“BT, I’d been saving his ass for close to twenty-five years before you ever came in the picture. I think if anyone is qualified to do it, it’s me.”
“I hate when you two do this,” I told them.
“You keep out of this,” BT told me.
Tracy and BT were still arguing about who was better at keeping me alive when I turned my attention back to Mad Jack who had lost all interest with the ravings of the monkeys below the one-forty intelligence quotient level.
“How far back can you push the zombies?” I asked him.
“A couple of hundred feet at the most.”
“Will it be fast?”
Mad Jack thought about it for a moment. “Yes, they’ll want to get away from the signal as quickly as possible.”
“Okay. Will it be like a fire drill where everyone leaves in an orderly fashion, or will it be like a real fire when everyone tramples over each other?”
“The latter I would imagine,” Mad Jack replied, looking up as he pondered the answer.
“Latter…that means last, right?”
He gave me the ‘how have you survived this long’ look.
I could have easily returned the gaze.
“There’s one small problem with increasing the power output that much, though.”
“Is there any chance you can just tell me what the problem is without me playing game show host?”
“It’ll only last for sixty-four-and-a-half seconds.”
“Exactly sixty-four-and-a-half seconds…or can we give or a take a second or two.”
“Science doesn’t lie,” he stated vehemently.
“Alright sixty-four-and-one-half seconds it is, what happens after that?”
“No more signal.”
“No more extended signal?” I asked hoping.
“No more signal, period, ever. I don’t have the supplies here to recreate the box,” Mad Jack told me in no uncertain terms.
“Wait so you know to the half second when the box is going to blow but you can only approximate the distance the zombies will be effected?” I asked, because I had to.
He shrugged his shoulders like I should leave the heavy thinking to the experts.
Now came the weighing out option. We would need the cover of the zombies to be able to get out of the house, but once the signal died, thousands of zombies would be pressed up against the structure like the skin of an apple.
“How long will it take for the modifications?” I asked him.
“You mean how long will it take to turn a knob?”
“Hilarious.”
“I need to do some mods first, shouldn’t take more than an hour, then it really is the turn of a knob.”
Within a moment or two of Mad Jack going off to do whatever voodoo science he did to tweak his box, I was sitting at the kitchen table loading magazines.
“You’re not really going to allow Tracy to go with you are you, Mike?” Ron asked, coming up to the table.
“Ron, you’re married…when’s the last time you told your wife she couldn’t do something and she listened?” I asked him back. I gave him some credit; he actually spent a moment or two thinking about it. As if, he would have ever forgotten about a victory that significant.
“Listen, I know I don’t have any military training,” Ron began, “but I’d like to go out there with you.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea. The defense of this house falls squarely on your shoulders. And as soon as MJ’s box fails, we’ll be in full-press mode here. When we get Azile, and maybe take a swipe at Eliza, we’re going to need someplace to come back to.”
Ron looked equal parts relieved and distressed.
“You know I appreciate the offer. We’ll be back before you know it,” I told him as I loaded my fifth magazine. I wasn’t going to die from lack of ammunition—of that fact I was certain.
I could hear Tracy and BT still going on with the merits of who was better equipped to save my ass when I got up from the table.
“We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. You guys maybe want to load up?” I asked them.
“We’re not done here,” Tracy told BT.
“Not by a long shot,” BT told her as he pulled on the waistband of his pants. “Thanks for saving me,” he said quietly as he walked past.
I just laughed.
One more time I half-heartedly tried to convince Tracy not to come; almost immediately the finger of doom came out and I yielded.
We were huddled by the basement door waiting for Mad Jack to dial up some zombie despair. Beads of sweat were glistening on Tracy’s forehead, BT had a look of consternation on his face, and I had just swallowed a live knot of garter snakes—at least that was what my belly felt like. I had not a lick of concern for myself, it was spread out for my two traveling companions.
“What some gum?” Gary asked, his mouth stuffed to near jaw-bursting proportions. He walked over to us extending a giant pack of bubble gum.
The idea of chewing anything that didn’t start with Alka was making the writhing things in my stomach start a gymnastic routine. “I’m good,” I told him.
“Oops, wait,” Gary said as he listened to the crackling in his two way radio. “T-minus ten seconds until operation Zombie Nudge.”
“Zombie Nudge?” BT lipped to me.
“Who knows,” I told him back.
“Does anyone know what the ‘T’ stands for?” Gary asked.
Over the radio I could hear Mad Jack’s explanation. “Ballistic equations begin with the variable ‘t’ minus the rest of the algebraic equation which accounts for time and distance.”
“Well now I can die in peace,” BT said.
“Now?” Tracy asked. “This is the time you want to use that phrasing?”
“No shit,” I told him. “Pretty fucking insensitive, BT.” I chided him.
“Bullshit, Talbot, that’s something you would normally say. I must have just been channeling you or something,” BT snapped back. “And now I’m going into battle with a man with a tinfoil hat on and you’re giving me shit? That’s like the skunk calling the wet dog smelly!”
“What the fuck does that even mean, BT? Have you lost your damn mind?” I asked.
“I must have!” he shouted.
“Boys!” Tracy said.
“What?” we asked, turning on her.
Gary popped an over-sized bubble. “Mad Jack turned the dial.”
That stopped us right quick. I opened the basement door to take a peek outside. Not much was happening; the zombies closest to us were trying their best to not become impaled in the trench from the push behind them of newcomers. Then I began to see a sudden change as they went from holding their spot to shuffling backwards, and within a matter of seconds, they were in a full on ‘retreat’ mode.
I had not a clue how we were going to get through the cluster fuck of zombies, all the closest ones were running to get out of range while the others behind were still forging forward and then there were the multitudes that were caught in the crossfire. Zombies by the dozens were being destroyed or irreparably damaged as they were caught within the vise like grips, of the outflow and influx as they in turn also tried to escape the invisible signal that was washing over them.
“Not going to get any better than this,” I said as I swung the door open.
Tracy gasped at the scene before her, the screams that would be ensuing would have been deafening if they were still people, even so the cracking of bones and cartilage was disturbing maybe even more so because it was
