Zombie Fallout 9 (12 page)

The post office had turned into an even bigger boon than we'd initially realized. Behind an old series of sorting machines, which looked like they hadn't touched mail since World War II, was a door that looked like it could stop a charging rhino. That was strange enough. What was weirder was where it led. Should have known, but it was an old bomb shelter, replete with army bunks and metal furniture. It was easily four hundred square feet and could comfortably hold twenty or so people, at least for a little while. The door up top could lock as well as the one at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing short of a nuclear strike could take the place out. When I went topside, I went out to the street trying to figure out where it vented air from. I'd figure out later that there were exhaust pipes that went to the roof of the building. That wasn't my primary concern at the moment.

“Zombies!” I shouted, heading around the corner at a run. I wanted to beat them, and since they were already sprinting, it was going to be close.

Travis and Mark, Ron's son, were perched on the roof, and within a few seconds I received some much-needed aerial support. Stephanie had been pulling supplies out of the car and was standing with an armful of stuff when I grabbed her and pulled her inside. I quickly threw the lock and stepped back. Stephanie was still trying to figure out what was going on when the fastest zombie smacked into the door.

“Oh my.”

“Yeah definitely ‘oh my.'” I wasn't winded, but I felt like I should be. My heart rate was somewhere up in the two hundred beats a minute range. “You okay?”

“Yes, thank you.” She seemed like she was still trying to collect her thoughts from her fright. People were coming out to investigate while I went back into the sorting room where the maintenance ladder was adhered to the wall. It led directly to the roof, and that was where I was going.

I hadn't made it half way up when Travis poked his head down through the access door. “Going to need more ammunition and more guns.”

“How many?”

“Over a hundred.”

“Shit.” We hadn't encountered a group that big in a while. All of our recent activity must have disturbed a stasis hive nearby, and the problem now was the continuous loop we were about to start running. All the shooting would bring even more. In the next few days, we could easily be surrounded by a thousand or more of the beasts. “Hey sis, can you get on the horn and let Ron know we're in a bit of a mess here?”

To compound matters, I heard a blood-curdling scream I thought was going to freeze my heart. “Nicole?”

Tracy, Carol, and Nancy were escorting my daughter to a back office. “Going to need clean towels, Mike!” Tracy called back.

Zombie invasion punctuated by a birth; a strange day was indeed shaping up.

“Mike, come here.” It was my sister.

“Little busy, sis.”

She called out to her son. “Jesse, get Travis some ammo and get up there. Melissa, get your mom some towels! Mike, get over here!”

Well, since she got all my chores taken care of, it was the least I could do. She handed me the radio. I could hear gunfire in the background over the microphone. “This is Mike.”

“Mike, it's Ron. We're under attack.”

This was too coincidental. I almost dropped the receiver.

“Need you guys to get back here as soon as you can.”

“Lyn didn't tell you?”

“Tell me what, Mike? I don't have time for twenty questions.”

“We were about to call you for help. We're in a bit of a jam.”

There was silence from his end. “Shit” finally came through, like it always does, both literally and figuratively, during a war. “How bad?”

“Travis says about a hundred. I haven't got a chance to check yet, but we're firing, so I would imagine we're sending out invitations to everybody in the neighborhood. What's going on over there?”

“Couple hundred, maybe more. They are mostly staying in the trees so we can't get an accurate count.”

“Where's Gary?” I thought about that damn tree fort of his. It was within the first few layers of the defensive zone, but it was much more exposed than the house.

“He's fine—in the house now. He's the one who warned us. We'll send help when we can.”

“You said they're in the woods, not attacking?”

“Yeah, not yet anyway. Why?”

“How often have you seen zombies not attack? I think they're stalling help from getting here. I've got to go.” I quickly handed the handheld part to Lyn.

BT was still at Ron's. Had a touch of the flu, or so he said, but he'd discovered my sister's romance novels and was knee deep into the story of Shane McClough, his plaid skirts, sorry kilts and his ladylove, Countess Laurabelle, and their forbidden love. He'd holed himself up with the books all around him like a squirrel would with nuts right before a harsh winter. Tommy wouldn't leave the house, period, which meant right now we were severely undermanned, and right now that seemed entirely on purpose. How the fuck had zombies pulled off a coordinated attack? If they'd peeled off two hundred or so just to keep Ron and the others holed up, that meant Travis' original estimate was….

“Dad, we need you up here!” he shouted down the hole again.

I climbed the ladder as fast as I dared. I was just poking my head through the hole when my nose was assaulted. More like beat mercilessly with the smell of zombies.

“Holy mother of….” I didn't even bother finishing the expletive. We were surrounded. I did a complete perimeter check, and there was not a place where the zombies weren't at least twenty bodies deep. That was bad, no doubt, but what had a strangeness to it was the fact they weren't doing anything. I mean besides reeking to high heaven and blocking sunlight from hitting the pavement, they weren't moving. There was a no-man's land of about thirty feet from building to zombie, depending on the terrain, that was as empty as a box of tissues in a teenage boy's room. Do with that what you will; some kids have allergies.

“Dad, what are they doing?” Travis had stopped shooting. He knew enough to realize he needed to save the bullets for when it mattered.

“They're not getting ready to sing Christmas Carols. That I know.” I don't know why I said it; just happened, but as I was saying the words, it gave me pause to think of the possibilities going on. I rushed back to the hatch that led downstairs. Thought my chest was going to cave-in when I heard screams from below, then I realized my baby was having a baby. So yeah, my chest still wanted to cave-in, but she was all right. I mean mostly; childbirth under the best of circumstances is a tough endeavor. I know; I've attended three of them, and usually, they give me drugs to deal with it. This time I had to fly straight.

