his needs? Or was he (it) merely one more cog in the vast machinations of fate? No more able to alter his course than a blade of grass in a swift running stream. Were any of our ends foretold, the time and date written on head stones, or were they fluid? Did Death wait for an ‘expected’ demise or was his arrival contingent on our passing?
I preferred to think that he was snapping his fingers in the familiar ‘Damn, he got away’ gesture rather than sitting back with a slated schedule and saying, ‘Not yet, but SOON.’ Giving Death the finger seemed WAY cooler.
After a couple of miles when I was fairly certain we had lost our dinner guests, I pulled over to the side of the road. The wound may have been shallow, but it would not stop bleeding and I might be entirely too thickheaded to know when to die but I’d passed out before and I did not want to suffer that indignity again. Perla jumped down from the fire truck with a white first aid kit.
“I’m so sorry Mike,” she said as she came towards me.
I staggered out of the car, some was from blood loss, some for dramatic effect. Hey, it’s not every day you get shot in the head, might as well milk it for something.
“Mike?” Tracy asked approaching hesitantly. Concern, care, and worry were all wrapped up in the one word question.
“I’m fine,” I said leaning against the car heavily.
“It barely touched him,” Travis said as he got out of the car to check the approach from our rear.
“Yeah, it’s bleeding much worse than it actually is,” Justin added as he reloaded a magazine.
Perla placed a hydrogen peroxide soaked cloth to my head pinkish foam oozed from my wound. The resulting sizzle sounded much like the Pop Rocks candy I had enjoyed in my youth. Who am I kidd ing, I had eaten a bag of the sugary goodness not a week before the zombies had come. I found them in a dollar store and bought the whole box. I had hidden them out in the garage, not willing to share nor divulge my secret stash.
I was trying to pull my head away from Perla’s ministrations; she wasn’t having any of it. She quickly placed some disinfectant on the wound and then wrapped my head in gauze. My head began to throb like I had spent the last three nights partying, but without the resulting fond memories of crazy actions performed.
“Good thing you jarheads have thick skulls,” Brian said as he came over. “Left my damn rifle at the fire station .” “Doesn’t surprise me,” I told him. “I wouldn’t think as an army dog you’d know how to shoot it anyway .” Brian looked at me sternly. I thought I might have crossed an imaginary boundary with him before he smiled. “You alright?” he asked seriously.
“Yeah, just feels like someone is tapping on my skull with a ball peen hammer.”
“We still on then?” Jack asked from the ladder, watching the conversation from above.
“Your head is still bleeding, Uncle,” Meredith said as the cloth around my head began to soak red throughout.
Gary came over to give me a quick once over. When he was confident I wasn’t going to expire, he popped the hood. Chunks of gore ran towards the windshield as he raised it up. Tracy ’s car looked like it was in imminently more danger of going to the great beyond. The front end was caved in and the smell of caustic anti-freeze filled the air.
“Radiator is shot and the fan has cut through some electrical lines,” Gary said mournfully as he stood back up, popping his back as he did so.
“Well, let’s transfer the stuff out of there, we have plenty of room with the fire truck now,” Tracy told him.
Fifteen minutes later we were back at the original overpass that overlooked the furniture store.
“This really looked better on paper,” Jack said as we surveyed the throng of zombies.
“No it didn’t,” I told him frankly.
“Yeah you’re probably right,” he answered back.
“But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to try. Isn’t that right Mike?” BT asked. I nodded in reply. “See, do I know my crazy friend or what?” he said triumphantly.
“I think Eliza is here, I can feel her almost like an echo,” I said almost imperceptibly.
“You can feel her?” Justin asked.
What was awesome was Justin couldn’t. Did Easter’s incantations really work?
“Eliza is here?” Tracy asked with alarm. “Then we should be anywhere but here!” she emphasized.
“If Eliza is here, so is Tommy, Mom,” Travis said, linking all the pieces of the puzzle together.
“This sucks,” I said. “This is just about a text book trap,”
“Brian?” Cindy asked.
I know what that implied; life right now was already difficult enough to hold onto without charging into a trap to rescue people they didn’t even know.
“Guys, you owe us nothing,” I told the group.
“What would you do, Mike? Honestly, if you were us what would you do in this situation?” Brian asked me.
“I’d leave,” I told him.
“Bullshit,” BT said. “You’d be the first in,”
“That’s what I thought,” Brian said, “Then we stay,”
“Ass,” I turned to address BT.
“Anytime,” he smiled.
“We should get moving then,” Gary said. “Zombies are zombies, but zombies in the dark are a lot scarier.” “Agreed,” I agreed.
The beeping from the fire truck as Brian backed it into the Wendy’s parking lot was nerve racking. The zombies didn’t even seem to pay it any attention. Brian backed the truck up as far as he could go; the rear tires were resting on the retaining wall. I was no expert on fire trucks and ladders, but I didn’t see any way that the ladder was going to extend to that furniture store roof.
“Good to see you Mike!” Paul shouted from the far roof, his voice traveling considerably well over the thousands of quiet zombies below, and without any roadway traffic there was really only the sound of birds and insects to contend with.
“You too Paul, although I really wish we could have met in a bar with a pitcher of beer instead,” I told him.
Even from this distance I could see him nod. Alex waved enthusiastically. I returned the gesture with an arm that felt more filled with Jell-o than muscle. Have I yet discussed my fear of heights?
“That going to reach?” Paul asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.
“Find out in a minute,” Jack shouted back.
The entire group, even the pain in the ass Deneaux, watched as Jack extended the ladder. Woefully short would have been an adequate description. There was a good twenty feet between the tip of the ladder and the lip of the roof. An Olympic jumper could not bridge that gap. I smirked a bit as I thought of Deneaux trying. She could have probably made it if she had her broom.
Jack came down from the ladder control box and walked around the ladder truck until he found what he considered a suitable portable ladder.
I looked at Jack as he grabbed the ladder and then looked to the furthest point of the extended ladder which was swaying in the light breeze. “No way,” I breathed.
“Jack I don’t think so,” I said, voicing my concern.
Eliza and Tomas - Interlude
“Interesting,” Eliza said as she watched the rescue attempt.
“No way,” Durgan said as he watched the sway of the ladder. “They came up short. I say we take them out now!” “We will do as We wish,” Eliza said, nodding to Tomas. “What do you think we should do, dear Brother?” Eliza asked as she stroked his cheek.
“Michael Talbot will find a way on to that roof, Sister. And then we will have them all in one place,” Tomas answered as he looked through the window in the former store manager’s office. Grief was etched on his features, but it was belied by the eagerness in his eyes.
“All you have to do is send your zombies up to that fire engine, Mistress, and this whole exercise will be over,” Durgan said with a tone of exasperation.
