“Move God damn you,” he shouted again when I just stared in shock.
I didn’t say anything, I was too tired, so I let Skie lead me away. The blades of the chopper were already spinning when I climbed inside. It was the first time I ever rode in a helicopter. As it lifted off the ground, I looked at my friends. They all looked as exhausted as I felt. I had no idea where we were even going and I didn’t much care.
It wasn’t until later that I found out what happened to Tito.
Chapter 7
Tito
Arranging an interview with Tito wasn’t easy. It took months. He wasn’t easy to track down and upon finally locating him, I was asked to not reveal his current whereabouts. He has never before made a public statement. He has never before done an interview. Upon his release from the decontamination unit, he simply vanished from the public eye until this moment. He is generally viewed as the worst kind of traitor and the comparisons to Judas have not sat very well with him. Tito looks somewhere between nervous and angry as I sit across from him at the table, he’s dressed in a dark suit and tie. His dark hair is now mostly grey. When he speaks, he does so in a quiet voice.
Why would you want to hear my side of the story?
“A great story filled with great people has never fully been told. I want to be the person who finds out what really happened. I want to be the person that tells how it really was through the eyes of the people that lived it.”
I guess you also want to tell about the greatest of mistakes as well…if you’re talking to me.
“Is that how you see things?”
I’m very well aware of what I’ve done. I am also very well aware of what my pride has cost others. I’m no idiot, it’s just that there’s nothing I can do to change what I did. I wish there was, but there isn’t.
“Have you ever spoken to Jax about this?”
No, we haven’t spoken since that morning.
“Which morning is that?”
The morning that we left the safety zone, I’ve thought about trying to contact him…I’m just not ready yet.
“Why is that?”
I’m not sure that I want to hear what he has to say to me.
It’s about as honest an answer as I could hope to get. To tell the truth, I myself am not sure what Jaxon would say to his one time friend.
“Can you tell me about it?”
Yeah, where should I start?
“Why don’t you start with what was happening in the safe zone when Jax was in the down town area.”
I can do that.
Well, while Jax was out causing trouble Downtown, I was left in the safe zone with everyone else. It wasn’t easy, people were scared…no, they were terrified. I did my best to talk to them. I did my best to help them relax, but they didn’t want me, they wanted the General.
“Was that difficult for you?”
Yes, I was inadequate. It isn’t easy to live in his shadow. He was always the popular one; he was always the adventurous one; the person every girl wants to know just a little bit better. It breeds resentment. If a person hangs with him long enough, that person will eventually resent him.
“Why?”
Because you will never be the one, no matter what you do, he will always be better than you. I think most people want to be him. After getting a taste of the life that he lives, they eventually get tired of being a sidekick and begin to desire the life of a hero.
The problem is… there’s only one Jaxon.
“And you fell into this trap?”
Most certainly, I’ve always felt that I was in his shadow, but when I was at the safe zone and all those people were looking at him like some sort of hero…it was just too much for me. I wanted the fame that he had. I truly believed that like so many times in the past, he was just in the right place at the right time. I wanted them to look at me like they looked at him.
“If he was just in the right place at the right time, what were your thoughts on how he rescued you?”
Before he got there, I was terrified. I was sure that I was going to die. I didn’t think he’d come for me. It was a suicide mission, but then he was there. The world erupted into chaos as it so often does when he’s around. He got me out with these simple ideas that anybody could have done. There was no magic involved, anyone could have done it.
I was angry at myself for needing to be rescued. I was angry at myself for being afraid of the zombies. He wasn’t afraid of them. I looked weak compared to him and I hated that. I took my anger out on him. I wanted to question everything he did. I wanted others to realize that he wasn’t some great man. I wanted them to know that I was just as important.
“Did Jaxon ever do or say anything to put you down or make you feel this way?”
No, that’s not his way. He’s arrogant to a fault, but he never puts others down. In fact, he almost encourages others to have a higher self esteem. It’s just that no matter how high our self esteem becomes, we still aren’t Jaxon.
“You said he was arrogant. I’ve heard that before.”
He has no doubts. If he wants something, he truly believes that he can achieve it. Most of us mere mortals are grounded in reality…Jaxon isn’t. Truth be told, he doesn’t have to be either, he does accomplish all his goals. I’ve never seen him fail at anything. People often want him to fail, he knows this and I think it’s one of the things that give him the strength to succeed.
It’s hard being around someone like that. It makes your flaws very apparent if to nobody else aside from yourself.
“You said that you wanted to question everything that he did so that others realized that he wasn’t so great. How did that work out?”
It worked out very poorly. Jaxon would just look at me like I was some sort of idiot. He knew exactly what I was doing. He probably even expected me to do it. That’s another thing about Jaxon. Give him enough time to prepare and he’s a genius. He had an answer or a way to deal with everything.
“When did you meet Calvin?”
