When The Light Goes Out

by Jack Thompson

  "I I" I couldn't answer.

  "Hey, sir, put the gun down. I know you're scared"

  "I'm not scared! Who say's I'm scared! I'm doin' just fine, thank ye." "Put the gun down."

  "Maybe I don't want to. Ever thought of that?"

  "Put the gun down." Cathy upped the ante a bit, as I could see her producing her gun as a way to persuade the man, from the corner of my eye. However all it did was cause a sort of dry laughter to bubble up in his throat. The laugh scared me out of my head. Why was he so amused?

  "Pplease?" Oh if I didn't just hate stuttering like that. It made me feel like a little kid. I wasn't. I was an adult, yet I was tripping over my words like a first grader starting their journey into the world of literature. "I only wa-wanted to turn on the lights."

  "Ye could 'ave led them damn creatures 'ere!" "We were very careful..." Blatant lie.

  "Were ye now?" I could swear the man was snarling at me, but my eyes had gone cross with the effort of staring at the gun. Hoping to make it disappear, I suppose. So long as I didn't die.

  "We tried to be."

  "Okay, I'll give you a choice, sir. Either you put the gun down, or I'm giving you one between the eyes." "Try that and I'll kill this one 'ere."

  "Yeah, but you'll be dead before you can raise the gun to me."

  "True enough." Finally the gun lowered, and I swear I lost all color in my face during the effort to keep on my feet not that there was much color to lose of course. My knees were smacking against each other, and I swayed. Landing against Cathy with a bit of a sigh.

  Holy shit that was close.

  Too close.

  I wanted to box his ears.

  But, instead, I took the moment to really look at him. To note the fact that he had pure white hair, and blotchy, wrinkled skin. He looked downright ancient, hunched over a walking stick, with a gun in one hand. But there was a sparkle in his blue eyes that told one not to mess with him, no matter how weak he appeared. He had to have grandchildren somewhere, and I couldn't help but mentally pity them. Not so sure anyone deserved such an old man in their lives.

  "I'm Cathy." The blond never lowered her eyes from his. Never loosened her grip on the lowered gun. But the man just kept looking at me. Staring. Making me nervous. She could tell too, which was definitely the worst part. "This is Excel."

  "Kids got a mouth, eh?"

  "I'm Excel." I was ashamed at how low my voice was. And it was shaking.

  Damned old man.

  "Blaz. Didn't mean to startle ye."

  "Startle!" I choked on the word. Staring wide eyed at the fossil. I couldn't believe he'd said what he did. Startled. A mere 'startled.' As if my heart wasn't pounding in my ears. As if a gun being pushed to my face was a common occurrence, which I should have been use to. "Startled?!"

  "Frightened then?"

  I stormed off, unable to look at the man for another minute. I wanted to throttle him, and usually I was extremely patient with the older crowd. I knew that we came from different times. We thought differently. Downright felt differently about a lot of things. I understood that some of them didn't want to consider new opinions. But him. Oh, I wanted to kill

  him.

  I found myself over by the furniture display, and dropped onto the nearest couch. Trying to calm down. Trying to slow my heart beat, dry my palms, and find that happy place in my mind. But I couldn't. So I curled up, with my back to the room, in an attempt to wake up.

  It had to be a dream. It had to be.

  But I was sure it wasn't.

  The ache in my back from sleeping upright. The pain in my neck from slumping over. There was no way I was dreaming that.

  No way.

  Somewhere in the distance, I heard my name. Maybe Dustin wanting to know where I went. Cathy wanting to find me. Ian worrying, or mad that the old man scared me. It probably was Ian. He'd be the one to lose his cool. For a chess geek, he was protective. He didn't like it when people played around like that. I couldn't think of anyone else in the group who would really give a damn.

  Why was it me?

  It was always me.

  I was always the one with the luck. The misfortune.

  Whatever you wanted to call it. Why?!

  What had I ever done to deserve it?

  I pulled a dusty pillow over my head, not really caring about what could be on it. I just wanted to block out the world. The whole world and everything in it. I wanted life to stop existing, but I didn't want to die. Not yet. I was too young. Far too young.

  People much younger then me were dying. Why was I complaining?

  "God, why can't the world just go away?" I whispered the words to myself. I could hear shouting, somewhere, probably by the door. It sounded like someone was mad. "I can't stand this." Someone was still shouting, so I pushed the pillow on my ears even harder. Increasing the pressure until finally I just couldn't hear anything.

  The silence was wonderful.

  Peaceful.

  Bam!

  I didn't hear it so much as I felt a searing pain on my ass. Yes children, my ass. Whamoh. Right there. Like Kersplat. I couldn't have rolled over any quicker if someone stabbed me with a cattle prod. Suddenly the pain came again, but instead on my thigh. The inner part, completely exposed as I had one leg on the ground in a hasty attempt to get to my feet.

  "Holy mother of God!" I wasn't so sure what spurred the words, but they shot from my mouth as I collapsed to the floor, clutching my leg like it was broken. It sure as hell felt that way, with the pain just shooting up into my body. If the bone wasn't broken, there was most definitely a welt, as I tried to focus my gaze on whoever was there.

