by Mark Tufo
“What’s that got to do with anything?” she shot back.
“Humor me.”
“Is she going to tell jokes now?” John asked.
“Azile!” I snarled. John and Azile jumped.
“A-Z-I-L-E,” she said as she put her head down.
I rocked on my feet, John thankfully caught me.
“What’s the matter, man? That wasn’t even funny.” John asked as he propped me back up.
“There’s more going on here than you’re telling. You just happen to have the same name as Eliza only in reverse?” I asked.
“Whoa, that’s freaky. Who’s Eliza?” John asked.
“My father knew her,” she said, looking back at me defiantly.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” I said.
“Well, scientists believe that the entire universe—”
“John! Her, not you,” I said.
“That’s just it, Ponch, the beginning is the same for all of us. That’s what makes us all connected,” he said proudly.
“My mother was five months pregnant with me when Eliza turned my father. According to my mother, my father visited her once in those last four months and told her that the only way she could protect me was to name me Azile. My mother was so petrified that she believed him completely. She said she had never seen someone so soulless…that was….until I was seven.”
“Eliza,” I said.
“She and my father came to visit. Eliza killed my mother as my father watched, then she grabbed me.” Azile flipped her hair over to show two long-healed, puckered wounds on her neck. “She had just sunk her teeth into me when something in my father, some vestige of humanity showed itself and he begged her not to kill me…that I was even named after her. She backhanded my father so hard that he slid across the floor of the kitchen.”
***
“What is your name, child?” Eliza said as she stroked the young girl’s hair.
“Azile,” the girl said holding her chin high. Her mother was dead—a small pool of blood by her neck. Her father (in biological terms only) was groaning, his back up against the far wall in the kitchen.
“Azile! How rich!” Eliza said delightfully. “Perhaps I should let you live, if for no other reason than to see what happens.
Azile did not understand the monster’s words. She could see beyond the veneer of the beautiful woman to the cruelty and horror that lay beneath. The twisted, gnarled thing shrank away from that gaze.
“Well if you are not to die, then it shall be your father,” Eliza said as she strode over to Azile’s father. She looked back, waiting for some sort of response. Azile stood defiantly, the only person she cared for in life already dead; her father meant nothing to her. She watched as Eliza ripped the man’s throat open. His gurgled cries for help went unheeded.
“I believe we shall meet again,” Eliza said as she patted the girl’s head and left.
***
“I saw her for what she was and she let me live because of it…because of the horror of it,” Azile said as she covered her face.
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve gone through.” I hopped down off the truck.
“But?” she asked looking up at me.
“You tell me.”
“Group hug,” John said, climbing down off the trailer.
I acquiesced, because if I didn’t, he would have gone on about it for hours.
“After Eliza killed my mother, I vowed revenge. I knew she was something out of a faerie tale, so that’s what I decided I must become to defeat her.”
“A unicorn?” John asked, looking on her head for the horn.
We both stopped to look at him.
“A witch,” she stated. “I studied the Wiccan ways of white light.”
“So you’re more like Glinda the Good Witch?” John asked.
“Glinda wasn’t so good,” I said off-handedly. “I’m just saying, she was happy when Dorothy killed the other witch. She basically told Dorothy to take property that wasn’t hers and then sent her off on a mission to kill another witch that she was enemies with. If she was such a good witch why didn’t she do it herself?”
John and Azile were not giving me flattering looks.
“That’s merely my take,” I said, trying my best to extradite myself from my comment.
“Since my mother’s murder,” Azile continued, “my life has been devoted to stopping Eliza.”
I nodded in agreement. “What happened?”
“How did I become locked in that truck you mean?”
“That’s as good a thing to explain as any.”
“I’ve been searching for Eliza for thirteen years now. Always practicing my art, always getting stronger when that ultimate day would come and I could exact my revenge.”
I looked at her questioningly.
“Yeah, it didn’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped. I got my CDL a couple of years ago because it would give me a chance to drive around the country. I could sense her presence, almost like a whiff of ghost perfume in a haunted house. The stink of her was all over that truck stop.”
“So you had joined up in the hopes of getting a glimpse?” I asked.
“Oh, it was more than hoping for a glimpse. I had a sacrificial knife, supposedly belonged to an Ute Shaman. She came to see how Kong—what kind of fucking name is that?” she asked as an aside, “was doing. She had a small circle of drivers around her, and I circled around so I was coming up behind her. I had that blade out and was going to drive it between her shoulder blades.”
“I don’t think that would have worked.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but it would have made me feel better.”
“I’m with you on that. I think your knife is back there,” I said, pointing to the back of the truck.
“Are you sure?” she said, her eyes getting big.
“Beside the stones—which we’ll get to—there was something wrapped up in leather roughly the size of a butcher knife.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” she asked hotly.