It was at the safe zone, Jaxon brought him and some red headed chick out of down town. Calvin was told to ‘fuck off’ as soon as the Jeep was safely inside the zone. I’ve known Jaxon for years, longer than any of his other friends. I could tell right away that he didn’t like Calvin. Jaxon isn’t normally that rude to someone unless they piss him off big time.
With Calvin, I found a kindred spirit. I found someone else that hadn’t fallen under Jaxons spell. Calvin saw him as an egomaniac and a dangerous one to boot. I now know better, I now know that Jax was only concerned about helping all those people, but when I spoke with Calvin, when I listened to him bash my friend and take away the fame…it felt…it felt good.
“You liked the fact that you found someone that didn’t feel that the General was some sort of hero?”
Exactly and when he began to talk about how the two of us could run things better than Jaxon, it was all I needed to hear. It was what I wanted to hear. I found someone that was thinking the exact same thing that I was thinking.
I realize now that Calvin doesn’t dislike Jaxon because he views him as a dangerous man. Calvin truly dislikes him… because Calvin is jealous. Jaxon is fearless, he’s a leader and people will follow him. Calvin is a coward. Nobody follows a coward.
“What happened the evening before you left the safety zone?”
I didn’t want to be stuck inside and working on the computers, so I told Jax that some of the people were having some problems with his decisions.
“Is that true?”
No, I said that to bother him. I said it in an effort to cause him some doubt.
“Did it cause him to doubt himself?”
Not that I saw. He was more concerned with organizing everything with the caravans. He barely even paid me any attention.
“So if you weren’t helping smooth over problems between Jaxon and the other survivors, what were you doing?”
Calvin and I were trying to cast some doubt into the minds of the other survivors. It was
n’t like that at first, well at least for me it wasn’t. I just wanted to know how they felt about Jaxon’s plans to escape, but when everybody kept supporting him… I don’t know…Calvin and I started to point out some of the faults we saw.
“What sorts of faults?”
They were only faults that we found in him. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that nobody changed their opinions of him. They were ready to follow the General straight into all the valleys of hell if that was where he chose to lead them.
It was Calvin’s idea for me to lead the second caravan. Actually, he wanted both of us to lead, but he knew Jaxon would probably smack him if he ever had the nerve to suggest it. Therefore, we decided that since Jax trusted me, I should be the one.
It wasn’t difficult, I just told him that the people trusted me and therefore they’d feel better with me in charge.
“What did Jaxon say to that?”
He agreed immediately. He even seemed rather relieved to hear me volunteer.
“How did you feel about the responsibility?”
Both Calvin and I were ecstatic. It was a chance for fame; it was a chance to prove that we just as capable as Jaxon and the best part about it was that we were taking the safer route, with no known concentration of zombies. We would be the ones in charge out there on the road to Las Cruces and no longer under the Generals shadow.
“Tell me about it.”
It’s not easy for me. It’s still after all this time very difficult, but I need to do it. I need to admit my wrong doings and ask for forgiveness.
He pauses for about five minutes with his eyes closed before he begins his tale.
Okay…my group left the safe zone first. I was angry that Jax felt he had to warn me to keep moving forward. He didn’t want me to stop for anything, no matter what. I told Calvin what he had said to me.
“It sounds to me like he doesn’t want anyone else getting any kind of recognition, man that guys an asshole.”
“Tell me about it,” I answered.
We probably said a few more words on the subject, but it wasn’t anything of significance. Mostly, we sat in silence, thinking to ourselves. Both of us wanted that touch of fame. Both of us wanted to be the hero. We wanted to steal what Jaxon had. After all, neither of us believed that he had done anything extraordinary. Everything he accomplished, we could do just as easily.
The zombies came running out at us from the houses that we passed, not very many of them, at least not enough to worry me. We didn’t stop. I knew that if we did, even more would undoubtedly be attracted by the noise. Later on, the houses would thin out until there was nothing left but open desert on both sides of the highway.
Still, I gave the order to shoot any zombie that gave us chase. It was something that I knew Jaxon would never allow me to do, because it made noise and noise attracted zombies. However, I didn’t see it as a problem. We were moving forward, we’d be long gone before any large hordes of the undead would be able to track down the noise.
Calvin and I were laughing as the members of our caravan took shots at the pursuing zombies. The survivors ran through round after round with their guns and missed so many times it bordered on ludicrous.
As we began to leave civilization behind and enter the desert, we began to talk.
“There’s still about ten of them chasing after us,” said Calvin. “I can see them in the distance.”
“Yeah, I can see them to.”
“We should do something about it,” said Calvin.
“Like what?” I asked.
“I’m not sure yet, but it might not look good if we lead them to the Las Cruces border.”
“We’re gaining distance on them,” I answered.
“Yeah, but I’d sure like to get some payback. Think about it. Wouldn’t you like to blow away a group of zombies? Wouldn’t you like to make a stand? Show everybody how it should be done.”
It sounded good to me. It sounded like something that would get my name in the papers. I knew that I could lead these people. I knew that I could destroy and obliterate the zombies following us.