  "Dustin's looking for ye, brat." "You old bastard!"

  "Bitch." "Fossil!" "Slut!"

  "Coffin stuffer!" "Skank-ho!"

  I suddenly had an amazing amount of respect for the old man, rearing back, prepared to hit me with his walking stick a third time. However, expecting it, I did manage to more or less hip crawl out of the way, and sock him in the knee. To my amazement, he didn't go down, rat-bastard. No. He just slammed his cane to the floor, and leaned against it, glaring death into my very soul.

  I cracked a grin then, rising cautiously to my feet. Saying I didn't trust him was a total and complete understatement. He threatened to shoot me, beat me with a stick, and insulted me. Part of me openly wished I'd had such an awesome grandfather, but one figured that whoever did belong to him had such a high tolerance to pain that they weren't any fun for anybody.

  "Dustin's looking for me?" I couldn't help but repeat the mans question. It seemed to tee him off a bit. The wrinkled skin about his eyes wrinkled even more noticeably as they narrowed. For a minute I swore he was lifting his cane again, but it came into harsh contact with the ground when I raised my fist to hit him.

  If he was willing to hit me, I was willing to hit him, even if his teeth were older then most other living organisms. He just had that vitality in his eyes that made me wonder where the hell he got those happy pills from. One wouldn't be able to deny that it was a damned good question. He had to be taking something.

  "Yes, Dustin's looking for ye, snotnosed turniphead."

  Normally, I would have glared, but the thick accent made it impossible to keep a straight face. Instead I tipped over laughing.

  Silly me.

  Tip over in front of the guy with the stick.

  "Crash" was an understatement, and for a minute I couldn't move. But it was so totally worth it.

  Between fits of gasping laughter, I struggled to my feet. Half expecting him to hit me again. But he didn't. He just rolled his eyes, and turned around, half wobbling away from me. I

  had half a mind to just plop back down on the couch, but I knew I'd just end up having another meeting with his cane. The first few hadn't been so pleasant. I could still feel the sting.

  "'urry up kiddo." "Sit on it old man." "'ow about ye"

  "Are you two bickering now?" Cathy's accent had gotten heavy compared to the last time I hea
rd her. I figured it was due to Blaz's own, but that wasn't my problem. I just shot her a grin, absently rubbing my arm since I couldn't quite rub the parts of me that hurt in public.

  I really didn't want to answer the questions that came attached to that.

  "Where'd you go?" I never figured Dustin to be one of the people to get in someone's face. But he was doing exactly that. Glaring into my eyes. I grinned nervously.

  "I went to lay down on the couches." "Why?!"

  "I... was... sleepy?"

  "I think I may 'ave 'urt the munchkins feelings a bit back there, sorry." "Bull."

  "Excel?" "Nothing." "Excel"

  "I'm going to go sit by the door, thank you very much."

  And I did so, glaring angrily at the wall across the way as I sat cross legged. I really didn't want to deal with anything. Didn't want to deal with the kids, the adults. Life. I didn't want to deal with the old man. Especially the old man. If anything I wanted to crack him over the head with his own walking stick. Hard enough to break him.

  Yes him. Not it. Him. "Excel"

  "Dustin.." I stared up into green eyes. Just stared for a minute, speaking only when I knew I had his undivided attention. "Go away." I almost laughed at the look of shock on his face. Like he didn't expect me to act like a grounded teenager. "Dustin, I have respect for you. I do. I have so much. I've known you for less then twenty four hours, but you're already taking care of me. But frankly, right at this very moment, I couldn't care less. Right now, I want to claw someone's eyes out. So unless you've got two to spare, please?"

  I was almost shocked when the man nodded his head. But he did, and promptly walked back over to the group. Pixie looked about ready to come bounding over to me at any moment, but she restrained herself. Marvelous child, really. I would have felt terribly guilty if it was her eyes that I got. There was still so much for her to see.

  I tried to block them out. I tried to get my feet firmly on the ground again. My mind firmly in my head. I couldn't be running around, weaponless, just because some obnoxious old man decided he was going to be exactly that. If I ran off every time someone bothered me, I'd be a damned hermit. And I didn't want to be a hermit.

  But for some reason they wouldn't leave my head, and I couldn't fight the paranoia that they were talking about me. It wasn't even the pointing fingers that gave me such a paranoia. It was a twisting in my gut that just told me to be scared, and they were the only things I could think to be scared of, protected by mostly glassless, two foot thick, wooden doors.

  Unlocked wooden doors. Jesus, why?

  T'was the nature of the beast I suppose.

  Murphy's Law coming to butt his zitty little head in where it didn't belong. "Guys!"

  Everyone's head shot in my direction when I shouted, although I couldn't figure why. Maybe I'd just managed a tone of primal panic that not many people could accomplish at will. Maybe I outright startled them. But no matter the way, they were all staring at me, one or two realizing the problem right as the door started to slip open.

  I'm not ashamed to say that I nearly dove away from it. But the thought of being over run by zombies, in a place where there were just as many hiding places for us, as for them, made me turn around. I did find myself, instead, body slamming the door closed. Holding it that way as best I could.

