You are not going to do a ‘told you so' right now, are you man?” BT begged.

I shrugged. “Why not?” He's been giving me shit about his precious trucks now for a couple of months, and he destroys the one he's driving in under three hours. “Sorta feels like poetic justice.” It's been well documented I use sarcasm and humor as a way to temper the fear I'm feeling. It was not lost on me that Ron was on the verge of checking out. He'd just had his perceived notion of how the world worked knocked on its ass. It's one thing to think about how it is, it's completely another to live through it.

“You all right, man?” BT looked over to Ron.

“I'm the fucker that's shot,” I told him.