Zombie Fallout 2 (17 page)

I was lining up my shot, doing my best to shield my eyes from flying glass, and my ears from the fulminating noise. But again you can’t really do much there. God didn’t deign that we should have ear lids, although how cool would that be. However, the boon might also be a curse. Can you imagine that as guys we could ACTUALLY turn off our significant others diatribes? The problem though, would be not only would they suspect that we weren’t listening, but with our ear flaps closed, they would also have visual proof. Okay not one of my better ideas.

“Dad.” Travis said matter of factly. I stopped in mid-swing. Although if this was baseball, my check swing would have been called a strike as my forward momentum brought the tire iron to a gentle tapping on the window. “Door’s open.”

“Yup, I knew that.” I said handing the tire iron back to BT. “Tracy.” I yelled over my shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.” She said as she slid out of her bucket seat and into mine. After a few seconds of adjusting the seat and the steering wheel to her liking she gave me the universal sign for a-ok, two thumbs up.

“Aren’t you going to adjust the mirrors?” I asked her. She gave me another universal sign, this one not quite so pleasant.

I took a deep breath. I was pulling on all of my reserves of intestinal fortitude to go through that door. BT was behind me and Travis was bringing up the rear. I took one more long pull of the piercing air. Tommy brushed past me and in.

“Where the hell did he come from?” BT asked incredulously.

“I guess it’s safe.” I said as I followed him into the black midst.

I stopped less than two steps in from the doorway, not for fear or some innate prescience. I just couldn’t see a damn thing. I had no desire to be skewered by a ski pole, or walk nuts first into a dumbbell display. I could hear Tommy walking around like he had a floor plan. I was tempted to follow in his assured sounding footfalls.

BT nearly sent me sprawling as he walked into my back. “Sorry my man. Where’s the kid?”

“Shit BT, I’d be lucky if I could tell where my hand is.” Both, BT and myself turned to look at the same instance. Whether we thought the same thing, I’m not sure but BT’s expression of awe left little to doubt. Tommy was lit up like the Arch Angel Michael come to seek vengeance on a wicked world. As our eyes adjusted to the radiance it became clear that Tommy was merely holding a battery powered Coleman lantern. I shook my head in consternation, I will swear to my dying days that for the briefest of seconds there was more to it than that. I wanted to ask BT but I think he’d deny it, hell I’m not even sure what I saw and I was there.

Within twenty minutes, everyone was in the store in the far left corner. We had a bunch of lanterns lit. We even had a couple of tents pitched. Tommy thought that was the coolest thing since the marshmallows. We propped (well BT did) a half-ton of weights by the front door so it couldn’t open. But the Vona sheriff’s office was still fresh in everyone’s mind. I parked one van by the front door and the second by the emergency exit in the rear. Worst case scenario we would have to cram into one van for a while. If there was a just God in the universe we would get to leave the Terrible Teal machine behind.

Thankfully we were in Missouri and not some neo-fascist state like New York. We had more guns and ammo to choose from than we would ever be able to carry. If not for the huge plate glass windows in front I would have put my two cents in on why we should hunker down here until the spring.

Food, while not of the high cuisine type, was plentiful. There was an unbelievable assortment of dried meats, including ostrich. Which as funny as it sounds did not taste like chicken, it was frikken horrible. There were dried food packets of every conceivable concoction including Thanksgiving Dinner readily available. We busted a bunch of those open and had a small feast so to speak. It wasn’t quite the Indians and the Pilgrims but we were thankful to be alive and with each other. Unfortunately there were no dried beer packets or an NFL game on to accompany our meal. The boys grabbed some bows and arrows and some of the clothing dummies and had a blast shooting at something that didn’t necessarily want to eat you. Even Justin perked up more than I had seen out of him in a few days. It was a welcome respite.

It was getting late and we were all tired. Tracy watched with curiosity as I prepared another tent a few yards away from the rest. I then made an exaggerated stretch and let everyone know I was heading off to bed. I had other things on my mind but it didn’t stop me from almost immediately falling asleep. Colors flooded my senses, I felt like I was in Candy Land, I’m not making this stuff up, there was a river of chocolate lazily flowing through a rolling landscape of what looked like whipped cream. There were cliché candy cane trees, and what appeared to be giant broccoli sprouts which seemed wholly out of place, but stranger still were the variety of pop-tart fruit, still in their leafy foil packets that hung bountifully down from their boughs. Tommy was paddling from the distant shore towards me on the world’s largest Snicker’s bar which he would occasionally pause from his paddling duties and take a generous bite from.

“Hey Mr.T!” Tommy shouted. Smatterings of chocolate nearly covered him from head to toe.

Henry came bounding up, a huge white chocolate bone in his mouth. “You know that chocolate’s not really good for dogs Tommy.”

