by Mark Tufo
‘I KNOW that,” he stressed. ‘I’m just trying to figure out a way to do both.’
‘Don’t! The longer you delay, the more opportunity Deneaux has to play this out however she wants. Tommy?’
‘Okay, okay…I’ll get them out of here, and I’ll come back.’
I was going to tell him no, that it would then be his job to get them back to safety—all the way to Maine safety. I had a feeling he wouldn’t listen to me.
‘Alright then, works for me.’ Best guess was that Deneaux was going to have someone throw about ten or twelve grenades down here long before he ever got the chance for a return visit.
“We’re good. I mean, I’m good,” I said to Dennis.
“You sure? Looked like you checked out for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Come on; let’s get back in the cell before someone tries to see if they can shoot through that glass.”
“Damn, didn’t even think of that.”
“It’s alright, buddy. I’ve had way more people trying to kill me than you have. Lead the way, Mr. Hawes.”
“You want me in there?”
“You’re a politician—you should have been in one years ago.” I shoved his shoulder.
“Now what?” he asked as I sat down next to him on the bunk.
“You tell me.”
“You don’t have a plan?”
“Oh, how little we know about each other. A plan? No, not so much, plus, Deneaux sort of throws a wrinkle in the whole thing, don’t you think? I was merely going to march your ass around with a gun to your head until I got my family a safe distance from here. Then, more than likely, I would have let your ass go where you then would have relentlessly pursued me until I had to forcibly remove you from the planet’s ecosystem at a later date.”
“You would have never gotten away with it.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
“We have control over satellites. It would have been nothing to have tracked you down and then sent drones to dispatch of you.”
“You say that like you’re giving up. Come on, what kind of dastardly foe gives up that easily?”
“Deneaux has me by the balls here.”
“Aren’t there some men you can trust who can hold her power in check?”
“I’m sure she’s rounding them up right now.”
“Fuck, she’s smart. If she used half her evilness for good, the planet would be a utopia.” I sat back, my blood-sticky back cooling against the concrete. As I reached behind me, red stained my hand, and I pulled it back to look at it.
“Shit, you’re shot. Dude, are you alright?” Dennis asked, concerned.
“It’s merely a flesh wound.”
“Are you really using a Monty Python reference right now?”
“Stop sounding like my wife, it’s freaking me out.”
“Mike, you’re shot.”
“Dennis, did you not listen to any of the story I’ve been telling you for the last three days?”
“I just…I mean…I just figured some of it was bullshit, you know.”
“Look.” I pulled up my shirt. Blood was oozing out of the closing wound.
“Where’s the bullet?”
“I’d imagine it’s lodged in the wall behind me somewhere. Thing went in and out.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Like a bitch.”
“But, you’re fine?”
“Mostly.”
“Fascinating. Can we try and figure out what we’re going to do here?” Dixon asked. “The more time we give Vivian, the worse for us.”
“Can you stop calling her that?” I asked him.
“What? Vivian?”
“Yeah, makes her sound almost human.”
Dixon actually laughed a little. “She was always a difficult woman. I’ve never met a more driven person, and I’ve personally known three presidents, a king or two and multiple heads of nations. Viv...Deneaux wanted something and she got it, end of story. She was a sight to behold back in the day.”
Dennis shivered so violently that the bunk shook. “Sorry. Just having visions of a naked snake.”
“Why didn’t you two end up together? Seems like you wanted to, and you have, apparently, succeeded in life. I mean, up until now anyway.”
Dixon eyed me. “I’m not quite dead yet. Anyway, her husband was a much more pliable individual than me. In the end, I think that is what it came down to, who she could, and could not, manipulate with more ease.”
“Where is the man now?”
“She killed him. Walked into his house, sat down, had a conversation with him. Pulled out her gun, put a bullet in his chest and then one in his forehead. She then walked out of that house and into her car like she merely stopped by for a spot of tea.”
“Why the hell isn’t she in jail?” Dennis asked.
“The body wasn’t found until after the zombies came. The police and the military had bigger problems on their hands. My man, Captain Najarian, found the surveillance tapes and brought them to me. Her husband was an idiot. He was merely the face for the genius, no great loss as far as I was concerned. The calmness she dispatched him with, though, that gave me pause. When she showed up here, I probably should have just put her in the cell next to your friend. I...I just couldn’t. I thought there was a chance we could rekindle what we once had.”
This time, I shivered violently. “Sorry, pain racked my body.”
“Obviously, that was a mistake. Whatever she’d had for a heart was burned out long ago.”
“I’m not sure she ever had one. I just think she was better at hiding it,” I said.
“Perhaps.” Dixon let his head hit his hands. He was sitting on the edge of the bunk.
“You hear that?” I asked, standing and going to the edge of the cell. “I think they’re getting ready to come.”
“And what of me? If they storm this place, are you going to kill me?”
“I’ve got to figure that, if Deneaux is sending them in, they have orders to eliminate all of us. Much cleaner that way, and at least one less stain to put on my soul. The door is opening, here we go.” I quickly checked the chamber in my M-16.
