No doubt about it, this was Tegan, the spaghetti western master, guardian extraordinaire of Fort Friendly, a place I still frequented in my nightmares.
He hadn’t gone easy and he’d taken more than a few of the dead with him. There were a pile of moldering corpses in the room, which at one point had been someone’s tastefully decorated bedroom. A frantic search of the bodies proved none of them to be Daisy or Rosie but I thought I recognized another man from the Rose Hill mansion.
Tegan had shambled in behind me. I turned to him, closed my eyes and accessed his memories. His turning had been truly awful, he fought with guns and a knife and then with just his hands and teeth at the end but eventually he was overwhelmed. Numbers will ultimately outpace anyone no matter how tenacious the individual but he did fight like a cornered animal until the very end, killing all the undead that came into the room after him.
He was bitten well over a hundred times before he succumbed to his injuries and collapsed on the floor. His dying army crawl to shut the door had actually been kind of heroic. His final thoughts had been filled with grim fever-pitched hallucinations in which an entire horde of zombies was clambering up the stairs from below to get him. He needed to shut that door to allow Rosie and the rest enough time to make their escape even though they had been gone several minutes by that point.
I watched their harrowing escape over and over again. Tegan was with Rosie in this very room. The roar of the frenzied zombie crowd outside the building was reaching its crescendo. She was screaming at him to go back downstairs and retrieve her sister.
She was so full of rage and panic that for a moment poor Tegan was frozen in place. A sharp slap to the face snapped him out of it and he was soon dashing out of the room down the long hallway to the head of the stairs. Just like in my dream, the zombies broke through the make-shift barrier with primal force just as Tegan made his way down the stairs four at a time as the gunfire below gave way to screams of shock and pain.
There was no time for him to do anything other than what he did. I don’t blame him but it was still hard to watch. The zombies were mowing through humans like brush through a wood chipper. Tegan had no chance to go all the way down the stairs to retrieve Daisy. Instead, he leaned over the railing with both arms, grabbed Daisy by the hair and began hauling her bodily off her butt and into the air.
He must have been a strong son of a bitch because while Daisy wasn’t heavy, she was scared, pissed and flailing away in pain. This incensed the zombies and those closest collectively rushed the two of them, ignoring Daisy completely and lunging for Tegan’s outstretched arms. One particularly athletic zombie with a decent free-standing vertical, leapt up and took a small but nasty-sized portion of Tegan’s forearm showering the zombie and Daisy’s upturned face with Tegan’s blood.
He screamed in pain but didn’t let go of her. In fact, the bite so enraged him, he soared with adrenaline and hauled Daisy up and over the railing like she weighed no more than a small sack of laundry. She landed painfully on her ass and back. I worried momentarily for her safety and that of the baby, whose presence was now becoming evident because of the small baby bump growing in her belly.
I froze the moment for a long time just so I could look at her. She looked tired and dirty and maybe a little sad but otherwise just as beautiful as I remembered. I longed to stroke her cheek or touch her hair but alas, this was just another man’s memory. A rather brutal one at that. I could wait. I would find her. Then I would touch her again, if she still wanted me to that is.
I restarted the action to watch in first person as Tegan literally dragged a screaming Daisy up the stairs by the hair. The crowd of zombies were temporarily bottlenecked at the bottom as they fed on people and tripped over each other.
Rosie and four others were providing cover support with a few machine guns as they made their way down the hall and shut themselves into the bedroom. The group shoved a heavy dresser and the bed against the door but there wasn’t much else to barricade with. The zombies were soon hammering away. The people inside were starting to panic.
Rosie was staring up at the sky out of the room’s only window looking or waiting for something.
“Come on! Come on!” she shouted repeatedly.
Daisy was sitting on the edge of the bed bouncing slightly every time the zombies rattled the door. She was resigned, all screamed out I guess. I couldn’t study her too intently with Tegan flailing about like a madman. He and Rosie were embroiled in a rather heated argument.
