The End Has Come and Gone zf-4

by Mark Tufo

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t see her, I could only sense that she was there. I could ‘feel’ her presence in her bedroom.”

  “Did she know you were there?”

  I thought about that for a second, “No, I really get the impression that she had no idea whatsoever that I was there. So now I’m sitting on the floor in the playroom. I’ve got my back resting on the cellar door and I’m just looking around. I can tell that Mom is just sitting on her bed. She hadn’t moved, she’s just waiting.”

  “Waiting for Glenn.”

  I nodded. “After a few more minutes I began to sense his presence. He had not yet made it into the house. It was kind of like he got lost and Mom was there to lead him home.”

  “Damn, Mike.”

  “That’s what I thought. Mom was bringing him to a familiar place we all had loved when we were kids.”

  “That’s not just some elaborate dream, Mike?” Gary asked, his eyes a little wetter than normal.

  “I swear to you Gary, it was as real to me as this conversation we’re having now. I glimpsed something that I think very few on this side get to.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “It makes me thrilled, brother, to have proof that there is more to this life, especially now. To know that we have a soul and that when we are gone from here we go into the loving arms of those who have gone before.”

  Good Luck!

  "Gary, what are you doing?" I asked more peevishly than I should have.

  "Reading the paper, did I really need to explain that?" he said as he turned the over-sized page.

  Maybe it was the crinkling of the paper, the huge size of the medium or the fact that my friends were stranded on a roof top surrounded by zombies five miles away. But I was pacing around like I had smoked some crack and while I was waiting for it to kick in I had snorted a couple rails of coke.

  "You know that paper is over four months old, right?" I stopped my pacing long enough to berate him with that fact.

  My brother seemed to gain some sense of enjoyment from my discomfort. He sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the small metal table.

  "How the hell can you read that thing anyway? It's too damn big.”

  "You know, little brother, not all of us had our noses shoved up the Internet's ass. The cultured prefer the news the old fashioned way.”

  "Yeah, stale and irrelevant,” I replied

  He smiled and kept on reading. “Wow, this guy took out a full page ad the night the zombies came.”

  I finally sat down, I was beginning to wear a groove into the floorboards. “Now I'm not really curious, but since there's nothing else going on, what the hell was so special about this ad?"

  "How much do you think it costs to run a full page ad?"

  "Really? You're going to make me jump through hoops before you answer me?"

  Gary had a look of bemusement on his face.

  "Fine, I know a dinky little one inch ad runs about five hundred bucks, so a full page ad...” I stopped to think. “Has to be close to four thousand bucks.”

  "Not much return on investment here then.”

  "Gary, there's a full rack of papers over there. First, I'm going to grab a paper, find the friggen’ ad you’re talking about, decide for myself what I think about it. Then I'm going to roll it up and beat the living shit out of you with it.”

  "Man, I thought they were kidding when they said they put gun powder in the Marines’ eggs. You're a mean man, Mike.”

  "That's it,” I said pushing my chair away.

  "And absolutely no patience, hold on.”

  I stopped.

  "It's got a picture of this guy Rodney Carnahan on one knee, and he's holding a small boulder up to the photographer. Then there's a side picture of the bride-to-be, Amber Allaman. And it says and I quote, 'Amber, you came into my life when I needed someone like you the most. You’ve become my best friend and have given me a son who, like his momma, is the light of my world. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife, Amber Marie Allaman, and not just my baby-momma? Love Rod.' Do you think she got to see it?"

  "Man, I hope so,” I said, looking over his shoulder. “Although we don’t really know who this Amber girl is. I mean, sure she's very pretty, but you can't tell from a black and white still picture what's going on in that head of hers. Maybe, just maybe, the zombie-pocalypse saved the rest of Rodney’s life.”

  "I'm telling your wife you said that.”

  "I'll drive that truck off a bridge with the both if us in it, if I even THINK you'd say anything. Have I made myself clear?"

  (Super secret note just for Rodney – Please post the results on my Facebook page!)

