The End

by Mark Tufo

  "Wait!" I said, standing on my wobbly legs. "You guys don't get it, we can't stay here."

  Gary started to protest. "I've already lost one brother, I won't lose another."

  "You can't know that," my dad said angrily to Gary. He then turned my way and looked like he was going to ground me. Ron gave me that condescending look that only an older brother can pull off.

  "Guys, did you hear Nicole's story? Were you listening? Eliza took out a military base in less than a day, what do you think she'll do here?"

  "What are you going to do Mike?" Ron asked. "Keep running? For the rest of your lives? Seems to me Eliza will be able to outlast you if she is what you say she is. No, you'll stay and we'll see this through to the end."

  "That's easy for you to say now Ron. But when your family is in peril, what then?"

  Ron looked more than a little pissed that I was questioning his authority or his ability to protect us all. "You know, you little pissant, it hasn't been all tea and roses before you got here, we've had our own trials and battles."

  "How many Ron? A couple dozen maybe? Any speeders? Did they have a distinct, directed purpose? Were they being single mindedly ordered to end your lives?"

  Ron's rage came to the surface. His fists clenched at his sides. He shook his head slowly in the negative. "None of those things, Mike. So what do you propose? Should we just let you, all of you, just walk out of our lives?"

  "I will not risk your lives, any of you," I said sweeping my arm across the room, "for ours."

  "You already did Mike," my sister said. "The second you walked up that road, we all became involved."

  I sat back down defeated, but not beaten. A direct confrontation would not work, but Tommy had shown me how I could take care of this. We would leave when the opportunity presented itself.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE -

  "Where is he, Tomas?" Eliza asked as she walked around the gurney Tommy was strapped to. Rivulets of blood poured from a half dozen lacerations on his chest and stomach. Tears of pain and fear cascaded down his face. "Come, come, Tomas I will find them soon enough. Once the boy runs out of his poison that blocks me." She spat.

  "What did you do to Doc?" Tommy cried.

  "Don't concern yourself with him. He has paid for what he has done to me as Michael must," she said as she dragged a fingernail through a particularly deep wound. Tommy screamed. "Now you can save us all some trouble, Tomas. Tell me where he is and I will end his worthless existence. I know you can see him."

  Tommy shook his head violently from side to side. "NO!" he screamed in rage.

  "Again." Eliza said almost sweetly to Durgan.

  The crack of the bullwhip as it sliced through the air at supersonic speed crucified Tommy's flesh as it split it deeply. Blood welled in the newly formed crevice. Tommy's screams pierced the air.

  Durgan had worked up a lather of sweat by the time Tommy had finally given Eliza something. Tommy hadn't meant to give her anything, and it wasn't exactly what she had hoped for, but it was a start and it might turn out to be better than what she had originally planned.

  "You've done well, brother. You might be able to keep me from linking with Michael but I can pick through your thoughts as easily as I can my own," Eliza said as she licked a runnel of blood from his cheek.

  Tommy sobbed inconsolably as she left him, tied to the bed and alone in the dark. "I'm sorry Auntie Marta," he wailed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - JOURNAL ENTRY 28 -

  I came out of sleep violently. I could have sworn I heard Tommy and he didn't sound good at all. Trying to go back to bed now was beyond useless. I became fully awake as my feet hit the near freezing floor boards. In the best of times Ron kept his home a balmy 48 degrees in the winter. Now, as I watched my breath, I thought to grab an extra sweater, blanket, thermal underwear and electric socks. I was headed towards the pellet stove. I was going to stoke that stove so high it was going to turn cherry red. Then I laughed at myself. 'Who am I kidding? Ron probably has each individual pellet counted. That or he has the door to the stove padlocked. That would be just like him,' I thought, as I headed into the living room.

  It was even worse. He was guarding the damn thing. I had to get closer before I realized my mistake. It was my father. He turned to look as I approached. The look of joy as I got closer warmed my heart enough to almost make me forget that the mucous in my nostrils was hardening from the frigidness.