  One figured there was a small mob outside those doors with the pressure working against me. I felt my feet slip. The stinging pain in my thigh was coming back full force. For a moment, I just wanted to die, again. But I pushed as hard as I could, holding the doors as shut as possible until reinforcements arrived.

  Luckily they arrived quickly, or we all would have wound up dead. Door nails, dead.

  I just sighed in relief, and moved out of the way, allowing the boys to do the dirty work long enough for the pain to stop shooting up through my body. Then I was right back next to them, pushing the door as hard as I could to keep the nasty little creatures out. We really didn't need their like in the place. I comforted myself, however momentarily, by considering the warehouse some A list club. Foolish as it sounds.

  Even more foolish was the thought that "Z listers aren't allowed in."

  The sanest thought that passed my mind was "What if Malachi's out there?" It struck fear into me. I was sure that, if he was out there, he wouldn't be coming back. Not with a mob of man-eating undead trying to get us. He was probably dead, half eaten, possibly rising in some alleyway in the distance. Either barely remembering us, or not at all.

  I hoped for the latter.

  Malachi was a strong boy; I didn't want to think of him unable to fight the urge to kill us. We may not have been his friends, but in such rough times, we were the best he had.

  He was the best I had. Aside from Ian.

  But Ian was different. He really was.

  I'm not so sure how long we were standing there, up against the door, praying that the thing didn't give way. They were too thick to, if you asked me. But one wouldn't bet on it. Until, suddenly, all the pressure stopped. Stopped long enough for someone to jam something in the lock, and twist. Effectively keeping it shut.

  One just hoped we'd be able to get it open again.

  I'm sure we all had that thought, at the same moment, as I exchanged glances with the boys.

  "Erm." I looked over at Ian, who was looking at the boys, who were looking at me. They all exchanged looks suddenly, some thought that completely went over my head, one assumes, as the chess dweeb threw a chunk of cloth (which I identified as a shirt after a few moments) at my head. I was grateful, but then had to go through the difficulties of finding a place to change. "Babathroom's over there."

  "Thanks man."

  And I walked, not appreciating the bathroom as much as the privacy. Gave me a moment to splash water (which I wasn't so sure was safe) over my face, and try to regain myself. Try to calm down. Try not to cry. Dammit, I wanted Malachi to walk through that door. Not because I liked him, but because I didn't want him to die. I really didn't want him to die. I didn't want anyone to die.

  "Jesus, I'm a wimp."

  The shirt was nice. A sort of elegant button up. Not too feminine, not too masculine. It was navy blue, maybe silk, I couldn't be sure. At all. I didn't want to be sure. I didn't know why I cared about the shirt, other then it gave me something to focus on. Something that wasn't the situation.

  Back to the shirt. It was cold.

  Soft.

  I started to cry anyway. Dammit.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  From the beginning...

  The guns were beautiful really. How a child came across them no one was entirely sure. How he'd gotten caught in such a terrible situation they didn't understand much better. At first glance they could tell that he was skilled. Shooting, point blank and from a distance, without wavering once. He hit dead on the mark just about every time. Missing only once or twice. Having to shoot one of the monsters two or three times because, for some reason, it wouldn't stay down.

  They'd felt rather bad, just watching from the car as the young man had to shoot several living people. They all knew that said people wouldn't be alive much longer. At least, not alive by normal standards. If you considered moving around, absentmindedly consuming flesh living, then sure, they were just that. But that was all a matter of opinion.

  The only opinion that matter was that they needed that boy. They needed his help.

  His expertise.

  They hadn't expected this. Wanted this.

  Worked for this.

  It just sort of happened.

  They were terribly worried that he wouldn't wake up, with his shirt half torn off of his body, and a chunk of hair missing from his skull. Sure, they'd packed off the wound, but it would scar. That was another thing that hurt. The sight of a fat, wobbling dead guy grabbing hold of the boys head, pulling. Watching him hold in a scream of utter agony.

  He couldn't be much older then twenty. Maybe a year or two, at the very most. But that meant nothing as he rested there, looking co
mpletely innocent. Pained. Pale. Sick. Had the virus passed when his hair was pulled? Was it possible? They couldn't be sure. But they knew they were chopping the length as soon as he awoke.

  Something told them he wouldn't be very pleased about that. Not even a little.

  But it was something they had to do.

  She was staring again, and they all laughed.

  She was the youngest. Twenty five, attractive, and mostly single. Every once in a while they'd get her drunk enough for a good night, but other then that she was off limits. She believed in love, marriage, and losing her virginity to the coach of the football team at fourteen (however you'd better not say that to her face.) They really did love her, not only because she was the only girl, but because she was mostly the brains of the operation.

  One could swear to it.

  The young man was attractive too. They were straight enough, but had to admit he was nice to look at. Sort of girly, but not in a bad way really. It was the long hair that did it. Sure, his face was a bunch of soft lines, but maybe that was because he was relaxed from sleep. He hadn't looked nearly as feminine when he was fighting earlier. Before he got taken down.