  (For everyone else, that was exactly what you’re thinking it was!)

  Pre-Zombie Apocalypse

  A Talbot family get together is rife with one-liners and zingers. If you let your guard down for even a second, or show a moment of weakness, the others will descend on you like a pack of starving wolves on a fallen Caribou. Our family motto has always been “Kick ‘em when they’re down.”

  This is just one example. Gary, who is undeniably a great cook, started to describe how awesome his apple pie is. I told him that I’d also been working on my own, and after years of trial and error that I finally thought that I’d gotten it right. So my sister immediately shouts out ‘Pie Off!’ Gary and I thought it was an awesome idea. My daughter Nicole, who is okay in the kitchen, threw her hat in the ring. What the hell, I thought, the more people I beat, the sweeter the victory.

  My sister, who can’t make Jell-o, decided that this would be an opportune time to show off her skills (or lack thereof). “I want in too!” she shouted. Now, I don’t know if she was just caught up in the excitement of the moment or what, but I grinned to myself. This was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

  So Gary immediately says, “If it comes out of a box, it doesn’t count.” Many laughs ensued. I took it to another level. “Sis, I could show up with an apple and beat you.” My brothers (and myself) were laughing so hard we had tears coming out of our eyes. My sister was not a happy camper. She told me she hated me. I just laughed harder. I had won that round.

  The Blood Locket

  “Severed Hand, what do the spirits divine for our hunt?” Chief Running Bear asked.

  Severed Hand had spent the majority of the fall day secluded in his tepee with twigs of ash, elderberry bush, and sage smoking on an enclosed fire pit.

  “It is not good, Running Bear. I cannot get a clear message from the spirits. I think that you should wait until I have been shown the path,” Severed Hand told his exasperated Chief.

  “That is the same message as yesterday and the same as it was the day before. If we wait much longer, the herds will be gone and our clan will suffer greatly come the approaching winter,” the Chief said.

  “I fear Running Bear that to leave now would endanger our people even more.”

  The Chief snorted in disagreement. He normally deferred to the spiritual leader as long as the Shaman spoke words the Chief wanted to hear. It wasn’t that Chief Running Bear was too egotistical to listen to his advisor and friend, it was that he had sixty people in his clan that looked to him to make it through the harsh winters. If they did not secure at least three bison on this next hunt he would lose a great many people to disease and famine, and he loved them too much to let that happen.

  “I will give you until the sun has risen tomorrow, Severed Hand, to coax an answer from the spirits.”

  “Chief, you of all people know that it does not work that way. The gods will tell me what they feel I should know when they feel I should know it.”

  “As long as it is by tomorrow,” the Chief said, heading back to his tepee. The cold of the night was beginning to seep deep into his bones. ‘A few more seasons and the younger bucks will need to prove who is worthy to lead us,’ the Chief thought. ‘But not yet.’

  Severed Hand reentered his smoke filled hut. He sat cross legged on h
is stack of elk and bison furs breathing deeply of the aromatic smoke, controlling his breaths that he might achieve a state of heavy meditation. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head; his second sight was shrouded in a thin veil of black. A lone crow blacker than the veil stood on the other side, one flat black eye staring at him hungrily. It cawed once and as it jumped into the air and flew away, the veil was parted. The emptiness beyond was too much for the Shaman who passed out. It was several hours later when he awoke. The Chief and twenty of the tribe’s braves were already gone on the hunt.

  “What have I done?” Severed Hand lamented as he clutched the amulet tied around his neck.

  The women, children and infirm gathered around the main fire at the center of their encampment like they were wont to do when the men went on their hunts. Severed Hand spent the day asking all of the spirit guides for as much protection as could be afforded for his people.

  “Chief Screaming Hawk, we need to get the people to a safer location,” Severed Hand implored the former leader of the clan.

  “I am old, Shaman, the people no longer follow my rule,” Screaming Hawk said as he stared deep into the fire, remembering a time when he was as fast as the animal he was named for.