I was so focused on a very forlorn looking Daisy that I had to ‘rewind’ the memory twice before I could follow their words.
“I’m fucking bit, Rosie!” he screamed, gripping Rosie by the shoulders. She wasn’t having it.
“We’re not leaving you behind,” she wailed. “When that rope comes down you’re going up with the rest of us!” her face was red as she shouted at him.
She knock his arms off her shoulders with an angry shoulder shrug. She followed that with a brutal shove and my vantage point changed abruptly as Tegan hit the floor.
She was on him in an instant with a flurry of wet, snotty kisses and unintelligible words which must have been apologies. This lasted about ten seconds before Tegan gathered himself and pulled them both to their feet. He held her tight as she sobbed into his chest, the top of her head was a tangled mess of sweaty brown hair.
He whispered urgently into her ear as a thick rope ladder suddenly appeared in the open window behind Rosie.
The noise from the hallway grew noticeably louder.
“There’s no more time, baby, I’m bit and you know what that means. You take your sister and get up that ladder before it’s too late.”
“No, I’m not leaving you,” she replied into his chest.
“Yes you are, Rosie, you’re gonna take your sister out of here and you’re going to survive. I’ll hold them off as long as I can. That’s all I have left now, to see you up that ladder. Don’t make my sacrifice mean nothing. I’m already dead, you crazy little bitch.”
She giggled and took his face in her hands with a smile and tears streaming down her face.
“You’re the only man I’ll ever let call me that you big stupid asshole,” she told him through choked sobs. Then she gently slapped his face.
I couldn’t see it but it was obvious he was smiling. Her forehead grew nearer as he planted a final goodbye kiss above her eyebrows.
“I never knew true love and pain until I met you, Rosie Flowers,” he told her gently. “Now go before I change my mind and make you stay here and die with me.”
With that he gently pushed her toward the window, grabbed his rifle from the bed and started barking orders at the remaining people who stood waiting around the room. He put his back to the bed and anchored his feet to the floor to add his weight to the flimsy blockade.
Filled with resolve, Rosie began ushering people up the rope ladder where they disappeared out of view beginning with an almost catatonic Daisy.
Soon the last man made his way out and it was just Rosie left sitting on the window sill with one arm and leg on the ladder and the other still in the room, she stared with resigned longing at Tegan, a look of purest terror on her face.
The zombies were making serious progress as I could see Tegan’s boots sliding toward the window. His vision was going blurry.
“Go, Rosie!” he shouted with a heavy voice.
“I love you, Tegan Matthews!” she shouted and blew him a big goofy kiss.
Tegan’s right arm rose slowly to his mouth as he blew her a final kiss in return. Then she whimpered and looked away as she made her exit out the window and out of the few remaining moments of Tegan’s life.
I had already witnessed Tegan’s demise and had no desire to revisit that again, especially now with the new perspective of how deeply devoted to Rosie he had been. I sat down on the sodden remains of the bed and dried my eyes.
Tegan’s corpse just stood there staring off into space like a big dumb heroic id
iot. This had been a dangerous man, whom I both hated and feared. I supposed some part of me always would, it’s hard to break first impressions but as I looked at him I couldn’t help but feel sorrow and pity for the love he found so briefly and then lost.
Of course, the way he died had been no picnic either but it hadn’t been a waste. He died saving the life of his love and her sister for that I wanted to end his misery.
The window was still wide open, letting in a developing wintry mix of rain and sleet that was making my stay in the room even more uncomfortable. I cinched the zipper of my parka up tighter and popped my head out the window.
The streets below were still tightly packed with the undead. I saw no sign of my pursuers. My assumption was that they were still regrouping or looking elsewhere. I couldn’t hear anything save for the ever present atonal droning of the undead. I looked up, the roof was only two stories above my head. It wasn’t a tall building just a series of high end condos conveniently located for the great city sightlines and easy access to the nightlife.