  "You look cold, come closer to the fire. Your brother would rather put on 4 jackets instead of burning fuel. He'd get away with it too, if it weren't for Nancy putting her foot down."

  I dragged a chair close to my dad's. We sat there for long moments staring at the fire, neither of us saying anything. He broke the ice, almost literally.

  "It sounds like you've had it rough, Mike."

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  "As much as I miss your mother, I'm glad she isn't here for this. This is no way for anybody to live. I was worried sick about you, Tracy and the kids. I felt helpless."

  I nodded in agreement. "Been there a few times myself," I said commiserating with him.

  "I suppose you have," he said, glancing over towards me. "We don't have much here, but we have each other." My dad turned back towards the fire, his eyes glistening.

  Did he know I was planning on leaving? It sure seemed like it. "Dad, you don't understand."

  "Michael, what don't I understand?" He turned back to me. "Do you think that you would do something for your family that I would not do for mine? Would you not stand with your brothers and sister as they would stand with you? Didn't the Marines teach you anything? We do not retreat."

  "Yeah, but we withdraw strategically."

  "Point taken," my dad said with a slight bow of his head. "Still, we are stronger together. We need to meet this threat head on."

  "Dad, don't take me wrong. If I thought we had any chance of success I would gladly stay and fight but Eliza is unlike anyone any of us have ever encountered." My dad listened as I recounted my brushings with the Queen of the Dead. I'll give him this. He didn't ground me for lying.

  "What are you planning on doing then?" my father asked. He would patiently hear me out. Whether or not he would let me act was still open for debate.

  "Justin's shots have bought us some time. But none of that matters, I still have to go back and get Tommy."

  "Sounds to me, son, like that boy was leading you along and into a trap the whole time."

  "Dad, you might be right, maybe it did even start out like that. I don't know. If you met the kid you'd know there isn't a deceitful bone in him. He radiates love and warmth. He was like traveling with our own personal saint." My dad still looked skeptical. "Dad, I know what you must be thinking, but I loved the kid enough to adopt him. It wasn't a fluke. He wasn't tricking me into caring for him. Hell Dad, I don't know if I can even count how many times he saved our lives. I think now it's time to start evening the score."

  "From what you said, can't you sit and wait for them to come here?"

  "Possibly, in a month and half, the link with Justin and Eliza will be re-established. I don't want Justin to have to go through that again. If I can somehow bring some resolution before then, so much the better. For good or bad I never told Tommy exactly where we were going. I mean, I know he knew we were coming to Maine but other than that… ." I shrugged my shoulders. I kept my grim thoughts to myself, that at least she wouldn't be able to beat that information out of him. My soul took another dent thinking of that. "I haven't heard anything from him since he left."

  "I hate to ask this Michael, but do you think he is still alive?"

  I took an involuntary large gasp of air. I had thought of that possibility but hearing it verbalized struck heavily. "Dad, he has to be," I almost cried. "I'd know." But would I? All I had received from our connection was black nothingness, sort of like death.

  "You can't put your family through that. You've got a pregnant daughter."

  "Wait, you know?"

&nb
sp; "Yeah, she told me."

  "She hasn't even told me."

  "Well that's probably because I'm infinitely more likable."

  "Wonderful."

  "But that's beside the point."

  "May be beside your point, but I'm the one being poked with it."

  "Michael, I'm trying to be serious."

  "So am I."

  "You're lucky your mother loved you, I would have made the stork fly on by if I saw you coming. Listen, you've got a pregnant daughter, a sick son and your youngest is barely hitting manhood. Are those the people you want to expose to danger?"

  "Come on Dad, obviously not. I wish I could round up my old platoon and teach that bitch what a fire team is all about, but I don't have that luxury." I might be 45 but I can't even begin to convey the feelings of safety and warmth that flooded through me as my dad wrapped me in his arms. I almost wanted to suck my thumb.

  "Will Nicole stay behind?"

  "I'll ask her, Dad. I'll even try to convince her and her mother that they should stay here. I already know the answer I'm going to get."