Chapter Two – Tommy’s Story
“What is happening?” Tommy questioned out loud when he finally got free of the zombies that had surrounded the snowplow.
The fall had cracked three of his ribs and shattered his left femur. Even as a vampire, he had nearly succumbed to the pain. They weren’t life-threatening injuries, not in and of themselves. If he could have just lain where he had fallen even for a few moments, he would have healed sufficiently to continue on. With the zombies, he was not going to get that respite.
He’d crushed four of them as he landed, driving their necks straight into their skulls, killing them instantly. Tommy had cried out as he collided with their outstretched hands and then into the bed of the truck. It was that last part that had broken his leg and sent red, finger-thick tendrils of pain through his brain. The only thing that saved him at that point was that the zombies were so thickly packed together they could not bend down to get at him. Tommy quickly turned over and began to pull himself hand-over-hand until he got to the edge of the truck bed. Even now he could feel the bones beginning to knit together, but he had no delusions that he was not about to suffer and suffer greatly as he put his full weight on a broken leg.
With his undamaged left leg, he quickly pushed up, grabbed onto the lip of the truck body, and hurled himself over. He did his best to make the zombies absorb the shock of the jump. Still, he thought the possibility of passing out was higher than he could ever remember it being in his long existence. He flung zombies out of his way with impunity, to the point where they looked like they were being repelled instead of forcibly removed. He was not more than ten feet from the vehicle when he felt the wash of heat hit his back from the rocket propelled grenade’s explosion. His shirt was on fire, his skin was burning, and still his leg dominated with its blinding pain.
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br /> When he reached a house on the far side of the street, he was able to pat down the areas that were still aflame. Charred sheets of skin fell from his back and arms. He leaned against the house, tears of pain cascading down his cheeks, and still the zombies came at him. He wanted to keep running to find a safe haven where he could heal, but the zombies were not going to be so obliging. They were already within striking distance when he realized there was a window above his head. He reached up, smashed out the pane, and pulled himself in, screaming in agony as a zombie pulled on his trailing broken leg. He was out before his head hit the cold tiled floor.
Tommy awoke a few minutes later to the smell of burnt flesh; his stomach turned. He pulled himself completely into the house, and when his ankle caught on the windowsill he grimaced. He turned over onto his back, fresh spikes of pain radiating through his body as his new pink skin came in to contact with the tile.
“I think I pulled a Mr. T.” He tried to smile. “Should have thought that out a little better.”
He sat up with a grunt. His leg itched furiously as the bones were knitting together. His body was in hyper-drive working on its multiple injuries. The gnawing hunger was already stirring in his stomach. He needed to replenish the major stores that were being used to get him back to top predator functioning ability.
Machinegun fire erupted outside. In the lull of bullets being shot, he could hear the frenetic talk of men under duress. Engines began to get louder as they were put under load.
“They’re leaving!” He used a moth-eaten couch to pull himself up. He knew he needed to follow them if he was to have any hopes of finding his adoptive family. “I’m coming,” he grunted. He meant what he’d said; that was, of course, until he looked outside and saw that he was completely encircled by the enemy.
“Going to need some weapons.”
He started with a shuffle as he began to move through the dusty house. The main floor yielded nothing more than two steak knives. Desperation was beginning to set in. When he opened the door off of the kitchen, he was immediately assailed with a smell he knew all too well.
“Zombies,” he said as he stared down into the murkiness of the basement.
He would have just closed the door if not for the white, cowhide-covered ball at the foot of the stairs. Where there were baseballs there were bound to be baseball bats. “I don’t really like zombies,” he said softly as he descended down the stairs, still favoring his right leg.
Two zombies, a male and a female, were both staring out a small window set high in the concrete wall. Soft groans emanated from each as they watched their brethren walking back and forth outside. Small piles of various animal bones littered the floor. Tommy thought it would be better if he didn’t try and figure out what they once belonged to.
He sighed when he realized the two zombies were right next to the shelving that housed all manner of sporting goods—from tennis racquets to bocce balls. In addition, two wooden bats and one blue-painted aluminum one were hanging from a frame specifically designed to hold them in place by the handle. The male zombie was so close that he could have handed it to Tommy, if he was so inclined. Tommy was eyeing the route to the bat that would allow him to grab it without any further conflict when the female sniffed the air. She turned quickly, her lips pulled back in aggression as she moved. Her hands came up and she growled as she ran toward Tommy.
“It’s just a girl,” he said sadly as the teenager ran at him.
As her foot caught the first step of the stairs, she fell over, her head and mouth coming dangerously close to Tommy’s feet. She was pushing up with her arms as Tommy brought the heel of his foot down on the base of her skull. The noise of the bones snapping got the attention of the male. Tommy’s heart sank, even through the purple and blue hues the disease caused in the skin; it was easy enough to see the familial relationship as the boy ran toward his sister’s killer. In a normal world, he may have done this to avenge her death. In this world he cared little as he stepped onto her still flailing limbs. He wasn’t sure where the zombies ended up when they were finally killed. He could only hope that this boy ended up with the rest of his family. It was impossible to tell if they still had their soul in this state. Did it move on when their consciousness was taken? He hoped so, otherwise did they have to pay for the sins this reanimated puppet performed?
