The more he talked the more convinced I became that his idea had some merit. The problem was that we had close to three hundred residents here and this wasn’t going to be an alternative for about two hundred and fifty of them. But some was better than none. I started to head down the ladder.
“Where you going?” Alex asked.
“I’m going to talk to Jed and let him figure out how to choose who stays and who goes and then I’m going home to get my finger massaged.”
Alex laughed, “Yeah, your ‘finger.’” he said with air quotes. “Is that more of your New England sarcasm?”
I don’t know if we were going to have enough time together for him to realize when I was kidding or not, but I honestly meant ‘my finger.’ Eh, let him think what he wants. Sex might not be the furthest thing from my mind but I could almost guarantee it wasn’t even on Tracy’s radar screen.
Finding Jed was not all that difficult. He had pretty much set up residence in the clubhouse since the beginning. He was sipping some hot coffee over by the fireplace. He had the look of a man who wasn’t going to warm up anytime soon. He was a tough old bird, he probably only beat me here by a few minutes. He smiled a little when he saw me enter. He winced a bit as he raised his arm up to motion me over.
“Your shoulder hurting too?” I asked him.
“Why the hell I thought buying a twelve gauge shotgun was a good idea I’ll never know. My arm’s stiffer than a sailor’s dick at a Village People reunion tour,” he guffawed.
“What is it with all the sexual references?” I asked. Jed ignored me.
“So what do you want, Talbot?” Jed asked.
“Am I that easy to read?” I asked in surprise on my face.
“Just don’t ever cheat on your wife. She’d be able to tell before you got out of your car.”
“Yeah I don’t play cards either just for that reason.”
Jed arched an eyebrow at me, furiously rubbing his hands together for the meager generation of heat it created.
“Okay, Alex has an idea that I think might work.”
“So at this point is it ‘and’ or ‘but’?” he asked.
“Wow, it is a good thing I didn’t mess around with Allison,” I said with introspect. “But...”
“Wonderful, I was hoping for some ‘but’”
“This isn’t another sexual reference is it?”
“Look at me Talbot. When do you think is the last time I had sex, damn, even a hard on for that matter?”
There was another visual I was now going to be laden with until my dying days. “Thanks,” I muttered.
‘Go on’ he signaled with his hands, clearly getting a little irritated.
“But,” I said hastily, trying my best to erase an unabolishable image, “it’ll work for about fifty or so people.”
What little light had been in Jed’s eyes quickly extinguished. I outlined Alex’ plan and Jed nodded in agreement to most or offered some better alternatives.
“Women and children, right?” Jed asked, even if it was a statement.
“Without a doubt.”
“What about Tracy and Nicole?”
“Oh I’ll want them to go, but they won’t.”
“Can’t you make them?” he asked seriously.
“That’s funny, Jed, how long were you married?”
He nodded in acceptance of my unwritten truth. Women ruled the roost. Men were merely figureheads. ‘Yes dear’ was the accepted vernacular in any successful union.
CHAPTER 21 - Next Day – 12/18
Journal Entry - 18
Different Day, Same Zombies. See how I substituted zombie for ‘shit,’ cause that’s what it smelled like, one giant pile of fresh maggoty dog shit. If this were summer the sky would be thick with flies. It would be nearly impossible to breathe without swallowing some of the offending little beasts. Because of the fetor, intake of air was a nauseating task. Appetites had dropped off the charts. Last night, I had grossly underestimated how long our food supply would last. It might be indefinite. Nobody could work up any desire for food. Sometime during the night the zombies had made it all the way up to the gates of Babylon. Single digit amounts of feet kept us separated. Being this close and seeing the devastation the disease caused on these people was excruciating. Skin tone ranged from fax paper white to plum purple and everything between. There were your ashen grays and your burnt siennas. The thing that they had in common was that none of the pallors were healthy looking. Strips of torn skin hung like rags on more than most. Knees and hands were bloodied. Congealed gore splattered the masses like an all you can eat lobster fest gone bad.
For all the broken bones and shredded skin and clouded visages, there was no suffering. There was no self- pity or loathing or hate for that matter. There was only determination and hunger, wanton hunger. It was from this insanely close distance the morning’s firing squads commenced. The stench began to liquefy in the air as the bullets tore through the rotting corpses.
I know I have gone on and on about the stench of the zombies, but unless you have lived through it you can’t truly assess how disruptive the smell was. Just think when you’ve watched a movie about some snowbound people in say, Antarctica. So you’re watching and these suffering fools teeth are chattering and they have frozen snot coming out of their noses and they can’t feel their fingers or their toes. I mean they are just miserable, and you the viewer are sitting there trying to experience what they are feeling and you’re like ‘boy that sure looks cold’ as you munch your buttered popcorn. That doesn’t really grasp the full effect for you. Until one day you get some tickets to a football game and it’s in Green Bay in December. You are outside for a maximum of three hours in the warmest gear created by mankind and you are still freezing your ass off. It takes a thermal nuclear reaction to get the circulation back in your feet and hands and that is just a taste of what those poor souls lost in the Antarctica are going through. So now back to my problem. If you, the reader really, REALLY, want to know what was going on in Little Turtle, go feed your dog or your neighbor’s dog some chili, slathered in hot sauce and maybe throw in some chocolate cake. Okay wait for it, WAIT, now about a half hour later your dog’s innards are pretty much going to rupture so make sure he’s outside. Now while this steaming pile of shit is still warm and fetid, place it in a plastic shopping bag - DON’T TIE IT UP! Now place the carrying handles one on each ear and inhale deeply. You must walk around with this bag draped across your face continually, is this starting to punch through? Now, every time the dog crap begins to harden up and lose some of its edge, go grab yourself another refreshing pile of fresh dog offal. While you are breathing deeply of this savory concoction, try to eat some enchiladas or maybe some lasagna. Oh hell, just try to sleep with that thing affixed to your face. Yeah, not quite as much fun anymore. So that, my dear reader, is why I am going off the deep end to explain the stink. It’s all pervading. There is no relief, no giant bottle of Febreze. There wasn’t even a prevailing wind that could help relieve us. We were surrounded by the never-ending miasma of decomposition.
By noon that day of death layered upon death, I noticed something strange. The zombies were getting taller. I jumped down from my tower and ran for the clubhouse. I voiced my concern to Jed after taking a few deep breathes which I instantly regretted. “Jed, you have to call a cease-fire!” I finally spit out.
“If it’s about the bullets Talbot, I already feel your concern but we’ve got at least a week’s worth,” Jed replied.
I was still breathing heavily from my run over. I had been reluctant to take deep breaths and it was only partly because I had let my cardio routine lapse in the last few months. So I rushed out my words without explanation. I pretty much got the response I deserved.
“The zombies are getting taller…” next breath I finished with “…Jed.”
“Booze is tougher to get than a fresh T-bone, so I know you haven’t been drinking. Some of that wacky tobaccy then?” Jed asked with a raised eyebrow.
As much as it pained me, time was of the essence, two gulps of unsavory air, a brief respite and I started over again. “Jed, that wall out there is eight feet tall.”