  "Can't you make them stay?"

  "You're hilarious, have you met Tracy?"

  My dad laughed. "How long, Michael?"

  "Well not tonight for sure." My father looked sternly at me. He'd known me long enough to realize that getting a straight answer out of me could be damn near infuriating. "A couple of weeks," I told him.

  "How are you planning on finding her?"

  "That's never really been much of a problem. To tell you the truth, I'll just venture out and I can almost guarantee she'll take care of the rest."

  He squeezed my knee and got up painfully. "I'm going to bed Michael. I love you."

  "I love you too, Dad." I stayed another hour staring into the fire, trying to make some sort of contact with Tommy. My only reward was a blossoming headache.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - JOURNAL ENTRY 29 -

  The dismality of my mood did not lighten with the breaking of dawn. The shingles that my sister was going to try to pass off as French toast were not going to make matters any better. She somehow made them smell like steaming broccoli mixed with liver. I had to get out. I went into the garage, thankful that my father had kept my skates hanging up where I had left them. The peacefulness of being out on the ice was exactly what my soul needed. I grabbed my hockey stick and a couple of pucks and headed out to the pond, a mere 50 yards away.

  It was cold but not nearly as frigid as Ron's house had been the night before. I was halfway to the edge of the ice, my head down checking my footing, when Gary scared the hell out of me.

  "Going to do some skating, little brother?" I did a complete 360 looking for him. "Up here."

  I looked up. He was about 15 feet high in a tree with a deluxe model hunter's stand. It was actually a pretty neat set up. It had a chair, a canopy roof, wind break walls all around and it must have even had a small heater in there too because he looked pretty toasty. I think I even saw a curing sleeve of meat, maybe salami. It was more a small tree house than a stand.

  "Nice set up. You got heat in there?"

  "Sort of, the Coleman lamp I've got running keeps it nice in here. Better than the house, that's for sure."

  We both said "cheap bastard" at the same time. Who it was directed at was common knowledge.

  "There enough room to sleep up there?" I asked him. He laughed, but I was serious.

  "Have fun Mike, haven't seen anything around here you need to be worried about. There's some deer on the other side of the pond but I haven't been able to get a clear shot at them."

  "You don't mind if I skate? I don't want to scare them away."

  "No, enjoy yourself, a couple of days ago I shoveled off a hockey rink."

  "Sweet, thanks." I trudged on through the snow. My fingers froze as I laced up my skates. "Why has no one ever created Velcro laces for skates? Another million dollar idea I'll never be able to bring to fruition now." I said sourly.

  "You say something?" my brother shouted. I had forgot how easily sound could travel over the pond. I shook my head in the negative.

  The weather was crisp and had a bite to it, not like a grizzly bear mind you, more like a pissed off weasel. It was invigorating. Pulling the cold air deep into my lungs was somehow refreshing. I'll say this for the apocalypse, the air had gotten a lot cleaner since man's machinations no longer wheeled and spun. I could feel Gary's gaze on me for a while. Really wasn't a whole bunch else to look at, and then even I must have become boring because he started to belt out his rendition of 'Sister Christian' while listening to what appeared to be an ancient Walkman by the bulky look of it.

  "Might as well get an old reel to reel," I muttered to myself as I finally finished lacing my skates. I dropped the puck on the ice, grabbed my stick and just flat out enjoyed the feeling of cool air sliding across my face as I glided on the ice. The sound of my blades cutting across the frozen water was interrupted only by my occasional less than stellar slap shots and Gary's high-pitched tone deaf crooning. It sounded like he was halfway through 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns and Roses, but I wouldn't attest to that fact in court. When I said aloud "Good thing American Idol can't hear this," I immediately wished I hadn't. That one malignant thought spiraled into thoughts about the host, Ryan Seacrest, and then right back to Tommy.

  The thought of the kid missing and most likely with Eliza brought me to a complete halt. It also saved my life. I had been concentrating so hard on my skating and puck control I had not even checked my surroundings. Four zombies dressed like hunters were almost halfway across the pond. They had entered from across the other side. Their pace was hampered somewhat by the snow but they were now less than 25 feet away.