  “You are not so old that they do not listen to your words. Do not pretend to have gone soft in the head, your people need you,” Severed Hand said forcibly.

  “What would you have me do?” Screaming Hawk asked, angry that he had been disturbed from his reverie.

  “I do not know, but I feel that this land that we stand on now is not safe.”

  “The spirits have said this?” Screaming Hawk asked curiously. Severed Hand had always been a trusted advisor while he had been the chief.

  “Not in signs that I can divine, Chief, but that we should leave immediately I do not doubt.”

  “Leaping Frog,” the old Chief said to a young boy that was running around the fire. “Get your mother.”

  The boy stopped immediately. As the son of Chief Running Bear he was afforded special privileges. But to not do as an elder, and a former chief at that, asked was more trouble than he cared to find himself immersed in. Leaping Frog nodded and ran off.

  Leaping Frog’s mother, White Fawn, was headed towards where Screaming Hawk and Severed Hand were sitting by the fire. She shivered as the warm touch of the sun slid from her shoulders and behind the mountains. A preternatural chill rippled up her spine. She sped her step up but it was too late as she felt her flesh rip from her side to the bottom of her shoulder blade. She fell to her knees as her spine became exposed to the cool twilight air.

  Severed Hand turned to watch as she fell face first into the soft dirt. The black abomination that straddled her prone body had the same flat black eyes as the crow he had seen in his vision. Severed Hand rose, quickly grabbing his staff and running towards the fallen woman. Screaming Hawk was just turning around as screams of fear and pain issued forth from around the camp.

  The blackness had moved from White Fawn; blood poured forth from her wound. Severed Hand reached into his pouch, grabbing a handful of blended herbs that were proficient in stopping bleeding. He looked into White Fawn’s eyes but they had already clouded over. He saved the herbs. Just then Leaping Frog sailed over his head. Severed Hand tried to jump and grab him, but it was too late as the young boy landed in the middle of the fire. His screams pierced the night as the flesh melted from his bones. His small charred body crawled a few feet, almost coming completely clear from the fire before collapsing.

  Screaming Hawk took his small flint knife from his leg sheath and ran towards where the most intense screaming was coming from. His war cry stirred the air, it was the last sound he would ever make. Severed Hand found him the next day nailed through the throat to a tree with that same knife.

  No matter where Severed Hand went that long night, it was always moments behind the plague that was tearing his people apart. He came across a little girl, he thought her name might have been Wading Brook. She had been torn in two, the ragged halves spread twenty feet apart. Deep Water, her mother, was lying in a pool of blood. Her head and spinal column had been detached from the rest of her body, her mouth still twitching.

  When the dying had completed their destiny, a shadowy image appeared from beyond the fire.

  “I see you demon!” Severed Hand shouted.

  “As I see you, Medicine Man,” Eliza said as she appeared to walk through the fire.

  Fear clutched Severed Hand’s heart as she approached.

  “Why?” Severed Hand asked as he looked upon the blood soaked apparition before him.

  “I was bored,” she said with a small laugh.

  “What are you?” Severed Hand asked in horror. Anger was beginning to take hold.

  “I am Death,” she replied proudly.

  “You are not death. Death does not sow, it reaps.”

  “Clever Shaman, but I will give you no further information. I know how powerful names can be to those who know how to use them.”

  “Why not tell me who you are and then let me join those you have taken?”

  “Very well, I had hoped to leave you alive so that you could tell others about me. I grow weary of always being in the shadows. It is time that people are afraid of me and not my legend. But I will grant your request. Perhaps it will be fun to take my time with you. Come, you and I will sit by the fire as I tell you my tale.”

  “No one will fear a demon that destroys women, children and the old,” Severed Hand said defiantly.

  “FOOL!” Eliza said, hitting Severed Hand with the back of her hand. He slid effortless across the ground. “Did you not understand the visions I sent to you?” Eliza was fairly shaking with rage.