“It’s not real chocolate!” He yelled in his best stage whisper. “It’s cacao, dogs can eat that!” Tommy had stepped off his makeshift boat and approached me, all smiles and happiness. “Didn’t think I could do it Mr. T, but I did.” He said proudly.

“Do what Tommy?” I asked, I figured he was referring to getting his chocolate bar across the river. “And what’s with the broccoli?”

“Hi hon.” I said groggily, and somewhat disoriented. Something incredible had just happened but it would be days later before I could put it to page. Tracy proceeded to get into the sleeping bag I had set up. Within seconds, my earlier ‘dream’ forgotten I pounced on her with all the grace of a jungle cat on valium.

“No I do not…wait are you trying to fool around?” She asked incredulously. “Are you effen crazy!” She barked. Her voice was rising exponentially. “You’ve got a better chance of shitting out gold coins!”

I didn’t think that was feasible, so apparently getting laid was out of the question. My humiliation was compounded by the riotous laughing of BT. I’m a guy, no matter how dire the situation, if we’re not quite dead yet, we’re thinking about sex. My face flamed as I fell asleep. No wonder I dreamt about a tanning bed.

Why do they put nipples on modeling dummies? I pondered the next morning as I arose out of the tent, shifting around what the good God gave me. Fucken BT, always Johnny on the spot, was there to witness my indignation.

“Fucken funny.” I said as I grabbed a mug of the steaming goodness. Dunkies it wasn’t, but it was still incredible in its own right. I sat down next to him just to fuck with him. I attempted to put my arm around him.

BT shot up like a bottle rocket. “Dude?!” BT said disbelievingly.

I feigned innocence.

BT moved his small camping chair to the far side of our impromptu campfire. Sometime during the night someone had found and placed a Styrofoam prop fire resplendent with rocks and logs into the middle of our clearing.

As BT settled his not insignificant weight into the chair I had to ask. “How the hell is that thing supporting your weight.”

“Play nice boys.” Jen said as she came from the direction of the restrooms. She handed BT a canteen heavy with water. BT drank greedily, easily consuming half of the contents.

Jen had stopped what she was doing to see how this potentially volatile situation panned out. Oh I knew how it would end up, my teeth in BT’s knuckles seemed the most likely scenario.

“BT, come on you know me better than that.”

“I don’t know shit.” He hissed. His bulk seemingly swelled in proportion to his anger. He was a second and a half from coming out of his chair.

All of the boys were now a few feet away, Brendon was coming to the forefront, trying his best to throw a wedge between me and BT. I didn’t think he would even qualify as a speed bump if BT got going.

Tracy had taken this, the most blessed of opportunities to emerge from our tent.

“BT.” She said with no small amount of force.

“My beef’s not with you Tracy.” BT said never taking his eyes off of me. “Is this how you want it Mike? You’re woman doing your battles for you.”

“BT, Mike is a germ-a-phobe. I swear to you as I stand here, he would not take that canteen from me if I had just taken a drink from it.”

“Really?” BT asked incredulously. He then turned back to me. “I guess I owe you an apology.” He said as he laughed. “Wait then how do you two kiss? Forget it I don’t want to know.” And then apparently this was the funniest thing in the world. In between swigs of the canteen BT would break out into spontaneous laughter. “Can’t…kiss.” He laughed. “You have cooties.” If the guy wasn’t such a solid block of granite he probably would have split his sides he ended up laughing so hard.

“No shit Mike? You can’t drink off someone else’s beverage?” Jen asked. “That’s funny.”

I forced an anemic smile. Neurosis number 22 had reared its ugly head.

“How’d you have kids? Artificial insemination?” BT said roaring with laughter. “Immaculate conception? Wait…wait…I know…stunt double!”

“In a hurry.” I conceded. “The point is Brendon, I don’t want to drag anyone else down with me.” He looked crestfallen. “Like I said Brendon, I do appreciate the help, I just couldn’t live with the guilt if anything happened to anyone of you, especially if it was to save my ass.” He looked like he was about to say something. I didn’t want to give him any room for maneuverability. “Besides can you imagine how bad Nicole would make it for me?” I looked at him questioningly.

BT had for the most part calmed down. Tracy, I guess wasn’t ready to let him off the hook, quite yet. “Yeah you should see what he has to do before he gets on a toilet.”

Justin, Travis and Tommy had resumed their dummy target practice. Now seemed as good a time as any to see how it was going. Two rows of seven dummies were lined up like advancing zombies. Errant arrows were strewn everywhere including the ceiling, but more than a proportionate amount had struck their targets with withering precision. As we came up to the ‘range’ Tommy was drawing the bow back, he let loose an arrow that created sparks as it plunged feet well short of its intended target.