“Justin!” I yelled, not once or even twice, but three times. I was on the ladder and coming down when he finally responded.

“Yeah?”

He looked as nonplussed, as if it were a lazy Saturday morning and I was about to ask him to rake the yard.

“Get everyone down into the bomb shelter.” I headed back up. I stopped at his response.

“Why?”

I let my head rest against the rung for a moment as I reined in my temper, which was threatening to boil over. “Stay calm and Talbot on.” I knew the boy was still hurting; how could he not be? “Because I asked you to.” My calming technique had only worked so well, as the words came through gritted teeth. Felt like Clint Eastwood delivering a line in one of his spaghetti westerns.

“We're all going to die anyway.”

I lightly smacked my head against a rung before I went back down.

“Yes, we are most assuredly all going to die, that's just a basic fact of life. But dying, son, that's fucking easy. Anybody can do it. In fact, you really don't have to do anything at all to die. Don't move away from the speeding train. Don't run away from the charging elephant. Don't shoot back at the enemy. Don't call a cab when you're shitfaced. See how easy it is to die? You don't have to do shit! Now living, ah, living—that's the hard part. The choices you have to make, the actions you have to take. Living is hard. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Now I'm sorry about Jess, more sorry than I can ever begin to explain, but she's gone. These people around you, they're here and they need our—your help. You want to check out, the door is right there.” It was a calculated risk. I needed to know where his head was. That he actually looked over to the door and contemplated that route did not sit well with me. Felt like someone was leeching air out of my lungs with a straw.

I was pretty sure I could beat him to the door before he could unlock it and head out. Even so, I slowly moved closer. I finally saw his shoulders sag as whatever had been weighing him down had finally broke him or had broken over him.

“Ryan, grab your sister. Dizz, Sty, get some food. I'll get the animals.” He started shouting commands.

I smiled and thanked him.

“You want me up there when I get everyone in the shelter?”

“Not yet. Get everyone and everything you can down there, get them locked in, then I want you to stay with your sister, mother, and aunts until they can get moving. And if there's any way to speed them along, do it.”

“She's having a baby, Dad, not taking a test.”

“I get it, but the zombies have something in mind, and I don't quite know what it is. Things are going to get bad here in a hurry.”

Meredith, Ron's daughter, struggled with a large bag that clipped my side as she passed. “Sorry, Uncle.” She headed to the ladder.

I was about to ask her what the hell she was doing, that she should get in the shelter with everyone else, but she was an adult, a decent shot, and we could use the help up top. I helped her with the bag as we went back up. I spared one quick look back. Justin was indeed on the move. At least for now, I had pulled him out of his rut. Although, for how long? Once he started to dwell on it again, he would find himself heading back to that abyss of emotion. And it was hard being a hypocrite. If anything happened to Tracy, I don't know what I'd do. Gun to the temple? Death by zombie? It would be easy enough to pick an exit strategy. Amazing how a pungent odor can just scramble every thought in your head. I was back up top and the situation had not improved. On the bright side, it hadn't got worse either. But that's not saying much. I mean, if you total your beloved car in an accident, what's it matter if the mirror falls off?

“We going to start shooting?” Meredith asked as she began to tie a bandanna around her face.

It was shit like this that drove me nuts. How long had I been dealing with zombies? You'd think by now I'd have learned some of the basics. I grabbed the piece of cloth Meredith handed to me. I could tell by the crinkle in the corners of her eyes she was smiling. She passed out a square to Travis and Jesse as well. I was famous for missing the obvious. Sometimes, perhaps, that was why Justin had taken it upon himself to point it out at every turn. When the world revolved on a slightly different axis, I can't tell you how many times after a tough day of working, respite with myriad aches and pains, I would groan and moan as I found my way into bed. This would immediately be followed up with my wife asking me if I'd taken any aspirin.

Of course, the answer was no, it was
always
no. Years, fucking years, I'd done that. It never, ever, dawned on me as I winced, taking half steps to go and take something that might help alleviate the pain. And this coming from a person that had never had a problem introducing any of a wide variety of recreational drugs into his system. Some things I just tend to have a large disconnect with, and no matter how I try to bridge the gap, it falls short. Meredith tightened the knot behind my head.

“We gonna start shooting?”

“What's on these?” I was sniffing vigorously.

“I ground some scented candle wax into them. I think these are coconut.”

“That's brilliant.”

“I know, Uncle. But what do you want to do about the zombies?”

“Right. Sorry. Just nice to not feel like someone shoved shit stones up my nose.”

“You know that's gross, right?”

“Diarrhea dollops then? Fine, we do nothing for now. They're not moving; it's a waste of bullets. We use them if we decide to find a way out or they start trying to come in. They're waiting for something. I don't know what it is, but I imagine we'll find out soon enough.”

I
was wrong
. It wasn't soon enough. They did have the good graces to let me see the birth of my grandson. And by seeing the birth, I mean, I came into the room after everyone was all covered up and cleaned off. The Talbot family was celebrating the edition of Wesley Michael. I admit I cried when I saw him for the first time, and may have even shed a few tears when Tracy held him up to me. “This, this is what we live for,” I said quietly. He wrapped his thumb and forefinger around my index finger.