  They had come upwind from me so that I could not smell them. My hope was that it was an unintentional coincidence, not that I had come across many of those lately. I quickly patted down my pockets. No gun. I absolutely could not believe my stupidity. It was just that I had come home, I should be safe, I shouldn't have to wear a gun constantly. Having a gun in the outside world had been such a necessity not having one was akin to a mother going to a grocery store with her infant and not bringing a diaper bag, who does that? "Only the ill prepared," I said aloud. "Yeah but without a diaper bag you only have a fussy smelly baby, without a gun you have death. Talbot, stop talking to yourself." Yep, I said that aloud.

  Plan B: Get Gary's attention, he had a 30-30 and from this range it should be pretty easy pickings. I shouted until my throat felt like I had swallowed fish bones, but Gary was looking in the complete opposite direction down the access road and now singing some horrible nightmare equivalent of 'Every Rose Has a Thorn'. I made a snowball but unless I had a slingshot or Dwight Evan's arm (the star outfielder for the Red Sox in the 70's) I was never going to be able to hit him. The lead zombie had just entered onto the rink from the opposite corner. He immediately slipped and fell on his head. Somehow I didn't think a concussion was going to stop him.

  "GARY!!!" I reached way down for that and put everything into it from my Marine Corps years. I would be sucking down Sucrets for three days to pay for that scream but it was worth it.

  There must have been a lull on Gary's mix cassette (yes it was a cassette) because he turned to see where the offending noise had come from.

  "Zombies!" he screamed, his headphones still on.

  "You think?"

  "What?" he screamed again.

  I motioned for him to take off the headphones.

  "Oh sorry!" he screamed again. "Zombies," he said in a much more conversational tone with the ear gear off.

  All four zombies had made it onto the shoveled ice. Their progress was greatly impeded but it would only be a matter of time. Gary lifted his rifle up, from this angle the barrel looked like a cannon.

  "Umm, I'd rather you waited until I moved," I yelled, a little too late. His first round blew one of my pucks up.

  "Was that your puck?"

  "Are you kidding me!" I yelled at him.
/>   "Bet I couldn't do that again if I tried."

  "I really wish you wouldn't."

  The sound of the shot reverberating through the woods brought some reinforcements from the Talbot clan. I had begun to punch holes through the snow with my skate laden feet. The zombies were halfway across the rink by this time. I was in no immediate danger of being caught but I honestly didn't want to dull my blades by walking on the ground. Trivial matter, sure I know that, but when's the next time I'm going to be able to take them down to the hardware store to get them sharpened?

  Gary's next shot splintered the lead zombie's head in two. "Hell of a shot!" I yelled, getting away from the killing rink.

  "Can't stand zombies, Mike!" he yelled back.

  "I got that," I said, giving him the thumbs up.

  My dad was on the porch watching, a look of concern on his face; the illusion of peace had been shattered.

  My nephew Mark asked his dad, my brother Ron, something and then headed down to the edge of the pond with his gun. Looked like a .22 long rifle caliber. It's a relatively high velocity round but it is used mostly for small game. Now I'm not saying I'd want to get shot with one, I was just wondering how effective it would be against men. Travis and Justin immediately followed with much heavier calibers.

  Mark's first shot skidded off the lead hunter zombie's head, a three inch swath of skin pulled back to reveal a gleaming shiny white skull. I thanked God I had not eaten Lyn's breakfast because I could not imagine that it would taste any better coming up than it had going down. Mark's next shot, much like Gary's puck crusher, could not be duplicated on a bet. It skidded to the left this time nearly making an equal skin flap. It looked like the zombie was trying to sprout a head visor. The whole front of his forehead was exposed in all its horrid glory. The small window of quiet was only broken by Gary's splashing vomit as it rained down from on high.

  He, unlike the hunters was downhill; the smell of his tossed up salami would take that magically delicious deli meat off my menu for the remainder of my life.