“Umm, let me think…ultimate weapon of destruction, or a small item wrapped in dirty leather. Wow, how could I have been so stupid?”
Azile was already running into the back of the truck. “That’s it!” she yelled excitedly. She unwrapped it quickly and held it up. I wouldn’t have been overly surprised if bolts of lightning rained down from the heavens. I even took a quick glance skyward to see if there were any threatening clouds.
“So how’d you go from would be assassin to captive?”
“Bitch knew I was there all along. Apparently we share a connection because of the bite.”
John pulled out a medium-sized, folded up piece of tin foil and feverishly began to fashion it into a hat.
“What is he doing?” she asked me when John tried to put it on her head.
“Save us all, you’ll understand once it’s on.”
“I really don’t want to belong to the lithium league,” she said as she fended John off.
“Try it for a second.”
She allowed John to place the hat on her head. Instantly, her expression changed from disbelief to bewilderment to relief. She quickly removed it, then placed it back on. “How?”
“No clue. John could probably tell you.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me, saw it on a television show once when I was a kid.”
“I guess I should have figured as much,” I said aloud.
“For some reason, she didn’t kill me. She took the stones out of my trailer and had Kong put them in Horatio’s truck, then Kong made Horatio handcuff me to his bedrail.”
I was staring at her.
“No, no, he was actually fairly decent as far as murdering thugs go. Never once tried to have his way with me, apparently even scum have certain platitudes they won’t stoop below. But who knows, some of them were getting a little antsy. I’m sure if given the chance a few of them would have. Luckily I’d only been there a couple of days before you came along.�
�
“I haven’t figured all this shit out…not by a long shot. But there’s something more going on here. There was a half dozen different ways we could have left this morning and why I felt so compelled to check out that truck stop I’m still not sure. Then Horatio needing to take a piss just then. I find his truck and you. People win the lottery with smaller odds.”
“You should play the lottery,” John said. “If your luck is that good, you’re bound to win something.”
“Well let’s hold on to that and hope it extends to finding your wife.”
“Azile is married to a woman? How very progressive,” John said.
“Your wife, John.”
“Oh, well then let’s get going,” he said. “Where is she again?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Eliza and Tomas
Eliza and Tomas walked among the gravestones of the long interred residents of the Rue Morgue, as calm in their surroundings as new parents would be in their infant’s bedroom. Eliza strode with a purpose, Tomas kept up if only to try and keep her from her own insanity.
“There it is,” Eliza said with an edge of excitement as she gazed upon the mortuary doorway.
“Abaddon?” Tomas asked, looking at the name engraved at the top of the tomb.
“It means ‘The Destroyer’,” Eliza said as she pulled the rusted gate open.
“The evilness of this place surpasses even you, Eliza. I beg of you one last time, let us be gone from this place.”
“It does have a certain charm doesn’t it?” she asked as a large cobweb bathed her face and head much like a wedding veil.
Eliza took the candles from Tomas. She placed them in the form of a pentagram. Latin verse flowed from her mouth as she began her incantations. She stopped long enough to open one eye. “You may want to be in the center with me,” she told her brother. He reluctantly got in the circle. “Do not step out of here, no matter what the Deceiver says. Do you understand me, Tomas?” Eliza asked.
Tomas nodded his head. He had been close to God once and did not want to taint that experience with what he was about to bear witness to.
“Tomas, answer me. I am about to complete my invocation.”
Tomas nodded numbly.
“Good,” Eliza said as she started back up.
The air got heavy with the smell of burnt cordite and sulfur. The room took on a dull reddish glow as the walls themselves seemed to burn with the light.
“Eliza my pet, why do you call me forward?” a voice borne along the vocal chords of a thousand snakes issued forth.
“I have never been your pet.”
The snake hissed in laughter. “You are evil borne from evil, you have always been my pet.”
“I seek advice,” Eliza said, changing the subject from something she did not want to hear.
“When did I become a psychologist? You want advice, I will give it to you, but not freely. Give me willingly what lies between your breasts.”
Eliza clutched at the blood stone she wore. “Jehovah has broken covenant.”
“What?” The snake roared. The walls glowed brighter.
“He is directly helping a human,” Eliza said.
“You have proof of this?” An image of a snake head appeared and hovered close to the edge of the protective circle.
Eliza laid out every detail she thought led to divine intervention up to and including his death and rebirth.
“This is all very interesting, and I would not put it past him, but I fail to see how this affects me?”
“He has broken the laws of nature and you fail to see how this affects you?” Eliza asked with vehemence.
“I loathe the zombies, my child.”
Eliza winced at his use of ‘my child.’ He sounded too much like a father she had spent five centuries trying to forget.
