by Mark Tufo
The metallic sound got louder. I approached cautiously. The sound was coming from behind a large home-heating propane tank. I thought (hoped) it was merely the wind pushing something against the large drum, a great theory, mind you, if there had been any breeze at all. The air was as still as death. Great analogy, Talbot. I berated myself. I gave a wide berth to the tank as I approached, I saw large legs first, splayed out on the ground. I moved quickly around to see BT leaning up against the tank, his revolver planted firmly under his jaw, I didn’t move fast enough as the hammer came down on an expended round. He pulled the trigger again, the metallic click sending me flying to pull the gun from him.
BT barely registered my existence as I pulled the gun from his hand. He looked up at me with a tear-soaked face.
“I’ve been bit, Mike,” BT sobbed.
Chapter Ten - Paul, Brian and Deneaux
“Mrs. D, I really think you should take more cover,” Brian said as he hid behind some strategically placed road debris. The overpass they were on appeared to be the perfect place for their ambush. There was no access to the highway on this road and by the time anyone traversed the steep grade to get to them, they would be long gone. That was the theory anyway.
“Nonsense, I am no spring chicken. I’m not getting on the ground like a savage.”
Paul shrugged his shoulders at Brian, as if to say, I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.
Mrs. Deneaux had searched four backyards before she found a lawn chair that she liked. Brian had carried the piece of furniture here for her. He would have left it behind if he hadn’t thought she was nearly his equivalent with the firearms. He thought Paul was a loyal and brave friend, but when it came to shooting, Paul was best left to the job of spotter.
Mrs. Deneaux, was sound asleep, head lolled to the side and half a burnt cigarette hanging out of her mouth when the earth begin to tremble.
“You feel that?” she asked, awakening with a start.
“No, what’s up?” Paul asked.
“Nothing. Must be gas,” she said, laughing.
“Wonderful,” Paul answered moving slightly away.
“No, I felt it too,” Brian said, looking up over their barricade.
“You must be ripping them,” Paul said to Mrs. Deneaux. “Whoa! I felt that,” Paul looked down the roadway. “You see anything?”
Brian placed his binoculars up to his eyes and held them steady. “Nothing yet,” he said calmly, but his true, rampaging emotions were threatening to rip through his imposed demeanor.
Mrs. Deneaux flipped her rifle’s safety off and rested the barrel on top of the guardrail. Her heart cracked off some rust as it beat a little quicker. She had led a decent life, not fulfilling and not overly happy, but it was her life and she was not in any rush to give it back to her maker. Besides that, she had some serious sins she still had to atone for. She wasn’t convinced there was an underworld, but who needed to believe in that when evil is present all around, every day. But she was not one to test her luck either. If there was a Hades, he would have to wait just like everyone else to get his due. She put her index finger in her mouth and stuck it in the air to find the prevailing breeze.
“Does that really work?” Paul asked.
“Watch and learn,” she said, placing her eye to the scope.
“Here they come,” Brian said, pointing down the roadway as he pulled his binoculars down.
“How can we be sure it’s them?” Paul asked.
“Well, first will be the smell, and then the underlying sense of evil that will pervade everything and then the old standby, your friend said they’d be coming this way and in this form,” Mrs. Deneaux said, never taking her gaze from her aperture.
“Okay, so there’s that,” Paul said.
“This a little much for you, bud?” Brian said, egging Paul on a bit.
“You do get that I was a manager at FedEx before this shit happened, right? I didn’t go off and play Army boy for a few years. I’ve played paint ball maybe three times my entire life and the only gun in my house belonged to my wife. So excuse me if I’m a little fucking nervous that we’re about to get into a fire fight with an enemy that probably outnumbers us a thousand to one,” Paul said heatedly.
“Quit your bitching,” Mrs. Deneaux said, looking up. “Most of them won’t even have a weapon,” she cackled, referring to the zombies that were being carried in the trucks.
Brian snorted. “Sorry, man,” he said when Paul directed a glare at him. “I was just trying to gauge your combat readiness.”
“He didn’t do so well,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “They’re in range,” she said steadying her eye back down on the scope. “You give the word, Brian, and the driver of the first truck is a dead man.”
Brian shivered at the iciness with which she delivered those words. Killing a man was not an easy task. She, however, sounded practiced at the event. “I want you to be able to tell if he’s a genteel before you shoot.”
Mrs. Deneaux laughed.
“I don’t get it,” Paul said.
The trucks rumbled closer.
“God, there’s so many of them,” Paul said.
The driver of the lead truck saw a glint of light from above. As he looked to see what was reflecting, he thought he saw a small wisp of smoke, followed immediately by a warm, stinging sensation in the center of his chest. His heart stopped beating from the ruptured aorta long before his brain caught up with the fact that he was dead. The truck jerked to the right and then immediately back to the left, the G-forces pulling the cab free from the trailer. The cab went off the embankment to the left, smashing into a tree with the tortured sound of twisting metal and breaking glass. The trailer’s front dropped onto the pavement. Sparks shot back forty feet as metal grated noisily on the roadway.
