by Mark Tufo
I was firing again as he fell away and was three deep in death by the time the remaining four realized they were in a crossfire.
“Drop the weapons!” Captain Najarian shouted, his M-16 pointed at the head of one of Deneaux’s troops.
“Pathetic!” Deneaux shouted.
The man Captain Najarian had dead to rights sealed the fate of those with him when he attempted to swing his rifle around. The captain didn’t hesitate as he shot him in the head. Those left knew they were going to face a firing squad anyway and opted for another way out. I didn’t blame them for their decision. Who wants to sit in a cell waiting for the inevitable? I’d rather take my chances in the heat of battle rather than in the cold realization of execution.
Tommy had taken some hits; one to the leg and the other to his side. If he was in pain, he hid it well.
“You alright?” I asked him, looking at the blood on his stomach.
He nodded.
“Thank you,” I told him.
He nodded again, looking grim. For all the death he’d seen over his entire existence he had never gotten used to it. In fact, if anything, he was probably getting more sensitive to it as he got older.
“Come on, let’s get Dixon and get out of here.” I turned to go back the way we’d come.
“Two pounds of gold for Michael Talbot’s head!” Deneaux shouted, upping the ante.
“Wow, that’s just about a pound for pound payment,” Tommy smiled.
“No it’s not, an average head is like fifteen pou—oh, I get it. Fucking hilarious. Maybe you and BT can go on the road with your show.”
“Dixon’s gone,” the captain said after checking the corridor.
“How is that even possible?” I asked and then it dawned on me. “Bastard had a remote on him, didn’t he? He must have shut it off hoping I’d get killed out there in that hallway. Why are people with power so corrupt? Does the power do it? Or are the people that seek it out already infected with an inherent flaw?”
“Usually a little of both.” Tommy had come up beside me.
“You’re Tomas?” Captain Najarian asked a bit of trepidation in his voice.
Tommy nodded.
I could see that the captain had more questions but just then Deneaux spoke over the p.a.
“Did your fearless leader abandon you?” She asked.
I would have flipped her the finger, but she would have taken that as a sign of victory, and I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. I instead turned away from the camera, quickly undid my belt and dropped my pants, bending over to give her a view I hoped she wouldn’t soon forget. I was rewarded with a scratchy cackle that quickly devolved into a coughing fit.
“Oh, Michael, I will sorely miss you when this is over. You make the end of times a hoot,” Deneaux managed to get out during her choking fit.
“Someday, if we have more time, you’re going to have to tell me how you met,” Captain Najarian said as I quickly fastened my belt back.
“That’s what you want to know if we survive? Fine. Where to?”
“The plan is the same, we have to get some help and then we have to get to Deneaux.”
An alarm tore through the complex, lasting a good long two minutes before it was silenced.
“Michael, we have a problem,” Deneaux said.
“No shit!” I yelled back. I think she could hear me, but you didn’t need to be a lip-reading genius to pick up on what I’d mouthed.
“I’m talking about something besides this little stand-off you and I are in the midst of.”
“Stand-off? You call trying to kill me repeatedly and then placing a heft bounty on my head a stand-off? Sure…okay.” I shook my head.
“Are you done now? I’ve seen Hollywood starlets less inclined to drama than you.”
“Is she kidding?” I asked Tommy. “You’re trying to kill me. How should I be acting?”
“Was.”
“Was what?”
“I was trying to kill you. Now I’m not so inclined.”
“Prove it, call off your men.”
“Such little faith, Michael,” she sighed. “Anyone trying to kill Michael Talbot or those he travels with I will rip their testicles off with my bare hands. Happy now?”
“Better, but that visual is going to haunt me forever. Why the sudden détente?”
“We’re about to have a bigger problem, one that you and your cohort are better equipped to handle.”
“And what would that be?”
“Zombies. Thousands of them, in fact.”
“In here? How is that possible? Didn’t I tell you to lock up after letting the dog back in?”
“Zombies can’t get in here. It’s impossible.” The captain was pacing. “Nothing can get in here without passing through at least five security measures.”
“I got in,” Tommy told him, quieting the captain immediately. However, it did not stop his pacing.
“Maybe that’s possible. I mean, you’re basically superhuman and you can think. But a zombie? A mindless eating machine can’t possible get through.”
“Zombies think,” I told him, probably ruining what was already a bad day for him. “I’m not sure they’ll ever get to the point where they could work their way through a standard tax form, but they can think. They’re learning and adapting, that I know for sure.”
“Any reference in the whole world you could have come up with, like maybe the theory of relativity or building a rocket and you use taxes?”
“Ever done taxes, Tommy?” I got him to clam up almost as fast as Captain Najarian had.
“How are they getting in?” the captain asked Deneaux.
“Someone has opened all the doors. They’re flooding in.”
