zombies forgot about me and were converging on Justin. The problem, however, was that they were going exactly where I needed to be.
Justin had gone through the 30-round magazine in as much time as it took to pull the trigger that many times. Of his thirty shots, maybe five had been kills and that was more from blind luck, nice going Rambo. But unlike Rambo he didn’t have an unlimited ammo supply, he was one and done.
“Dad I’m out,” Justin said with a whisper because of his flagging reserves.
Yeah I figured that when the shots went from sixty to zero in faster time than a pitcher of beer lasts at a bowling tournament. I didn’t want to answer him. The zombies were fixated on him and I saw no reason to alter that. I had made my way near the front and was only one row away from getting there. Justin had headed back upstairs. I hoped he would make it all the way before I made my try for freedom. There would be no further cavalry charges. This was on me and me alone. I muscled my way past the lead two zombies. I don’t know if they were more pissed off that another zombie was trying to cut in front of them or surprised to see food. The two zombies head butted each other in their excitement to get to me. No real damage was sustained but it bought me a few valuable seconds. I made it up the first third of the stairs and was looking at a quandary. Do I dare to attempt my zombie trap laden down with a squirming Henry on my shoulder? Nope. I pulled Henry off my shoulder and with my adrenaline fueled muscles, I looked up at Tracy’s anxious face and heaved him at her. She went over like a bowling pin. Any other time and I would have been howling with laughter. The gambit had cost me time; I felt first one and then two hands circle my left ankle. I figured I had about two seconds until the ensuing bite. I grabbed on to the handrail for all I was worth and was simultaneously trying to pull myself away and kicking out blindly with my right foot, occasionally being rewarded with a nose crunching connection.
“Come on Mike!” Paul shouted urgently. He was leaning over the banister with his outstretched hand. There was a good eighteen inches of distance between our connection.
“Dad, behind you!” Nicole screamed in pure panic.
Now was not the time for sarcasm, but REALLY!? Tracy had recovered from her bowling accident and had my Ka-Bar knife out. She looked me in the eyes as she placed the sharp edge against my pinion ropes. A swift pull of the knife would send me and the zombies plunging into the basement. She was going to give me the benefit of the doubt but only if it was soon. My foot lashed out again and suddenly I was free. I felt fingernails tear as they tried in vain to re-obtain purchase on my pants. I was one step above the trap when Tracy cut the ropes. Vertigo, adrenaline and fear made me sway. Paul quickly grabbed my shoulder, preventing me from joining the two zombies that had made the Nestea plunge. The zombies weren’t dead, not even seriously injured as they looked back up at the hole from where they had come, but they weren’t upstairs and obviously that was the most important part.
“Holy crap, that was close!” I said as I regained my composure and got to the top of the stairs.
“For Christ’s sake Mike, it’s only a dog. You risked your life and your kids for a damn dog!” she yelled.
My triumph was short-lived as I sat down on the top stoop and realized how close to disaster this situation had come. As any good ally should, Henry came over and licked my face. Inwardly I smiled. It had all been worth it.