“They are dim-witted and dull, they are not easily led astray. I have never had so much fun as when I twist a Catholic priest into a world of perversion. To twist God’s messengers, ahh, now those are the moments I yearn for. This human creature which He loves so much is so fallible I would have thought he would have scrapped the entire failed experiment of them by now.” The snake head turned into a priest regaled in a black suit with a white collar, his eyelids half closed as he enjoyed some unseen sexual ministrations. “This might be one time where I would be on His side.”
Eliza was beside herself. “You cannot be serious?”
“If He is trying to turn the tide so that man can once again be the dominant species, then yes. Before His creation came into being, I only controlled the lower animals—snakes, spiders, rats and cats. Man is so malleable and will do almost anything to anyone to get ahead. They are so wrapped up in themselves that they fail to realize just how little time they will walk the earth. And an eternity in my domain? Well that’s just a bonus for me. He gets so upset when He loses one of His children to me.”
“This was a waste of time,” Eliza said as she prepared to revoke her incantation.
“You desire this Michael Talbot and his family to stay safe?” the priest asked Tomas.
“More than anything.” Tomas spoke up.
“I can make that happen.”
“I have no soul with which to bargain, Great Deceiver,” Tomas said.
“Purgatory is a realm in which I have full access.”
“He lies,” Eliza said. “He can only go there if given permission.”
The priest hissed. “Yes…with your permission I can retrieve your soul and we can make a bargain.”
Tomas was looking like he was weighing his options.
“You cannot be serious, Tomas. You would give up eternity for a mortal and his family?”
“You will have a seat next to mine,” the priest said. As he waved his hand, an image of Tomas sitting next to him atop the tortured souls of the damned showed on the far wall.
“You are a fool, Tomas!” Eliza shouted.
“Is he, my daughter?” The priest turned into Eliza’s father. “I offer him true immortality, to rule alongside me.”
“We are immortal, Deceiver!” Eliza spat.
“Ah, now you lie, my child. To be immortal implies that you do not have the ability to die…which I most assuredly guarantee you that you do. I have waited patiently for you to join me. I have set aside such wondrous things for the two of us. If He is helping to facilitate that, then I may have to thank Him.” Eliza’s father turned back into the form of the priest.
The echoes of the Destroyer’s laughter could still be heard as Eliza recanted her invocation.
“Did that go as planned, dear sister?” Tomas asked as he stepped out of the tomb. Her response was icy silence as they got back in the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mike Journal Entry 11
Azile drove the truck like the pro she was, getting us through some rough patches of choked traffic jams mostly unscathed. We saw the occasional zombie, but with food so scarce, they were going to stasis mode more and more. We only had one run in of any sort while we were on the road: two motorcyclists who looked like they’d seen better days rolled up alongside us.
One pulled out a large caliber pistol and waved it around, making sure that I saw it. I started laughing my ass off as I raised my M-240. He veered off so hard that I thought he was going to flip his bike. I saw him waving his partner off as they both stopped.
“What’d they want?” Azile asked with some concern.
“I guess they just wanted to say hi,” I told her.
“You do know that the M-16 is a much easier weapon to handle don’t you?” she asked.
“Don’t take this away from me, Azile. When am I ever going to be able to walk around with a machinegun again?” I asked her back.
“Have it your way,” she replied.
“Just like Burger King,” John said. “Although that’s not always the case. I once asked them for McDonald’s french fries with my Whopper, because their fries taste like used socks and the kid behind the counter c
alled me a hippie and maybe if I didn’t have tin foil on my head that I would realize what burger joint I was in. I knew where I was,” John said as if he needed to defend himself to us. “BK has better hamburgers and Mickey Ds has better french fries. Is it too much to ask to have the both of them together?”
I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d had that exact thought. I sincerely hoped there weren’t too many more thoughts John and I shared in common.
“Did you ask for extra pickles?”
“Pickles give you whooping cough. Everybody knows that,” he informed me.
I looked over to Azile for confirmation to see if he was speaking the truth, she shook her head slightly.
It was a couple of hours later when Azile spoke, at some point I had dozed off. “Now what?” she asked as she reached across John and shook my shoulder.
I brought the machinegun up rapidly only to notice that the truck was idling and I was looking at the ‘Welcome to Philadelphia’ sign.
“John…what now, buddy?” I asked him. He was staring at the sign also, although I wasn’t sure if he was cognitively registering it.
“We get Stephanie!” he said excitedly.
“Philly is a pretty big place, Trip, any idea where we should start?” I asked him.
“Are you kidding me?” Azile shot out. “The stoner doesn’t even know which direction to go? How are we going to find her? We can’t waste our time on a wild goose chase!” Her voice was raising and I think she was approaching flip-out.
“Azile...Azile,” I said more forcibly when she didn’t listen the first time.
John’s eyes were wet. “I know she’s still alive,” he said with dejection.
“I know, we’ll find her,” I told him, giving Azile a healthy dose of stink eye over his shoulder.
“We don’t have time for this, Mike,” she told me much more softly. “Your family is in danger.”