“See those small mountains way up ahead?” I asked even though they were kind of hard to miss. They were the last thing we could see before the road curved behind them.
“Yeah, I see them,” answered Calvin.
“Let’s wait till we pass them, it’s far enough away from suburbia that there won’t be any surprises. Then, we’ll make our move.”
Calvin agreed readily. The road we were currently on led in an almost straight shot right to the New Mexico border just beyond the small mountains. At that point, we’d be about ninety percent of the way there. I thought it was a great idea. If all else failed, we were still close enough to the border to seek safety.
We plotted our course of action. It wasn’t going to be extremely easy; we weren’t able to coordinate with the other vehicles very easily. When we did tell them something, we had to shout out the windows and hope that they heard us.
After we passed the small mountains, we planned on turning a half circle on the road and aiming our SUV right back at our pursuers. We then planned on having the other vehicles pull off to the sides of the road one after another. We’d get the people out of the vehicles and have them fall back behind our SUV. We didn’t want them in the way when the bullets started flying. Finally, we’d get all our shooters and have them line up across the road in front of our SUV. When the zombies rounded the small mountain, we’d blow them to hell.
I was nervous. Actually, I was scared to death. It’s not easy to face down things that don’t or shouldn’t exist. Most people can’t do it. Most people would rather run. I’ve heard of some people that just curled up into a ball before they were devoured. I kept telling myself to be strong. I only had to do this one time and there was no way we could lose.
There weren’t enough zombies chasing us. We had men with firearms. The minute the zombies were in range, it would be over and I would be the one that lead everyone to victory.
Still, my legs were shaking violently. I don’t know how Jaxon stood up to this kind of hell on such a regular basis. I began to wonder how he could make it look so easy and I was damn near pissing my pants.
I assumed that it was frequency. That must be it. He did it so often and so many times, that it became easy. If I had done this as much as him, I wouldn’t be freaking out so much now.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I kept telling this to myself as we got closer and closer to the small mountains. Hell, I didn’t even have a gun; I wouldn’t even be one of the men who were shooting.
My visions of greatness began to fade. I clung to the last one I had. It consisted of me raising up a hammer and crashing it down on the head of the very last zombie. This zombie had been wounded from bullets and could only crawl towards me. It was an easy kill, but after I brought about its destruction I would turn back to my fellow survivors with my arms raised in triumph. To a man, they would applaud.
When we finally passed the small mountain, we could no longer see the zombies that had been following us. We had plenty of time and that was a good thing. Arranging the cars and the shooters was a hell of a time.
Calvin enjoyed being in power as much as I did. We gave out orders and reluctantly the people followed them. They weren’t happy to be leaving their cars and trucks. We had to explain to them that they might not let us pass the border with zombies on our tail. It was a lie; it was a flat out lie. The zombies were so far behind us; whoever was at the gate probably wouldn’t even see them until we had long since reached safety.
I think the people knew we were full of shit. They tried to argue, but Calvin and I just ignored them and continued to give out orders. It took over a half an hour to get all the people behind our SUV.
The shooters weren’t even lined up when the zombies rounded the small mountain. Their numbers had multiplied. Thinking back now, I guess there were about fifty zombies. All of them were running at us as fast as their u
ndead legs could carry them.
For a moment, we did nothing but panic.
“What do you think happened?”
One of two things happened, or…maybe both. We made a lot of noise getting everyone to pull over and get into position. Some of the people were even honking their horns and yelling out the window. They didn’t want to fight. We made them. Also, a group of zombies in pursuit will attract other zombies. They were screaming and yelling as they chased after us. That’s like a dinner bell.
Then again, maybe there’s another reason. Maybe the extra zombies were just responding to all the noise we had made earlier when I ordered everyone with guns to start shooting at whatever gave us chase.
Regardless, it was bad. It was as bad as it could get. I shouted for anyone who had a weapon to start firing. To their credit, the survivors started shooting. They started shooting into that great mass of fifty zombies and I’m not sure that they even dropped five of them.
As the zombies got closer, the people panicked. I panicked. Calvin ran off towards the border. He abandoned everyone. I tried to help people; I tried to get them to run…some of them listened. Some of them tried to get back into their cars. The cars were packed to tightly. They couldn’t squeeze out. The sand on the side of the road gave them no traction to push their way out. The zombies literally fell upon them and ripped them from their vehicles. I can still hear their screams in my head every night as I try to sleep. I can still see that fountain of blood spray from their necks as the zombies bit into them and I can still hear the way the sound of their scream changes when the vocal cords are chewed through.
Eventually, I ran. I tried to stay as long as I could. I tried to get more of them to run, but they wouldn’t listen to me. There was just too much chaos, too much blood on the road, too many screams. It made things easy for the zombies.
As I was running, the zombies were chasing and they were gaining. They don’t seem to get tired and fall prey to exhaustion like the living do. They charged head long into the fleeing survivors and tackled them to the street. So many people fell around me, it was nightmarish.
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