CHAPTER 26 
Journal Entry - 23
The constant ‘thudding’ of zombies falling into my trap was unnerving. We were all on edge. The only thing that broke the monotony of the ‘thud’ was the bubble wrapping ‘snap’ of the occasional limb being broken. A guard had to be posted but I made sure everyone was clear on the use of bullets: ‘Only when necessary.’ I had seen what the rampant discharge of bullets had done at the wall. Before we knew it our stair hole would be filled with zombies and the dead would bridge the gap to us. As it was, the fallen zombies were having a hard enough time clearing out of the way before their brethren fell on them. I relieved Erin after only an hour into her two hour shift, just to get out of my office. The mood was not good. What I thought the zombies were going to do to change that was beyond me. Henry had come with me. He hadn’t left my side since his rescue. I’m sure he knew just how close he had been to becoming a meal. And I’m not sure, but I think that he was getting a bad feeling from Tracy. If I had saved him from the zombies then I would surely save him from the mad boss woman, little did
It was comical to watch the exaltation on the zombies’ faces as they thought they were nearing their prize, and then the shock as they fell through the stairs. With nothing else to do, I kept track of a couple of the zombies as they made their circuitous route from falling, to recovery, to climbing back up the basement stairs, to attempting the second flight of stairs once more. One was in his early thirties, wearing what was at one time a nice Armani suit and now wouldn’t fetch a dollar fifty at Savers. He wore one wing tipped shoe, a red argyle sock, and his other foot was bare. His tie was off and the first two top buttons of his shirt were undone. The guy had probably been unwinding at Hooters after a hard day at work when he had ceased to care about stocks and bonds or accounting or selling insurance. No, the suit was too nice for that. He was probably a lawyer when he checked out from the human race. He seemed one of the more determined of the bunch to get at me and registered the biggest surprise when he ‘fell’ short of his goal. I dubbed him ‘Go-getter Gilbert’. He was averaging eight minutes from fall, to recovery, to fall. Another zombie I had been keeping an eye on, ‘Dumpy Dorothy,’ was maybe in her late forties, early fifties. She was dressed in an undersized moo-moo, pink slippers, and in what remained of her hair were curlers. She was taking noticeably longer to make the circuitous route. She was right around twenty-two minutes. Maybe she was stopping to snack or check out the new book of the day by Oprah. Gilbert was making his sixth trip, almost lapping Dorothy again, when he changed his routine. He stood at the bottom of the landing, looked up at me, looked at the hole, all the while being jostled by zombies who were passing him up. I was intrigued. I stood up to get a better view of him. He followed me with his eyes; the dim light of intelligence was unnerving.
“Fuck this,” I muttered. I shouldered my rifle and took aim but suddenly he was gone.
Nothing else stopped. The zombies kept climbing, the zombies kept falling, but Gilbert never came back. He had unnerved me. I wasn’t expecting him to come back with a homemade ladder, but he had recognized the futility of this avenue. My sincerest hope was that he had gone on in search of easier prey and not away around my defenses. Dumpy Dorothy had made one more trip around, this time with a noticeable limp, before my shift was over. I was thankful to get back to the office, the inside of the house was easily as cold as the outside given the back doors were not even attached anymore. The office wasn’t a whole bunch warmer. My thoughts of us holding out for three months or so seemed overly optimistic at this point. Nobody was talking, even the ever jovial Tommy was pressed into the corner of the room, face towards the wall with Bear in his arms. I could tell that his chest was heaving and I thought he might be crying. I left him alone. If he wanted to be consoled he wouldn’t have been facing away.
I grabbed a book off my bookshelf that I had been reading before this mess had started. It was called After Twilight, I laughed out loud. That got me some annoyed looks from those around me. It was a zombie book. I hummed the book across the room, the noise blending in with the latest pitfall victim. I was stewing, wallowing in my own self-pity I guess, when Nicole called out to me.
“Hey Dad, you should probably come see this,” she said. “I was in your bathroom and I was coming out and I noticed something strange.”
‘Stranger than zombies in our house?’ I wanted to shout. It’s not her fault, Talbot, relax!
It was go see what was ‘strange’ or stay here and be miserable. I got up.
Coley grabbed my hand, something she hadn’t done since she was 12 and went from being Daddy’s little girl to some hormone-infused alien. That made me even more concerned. She led me into the bedroom, so far so good. On the left was our king-size bed, on the right was a dresser with a 25” television. The dresser and the television were against the wall we shared with dearly departed Techno Guy. She led me around to the other side of the television and then just pointed. In the gloom I still didn’t see anything. She pulled the shades open and peeled back the plastic covering, I saw a dark, blackish-red stain about the size of a bowling ball about three feet up on the wall. Even as I was watching, it was expanding. Unease descended on me like a heavy rain. I didn’t know what it meant or what it was but that it wasn’t good was clear enough to me.
I kept looking at the expanding stain. “Everyone up!” I yelled. I didn’t hear any signs of sound other than our tripping guests. “I said, EVERYONE UP!” I bellowed this part like I hadn’t bellowed since I had been in the Marine Corps. This time I heard the satisfactory sound of shifting people, live people that is.