Tommy waited until the boy had made it up the first couple of stairs before he moved quickly to the side, grabbing the side of the boy’s head as he did so. Then he smashed it against the cement wall three times. On the third attempt he was rewarded with a spraying of black matter on his lower arms. He let the body drop, the boy falling protectively over the body of his prone sister. Tommy quickly went to the bat rack. One of the wooden bats had a longer reach, but he knew that it would eventually crack and splinter. He grabbed the aluminum bat, smacked it against his hand once, and headed back upstairs.
His leg wasn’t quite a hundred percent, and his ribs still ached—not to mention his tender skin—but it was now or never. He debated getting onto the roof and jumping down past the zombies, but he wasn’t sure if his leg could take it, especially before he got a feeding. He did a quick three-sixty around the house to see where the zombies were least concentrated and decided his best bet was to head out the back door. Zombies were in the backyard, but once he fought through them and over the privacy fence, he should be free of the main herd. The back door swung inwards and the storm door out. The thin, steel-framed door bent as he pushed two zombies off the small landing. Three more behind them kept them from falling completely backwards.
The bat rang hollowly as he brought the meat of it down on top of the closest zombie’s head. The skull wrapped around the bat almost like it had been made for it. Tommy pulled back, blood, hair, gristle and brain clinging to the metal death-dealing device. He had just enough time to swing the bat into the side of the second closest zombie as he stepped out onto the landing. The victory was small; he was outside, but the fence seemed to move further and further away as more zombies came to investigate what the pinging sound was in the back. It was as if they were remembering summers past, watching their kids play in little league games, the sun shining bright and warm as parents talked to other parents about upcoming parties or their jobs. It was the bond that all suburbanites shared before they would occasionally yell out to their kid some words of encouragement.
Tommy could barely hear the roar of engines as they moved further and further away from this desolate spot. The groans of the damned began to dominate. The bat was a blue blur as he smashed it back and forth and up and down, depending on where his adversary was. The heavy viscosity blood covered him from head to toe, if not for the fact that the zombies were converging on him, it would have been impossible for a passerby to not believe he was one of the undead. He kept as much of his weight on his left leg as he pivoted and swung, which wasn’t always easy. It was now his ribs that were beginning to cause him the most pain as his constant shifting made it difficult for them to set properly.
Tommy’s energy levels were flagging as his body pulled resources from everyplace it could in a desperate bid to keep him healthy enough to continue on. He’d killed a dozen zombies and had only made it halfway across the yard. Now he had the added danger that the zombies could attack from any angle. Lizzie, help me, he pleaded internally. A cool breeze swept across the yard, and whether or not it was his ill-fated sister he wasn’t sure. By the time he got to the six-foot fence, his arms felt leaden. He was thankful to be on the side of the fence that had the mid-rail as he wasn’t so sure he would have been able to pull himself up without it. He had a split second as he was swinging his leg over where he almost lost his balance when the zombies slammed into the pickets. He didn’t think he would have just given up, but it would have been much easier; and then maybe he could search for his sister in earnest.
Unlike Heaven, which he could never enter, Hell had an open door policy. Unfortunately, once through the door it was nearly impossible t
o get back out. To him that didn’t matter, he would have chased after her in that realm forever if that was what it took. If only the fate of the living wasn’t resting so precariously on a certain set of sarcastic shoulders. He’d known for a lot of years it was going to be a Talbot; he’d just not known specifically which one. Mike had his pluses, but he also had a list of negatives that would span pages. Of all the Talbots Tommy had come in contact with, Mike would have probably ranked in the lower half in terms of who he thought would have the best chance of actually succeeding. It wasn’t that Mike was not honorable or brave. No, his biggest detriment was his willingness to run headlong into trouble without so much as a cursory glance at all the ways that it could go wrong and invariably did.
He smiled even as he thought such a thing. Whoever was overseeing the entire event liked threading needles with wet thread in heavy winds. Tommy got over two more fences before he felt secure enough to get onto a roadway. He cut through one more yard before he was finally on the main thoroughfare heading out of town, just catching a glimpse of reflecting sunlight as the Humvee he was chasing crested a small rise in the distance. Tommy followed at a pace he felt he could sustain without too much difficulty. He’d been so lost in his thoughts as he ran that he nearly exposed himself to the military men. They had pulled off to the side of the road and were talking. Something had happened to one of their own.
“He’s been bitten.”
“Sorry, man, I am,” one of the soldiers said as he pointed his weapon at the stricken man’s head.
“Don’t do this, Cortez, please,” the man pleaded, his hands outstretched as if his weak flesh could stop the lead projectile. “I have a wife…a kid on the way.”
“I’m sorry, man, you’re dead already. You don’t want to become one of them, you don’t. We talked about this, and we both said we’d do what was right if it happened to either of us.”
The pleading individual put his hands down. Sobbing, he said, “I…I just figured it would be you.” The tears turned to laughter as he accepted the insanity of a zombie virus coursing through his body and his best friend pointing a high-caliber weapon at his head.