The trailer may have come to a peaceful stop had not the truck behind it plowed ferociously into its rear end. The troop transport’s rear tires came off the ground as it slammed into the tractor-trailer, spilling the undead contents all over the roadway. Zombies that weren’t immediately liquefied from the accident got up and looked around. The small group atop the overpass was left to wonder why the zombies didn’t do anything except stand in place, almost like they were awaiting direction. But those questions would have to wait to be answered as Eliza’s real men got out and began to search for the threat.
Mrs. Deneaux, smoothly pulled her bolt action back and then forward, placing another round in the chamber. The driver of the third truck had stopped in enough time to avoid the collision and had just stepped out of the cab when Mrs. Deneaux sheered his arm off above the elbow.
Paul, who now had the binoculars, told her that the driver was not dead.
“I did it on purpose, sweetie,” Mrs. Deneaux said, almost kindly. “I was hoping that maybe the sight of blood and someone screaming and running around like a headless chicken would get the zombies moving. Doesn’t seem to have worked,” she said, pulling the bolt back and pushing it forward again.
Brian once again got that chill up his spine. She’s either mad as a hatter, or insane. Neither is a very good prospect.
Brian started to shoot, not nearly with the precision or icy coolness with which Mrs. D dispatched of the enemy, but it was effective all the same.
“Might be time to get going,” Paul said as he saw troops rallying. “It looks like they know where we are and they’re getting ready to fight back.”
As if on cue, shots began to pepper their location.
“Good enough warning for me,” Brian said as he shifted to get his things together, ready to leave post haste. The round that hit him, smashed through his collarbone and exited his abdomen. He immediately rolled on to his back. “Fuck! I didn’t think it would hurt that bad!” he said as his breathing became rapid.
“What would?” Paul turned, beginning to rise with his rucksack. “Damn,” was all Paul managed to say as he looked down on Brian and a blossom of blood spread from Brian’s shoulder to his stomach.
>
“Bad?” Mrs. Deneaux asked, as she realized they weren’t leaving quite yet. She dropped her magazine and started to put more rounds in it. “I’ll keep shooting; you need to get pressure on his wound.”
Brian was breathing heavily, straining the air through clenched teeth. “It feels like someone has dragged a branding iron across my chest,” he hissed. “And I can’t move my left arm.”
Paul gingerly opened Brian’s light jacket and pulled his shirt up. The sharp intake of air was all the information that Brian needed.
“It’s bad?” Brian asked.
“Brian, everything’s bad to me. Remember me saying I was a manager at a FedEx? Worst thing I ever had to deal with were cardboard cuts,” Paul told him as he took an extra shirt from his backpack and placed it over Brian’s exit wound. “It looks like your collarbone is pretty busted up and the bullet grazed across your chest. That’s why it’s burning; and then it went in and out of your stomach.”
“Gained twenty-five pounds since I’ve been out of the Army. Most of it is gone now, but if I had stayed in shape, the bullet would have missed,” Brian said, still in pain, but realizing he might not quite be dead.
“That extra weight might have saved your life, at least the sexual part,” Paul told him.
“What are you talking about?” Brian asked as he repositioned himself.
“Look at the direction that bullet was heading,” Paul said as he got some bandages and tape.
Brian looked down to his left, past the busted collarbone, at the scrape that went to the right of his left nipple to where the bullet entered into his stomach and came out right below the navel. “Oh shit! That was close,” Brian said, placing his right hand on his still present male equipment.
“I’d take a scar on my mid section any day of the week,” Paul commented, doing his best to place a field dressing on the wound so they could get out of there.
Mrs. Deneaux was still rhythmically shooting, but their location was under heavy fire. Mrs. Deneaux’s lawn chair had already suffered two grievous wounds. The only thing saving her life was how thin she was.
“Well, that helps,” she said as she lifted her head from the scope.
The shooting had stopped on both sides, but the screaming intensified from the highway below.
“What’s going on?” Brian asked.
“I think Mr. Talbot has held up his end of the agreement,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she gleefully clapped her hands.
Paul got into a crouch to look over the guardrail.
“Oh, I think you could do the Samba and no one would take any notice of you,” Mrs. Deneaux said as she stood to get a better vantage point of the slaughter down below.
Paul was perfectly happy with his vantage point. “The zombies are attacking Eliza’s people,” Paul said, pumping his fist.
“I think now would be a good time to get gone,” Brian said, pulling his water bottle over.
“Let me get a sling on your arm first,” Mrs. Deneaux said, placing her rifle down and accessing Brian for the first time.
Brian was none too pleased with her scrutinous eye. He could tell she was sizing up his mobility, and if he were left wanting, she would not have any problem leaving him behind. She’s a dangerous one, he thought. But he said nothing as she did a reasonably good facsimile of a sling with an old t-shirt.
“Not bad,” Brian said as he stood up slowly. Blood rushed out of his head, sending him into a brief, but intense bout of vertigo.
“You alright?” Mrs. Deneaux asked and it almost sounded like she cared.
“Fine,” Brian answered as he steadied himself on the back of her lawn chair. He prayed that its compromised integrity would sustain his weight for just a little while longer. If he plunged to the ground now and passed out, he was certain he’d find himself alone on the bridge when he awoke. Blood slowly pushed its way back up and into his head, and the dizziness passed.