The rope ladder was long gone. That meant it had been part of a helicopter rescue. I couldn’t imagine any other reason for Rosie and company to climb to the roof unless they were still up there which seemed like a silly notion. I stood there awkwardly staring up at the roof for another minute as if waiting for Rosie to poke her head down at me and wave. I had no idea what happened to them or where they went.
I shut the window and sat back down on the mattress. I glanced up at Tegan who was entertaining himself by staring at the wall. I really wanted to put him down but I needed to know who Rosie had coordinated their rescue with and more importantly where they went.
That was the only way I was going to have a shot at finding them. I sighed and once again prepared to take a dive into Tegan’s pool of memories. I would be going further back this time. Wishing for some popcorn and a large cherry soda, I made myself as comfortable as possible and jumped in.
Chapter 35
“A Requiem for a Backstory Part 2 in 3D”
Tegan Matthews was a hard man and a killer. A veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, he had seen and done things he would never forget. Things that would forever prevent him from getting a good night’s sleep. He left the marines with his body intact but with his mind flayed like a few choice cuts of beef.
When he returned to his home state he took the only job he was truly good at, which was working security and protection. He hated it because it was unmercifully boring compared to what he’d grown used to but it paid well. He bounced around playing bodyguard to a few politicians and local dignitaries until he eventually fell into the employ of Mr. Henry Flowers.
Initially, the job had been uneventful like all his other protection gigs had been but as the weeks went on Tegan began to truly appreciate his new charge.
Mr. Flowers treated Tegan well, introduced him to powerful people like he was something more than just a bodyguard and often asked for his counsel on issues Tegan had little to no experience with.
At first, the former soldier assumed Flowers was patronizing him but in time he came to see him as a mentor and take him at his word. It wasn’t long before Henry bought out Tegan’s contract from the protection company and took him on as a permanent employee.
In Tegan’s estimation, Henry Flowers was a very powerful and committed man. When he had a goal in his mind, nothing and nobody kept him from achieving it. In that way Flowers reminded Tegan of a handful of excellent leaders he had known or served under in the military.
The longer he worked for him, the more Tegan thought the man would have made an excellent field general if he had chosen a life of military service.
The one blind spot Henry had, in Tegan’s opinion, was his family. His wife was great. She was nice to look at for an older woman, smart and worked with her husband like they were a team but always deferred to him when it counted. His daughters were a different story.
Dealing with the spoiled daughters of Henry Flowers was a never-ending chore soaked in frustration for Tegan. He was very happy only Violet still lived at home. The other Flowers girls were intolerable. Tegan was a military brat before he was military himself. His father had some seriously old fashioned ideas about women. He had inadvertently programmed his son with those same ideas. While Tegan was smart enough in his vocation to usually keep his opinions to himself, his upbringing meant he never really had lasting relationships with any woman except his mother.
Tegan had been Mr. Flowers’s shadow for almost four months when word came down from the man’s numerous connections that something big was looming on the horizon. No one was exactly sure what it was but the message was clear, it would be a world altering event. No one was dropping the A word but all the important people were nervous. It all seemed preposterous to Tegan but Flowers was a believer.
Mr. Flowers remained as confident and stalwart as ever but Tegan could tell he was nervous. That was unsettling for him, Tegan didn’t like to see Flowers nervous. He wanted the man to know he had his back no matter what. He worked harder than ever and maintained a level of organization that would make a colony of ants blush. Flowers took notice and soon had Tegan taking the lead on many aspects of his elaborate preparations in anticipation of whatever face the coming event would take.
One of his projects was to beef up security personal for the family’s residence in Friendly. He recruited two dozen former colleagues from the service and oversaw the very confused construction crews as they were contracted to retrofit the large Flowers Mansion into a secure compound. It was during this time that Tegan was introduced to Bill Swanson, a former friend of Flowers that was undertaking similar work on his own property in Legend Heights. While it was obvious the two men shared a rough history concerning their two youngest children, Tegan didn’t think too much about it, they seemed to be getting along okay at the time of the construction projects.