  The insult did as he had hoped. While he struggled to get up, he ripped free a deerskin pouch he had wrapped around his waist. “Your pride will be your end,” Severed Hand murmured before standing up completely.

  “Now, come sit by the fire. I have a story to tell you before you die,” Eliza said, all of her earlier hostility seemingly dissipated.

  Severed Hand rubbed his jaw. If he ever got to eat again, it would not be without some significant discomfort.

  “My name is Eliza and this is my tale.” For several hours, Eliza related her story to Severed Hand about cruelties interlaced with atrocities piled high atop destruction.

  “The world has no need for the likes of you,” the Medicine Man said gravely.

  “It was this same world that produced me,” Eliza said. “I am merely returning the favor.”

  “I could end your suffering,” Severed Hand offered sincerely.

  Eliza laughed, “I enjoy the turmoil I cause, sorcerer. I fear our time together grows short,” she said as the eastern sky began to lighten.

  “Do you fear seeing what devastation you have wrought?” Severed Hand asked as he glanced at the horizon Eliza was watching.

  Eliza turned to him without saying anything. She gripped him around the neck and lifted him effortlessly off the ground. “Pity, I would have so enjoyed a few hours more of your time,” Eliza said as she slowly closed her grip.

  Severed Hand threw the contents of his right hand up into the air. As it rained down, wherever it made contact with Eliza, tiny wisps of smoke arose. Severed Hand grabbed a hold of a lock of Eliza’s hair as her grip around his neck released. She reared back in pain.

  “What have you done, witch doctor?” Eliza screamed.

  “I know you for what you are, soulless one,” Severed Hand rasped, his throat on fire. “You will bother the Lakota no more. Every surviving member of my people will wear our skins infused with Hawthorn and Rowan.”

  Eliza’s eyes gleamed at Severed Hand, “Our time now is done, but we have unfinished business,” she warned as she left.

  Severed Hand fell to his knees, dragging in breaths that seemed to ignite the coals placed in his throat. “You are right demon, we do have unfinished business,” he said, looking at the strands of hair he had pried loose from her head. />
  For seven days and seven nights Severed Hand alternated between performing burial rituals, burying the dead of the tribe, and hunting for one particular type of gem stone. He only stopped long enough to gather more Hawthorn and Rowan and to take small drinks of water. The demon did not return. On the morning of the eighth day, Chief Running Bear and his braves returned triumphantly with five bison, confident in the fact that his people would make it through the winter, warm and fat.

  The sight of the smoke from many funeral cairns at first stopped his advance and then made him speed up. His horse came to skidding stop at the hunched over body of Severed Hand who had just finished placing the last rock on the old Chief’s cairn.

  “What has happened here?” Chief Running Bear asked alighting from his horse, wildly looking around for his wife and his children, in fact, anyone.

  “They are dead,” Severed Hand said standing up, his hands nearly scraped clean of skin from his burial efforts.

  “Who did this?” Running Bear asked, tears streaming down his face as he sought an enemy to lash out against.

  “It is not a ‘who.’” Severed Hand said. “And your spears and bows would do nothing against it. Mourn, Running Bear, then come and sit with me. I have a way in which we can strike out against the demon that destroyed our people.”

  Running Bear barely acknowledged the words of his Medicine Man, so lost was he in the depths of his loss, but still he nodded. Severed Hand rubbed a small amount of his mixture onto every warrior’s head and clothes as they fell where they were, cries of despair rising as one lone sad song across the now accursed ground.

  For three days the remaining members of the tribe grieved for their lost ones. On the night of the third, Chief Running Bear entered into Severed Hand’s teepee. He was barely able to see the Medicine Man in the gloom, but he could see that he was beginning to shrivel away since he had not emerged to eat or drink in that whole time. The Chief sat across from Severed Hand who was only here in the physical sense, his spirit was walking the planes. The entire night the Chief merely sat and watched as the Shaman from time to time would shout out incoherent mutterings of warning and surprise.