If Mrs. Deneaux hadn’t been so busy assessing Brian, she might not have missed a chance to end the entire conflict. Paul decided to seize the day as he grabbed Mrs. Deneaux’s rifle. He stood completely upright. A slight breeze was blowing left to right as he placed the crosshairs of the Winchester 30-30 on Eliza’s breast.
Brian and Mrs. Deneaux turned as Paul fired.
“I hit her!” Paul screamed.
“Who?” Brian asked, swallowing down some bile that had swirled up from his gut.
“Eliza! I hit Eliza!” Paul shouted, almost dropping the rifle off the railing.
Mrs. Deneaux grabbed it before he could. She started looking through the scope for any signs that the vamp was dead. “I don’t see anything. How far away was she?” she asked.
Paul started counting off trucks. “Nine or ten back,” he said proudly.
“That’s about a three-hundred-yard shot,” Brian said, finally able to move without the threat of falling.
“Did you compensate for bullet drop?” Mrs. Deneaux asked, moving the scope further out to look for Eliza.
“Bullet what?” Paul asked. His previous high beginning to sink.
“At that distance, the bullet could drop about ten inches roughly,” Brian said.
“If you were aiming for her skull, that could still have done her some damage. Might have hit her in the chest.”
Paul’s head sank.” I was aiming for her chest, figured I had a better chance of hitting that.”
“Gut shot the bitch,” Mrs. Deneaux laughed. “Bet that hurt.”
Brian thought her laugh sounded very much like what drowning babies crying would. “We should really get out of here now, I can’t imagine that anything good can happen from pissing Eliza off.”
***
Eliza had been so intent on finding out why her zombies had turned and what she needed to do to rein them back in, she had not been anticipating an outside threat.
“This is Talbot’s doing! I can smell the stench of him all over this!” Eliza spat.
“I think it would be best if we left him his small corner of the world, Eliza,” Tomas said, smiling as he walked with his sister.
“You did this!” she said vehemently, spinning on her heel to confront him. “Without your help, that animal, Durgan, would have killed him and we could be out exploring vast new ways to torment the world. I will not be bested by a mere man.”
“He is no longer merely a man, sister,” Tomas added.
“No, thanks to you.”
Tomas shrugged at the jibe. “He has struck you hard, Eliza. Most of your humans are either dead or have fled. I beg you one last time, leave him be.”
“Never!” she screamed as she stepped out from behind a truck and smack dab in front of a speeding bullet. Her mid section punched in from the projectile as her upper torso bent over. Tomas grabbed her before she could fall and pulled her back behind cover.
“It is not a fatal blow,” Tomas said, inspecting the wound.
The zombies around the siblings did not advance, but they had stopped what they were doing and were now watching them intently.
Eliza sat in her brother’s arms for a while longer. The searing pain was something she had not experienced since her human youth when a gang of Huns had trapped her in an old barn and beat and used her for three days before they tired of her. For the first time in half a millennia, Eliza doubted her intentions. “Why won’t he die, Tomas?” Eliza begged.
“It is for something you have forgotten about, Eliza: family, he fights for the lives of his family. He knows no stronger bond.”
“Then that is the bond we must break,” Eliza said as she stood up. The bullet had worked its way out of her skin and the wound was nearly healed.
“Did you hear nothing I said?” Tomas fairly cried.
“I heard everything you said. If we kill Talbot’s family, he will follow closely behind.”
“Not until he exacts his fair measure of revenge. He will not strike out if we do not corner him.”
“Maybe that would have been the truth at one time, brot
her. No, we must strike while he is at his weakest, while he still has family to use as leverage and while he is still learning the powers that you bestowed upon him. You sealed his fate when you bit him.”
There was nothing he could do to sway her from this course, and when the final showdown did come, whose side would he fall on? He still hadn’t made up his mind.
The cries of her humans had nearly died out. A few trucks could be heard pulling away and zombies were spread out everywhere, hunting for food, including the ones that had stopped for a moment, checking out Eliza, to see if she would be coming on the menu.
“We should leave here, Eliza, in case he has any other surprises in store for us.”
Eliza made sure this time to keep under cover and concealment behind the remaining trucks as she herded her zombies back in. And on that highway was where she would leave them, two thousand zombies, through the coming winters and summers. Those zombies would sway forever, as leaves fell, as rain poured, as sun soaked them, tied to Eliza’s last order to stand still.
“You’re just going to leave them here?” Eliza’s first-in-command asked, as he swung the command truck around.
“I fear that a couple of the zombies looked at her with a less than flattering stare,” Tomas told the man.
The man wouldn’t miss them. It was tough to feel sorry for the creatures that tore his wife apart in front of his very eyes as she fell from the ladder they were climbing to get up their apartment’s fire escape. He had thought about just letting go and joining her, but he wasn’t brave enough for that. Not brave enough to die and not brave enough to live. Eliza had come across him a week later, still huddled in the far corner of his apartment, covered in his own filth, too scared to even cross his own living room to get some water.