Tegan’s main job was to keep construction running smoothly. He did this by making sure the crew didn’t ask too many questions and making sure they understood the consequences for breaking confidentiality agreements. He was quite good at this aspect of his job, nobody talked out of school. He partnered with Mrs. Flowers on occasion when a softer touch was necessary, like when they had to deal with the neighbors. Mrs. Flowers handled them with grace and charm that Tegan didn’t possess but could admire.
Everything flowed smoothly during the massive overhaul except where it concerned that blind spot, the daughters of Henry and Susan Flowers.
In his opinion, all three girls were stuck up and spoiled beyond redemption, constantly bitching about what they perceived as an upheaval of their lives. The twins, really more women than girls, pitched a tandem fit when their father informed them they would be moving back home from their apartment in Minneapolis.
They screeched and cried and refused to acknowledge there may be a greater purpose at play than their own discomfort. In spite of their protests they came anyway, kicking and screaming. Their move-in day was a time of terror for Tegan he wouldn’t soon forget. The twins barked orders at him like he was some kind muscled butler built only to live in their servitude.
In short, the twins were almost completely unbearable.
The youngest wasn’t as bad but Tegan felt that was solely because she was preoccupied, pouting over the loss of her boyfriend. With the women living in the mansion, Tegan kept his distance as best he could. Though there were times interacting with the ladies couldn’t be helped. The twins seemed to like messing with him, especially Rosie, as though she in particular could tell women made him very nervous. Tegan couldn’t figure it out, he always engaged them in as professional of a manner as he could conjure up.
In his mind they were the worst combination three women could have, spoiled rich and ridiculously hot. All the men were nervous around them, their own mother often appeared to be jealous of them and the only person who had ever told them no was their dad. Tegan was of the mind they only listened to him because he held the k
eys to the financial kingdom. The one thing they would never risk losing was access to their father’s money.
So Tegan kept his distance. Flowers made it clear to him that nothing in the world was as important as his daughters. He could look but not touch, Flowers had said with a weird chuckle. It was the first time Tegan had thought the man might be a little crazy but he blew it off, all great leaders were a little crazy after all.
Tegan made it clear to the men he brought in, that the girls weren’t even to be looked at let alone approached or propositioned. Everyone was afraid of him so everyone complied. In time, Tegan got over his nervousness around the women, much to Rosie’s displeasure.
He came to view them as pretty fixtures of the property that happened to make noise. Once that happened, life resumed for him as it had been prior to their moving in with one major difference.
People everywhere started getting sick. Authorities were scrambling but it was spreading like wild fire. It dominated the news and the talk shows but no one had answers. It was declared an epidemic with no name, quickly on its way to pandemic status. After a few days it became simple known as the Sickness.
The Sickness hit you like flu and palsy disease rolled into one. Mix in some stroke-like symptoms for flavoring and a coma for a cherry on top. Even worse, no one seemed to be beating it. It was a nasty and scary virus that was throwing the world into chaos. A few had already died from it but most that got it just stayed comatose, sucking up hospital beds and resources.
Surely this must be what we’ve been preparing for, Tegan would opine as he listened to the news. But Henry Flowers didn’t agree.
“This isn’t it,” he told Tegan, “This is bad but there’s something worse coming, just wait and see.”
He wouldn’t expound on what he thought that might be. Tegan didn’t think he really knew. The man was overworked and stressed to the max so he decided to give him a pass.
But Henry didn’t stick his head in the sand where the Sickness was concerned. He instituted a strict quarantine for everyone living in or working on the mansion. It became a little like the famed walled city of Jericho. To get in, a person had to jump through some serious hoops to prove he or she was healthy.
Running with the Horde Page 23