“How is this possible?” The captain whipped his hat off and was running his hand through his short hair. “Mrs. Deneaux, you have to shut them!”
“I would, sonny, and I probably wouldn’t even have bothered you three with this trivial matter if not for the red lettered override message that keeps flashing over the monitor.”
“Override? How is that even possible? Can I have safe passage to you?” He was already walking before she could answer.
“Are we going with him?” Tommy asked me.
“Better to see what our enemy is up to, don’t you think?”
“This could be a trap, Mr. T.”
“Potentially. But this isn’t really the way Deneaux operates. She’s much more into the theatrics of the kill. I don’t think she’d enjoy it half as much if we just walked into her snare.”
“You sure about that?”
“Not really, I’m making this up as I go. I believed her implicitly when she said zombies were coming, but I guess it really could be a trap. What the hell is wrong with me? The woman has been trying to kill me and now I’m going to drop everything and see if I can help her. Well, I guess not so much her. All of us.”
“Have you convinced yourself yet?”
“I’m getting there,” I told him as we followed the captain. I kept a vigilant look out for anything unusual. But just by the definition of a trap I most likely wasn’t going to notice anything until it was too late. “Any tingling going on? Can you sense anything?”
“I’m not Spiderman, Mr. T.”
“Figured it was worth a shot.”
“You ready?” Captain Najarian asked as we approached a rich mahogany door that seemed completely out of place in this military installation.
I didn’t even need to see the nameplate next to the door to know whose it was. Only a pompous ass like Dixon would need to have this door specifically put in.
The captain knocked.
“Help!” Dixon shouted out.
I shrugged to Tommy. “At least we know where he went.”
The captain pushed the door open quickly and then scanned the room, his pistol pointing wherever he was looking. I followed immediately behind. Deneaux was sitting behind a huge, most likely mahogany, desk; an impossibly large revolver sitting in front
of her on a blotter. She had a cigar in her hand, a large plume of smoke encircling her head. Residual smoke leaked out from a wry smile.
“Hello, Michael,” she said, rising. “Good to see you.” She extended a hand, which I avoided. “Oh, come now, we can be civil about this, can’t we?”
“Civil? Are you shitting me?” I advanced.
On all that was holy, I should have just raised my rifle up and blown her into whatever realm she belonged. My abject fear was that the bullets would pass right through her as if she were ethereal, holding no more substance than the smoke swirling around the room. That would be when the ambient lighting would turn red and she would begin to laugh at me in an unnaturally deep demon spawn sound. I hadn’t crapped my pants since I was an infant, but if that happened, all bets were off.
“I need help!” Dixon yelled.
I’d been so focused on Deneaux that I hadn’t even seen the man. He was sitting in an over-sized chair facing Deneaux, his hands clamped over a wound in his thigh. A pretty messy one if the blood leaking past his fingers was any indication.
“She shot me!”
“Stop being dramatic, darling, I barely winged you. Really it’s your fault anyway. You come in here ranting and raving, screaming and shouting. You made me nervous with your threats to seek retribution. What did you expect me to do when I felt that my life was threatened?”
“You shot me as soon as I opened the door!”
She paused and looked at him. “Would those things not have happened?”
“Preemptive strike? That sounds about right,” I said. “Why bother dealing with words when you can get right down to the meat of the problem by shooting it?”
“Oh, come now, Michael. Please tell me you are not crying for this man. Given the chance, he will kill you and feel nothing. I, at least, will have a momentary pang of guilt.”
“A momentary pang? Would that be because of the half dozen or so times I have saved your ass?”
“We do not have time for verbal sparring, Michael. This facility is quickly being overrun with zombies, and we have either got to defend against them or find a safe way to exit.”
“I’m sure Tommy, myself, and the captain here, if he wants, could get out of here just fine. But I can’t think of any reason why I would want to saddle myself to you again.”
“No reason at all, Michael? Strange—I can think of nine.”
“That’s a pretty specific number, Deneaux. What are you getting at?”
“It is the number of loved ones you have that left this facility.”
“If you do anything to them—” I surged toward her. Tommy held me back.
“Don’t be so crass. I would not hurt them. But Dixon here, he would…without a moment’s hesitation. Isn’t that right?” she asked as she came from behind the desk. She stroked the side of his face with her palm. He pulled away and winced as the movement caused him pain in his wound.
“Just spill it, Deneaux. We don’t have time for you to play out the drama and intrigue in your little soap opera performance.”
I looked over at the wall of monitors. Zombies were beginning to dominate the cameras that were trained on entry points. Soldiers were effectively repelling them, but it was only a matter of time. The outside shot showed a horde that made the last stand at Little Turtle or even at Carol’s farm seem like child’s play. No, this was a coordinated, directed attack. But who could wield that much power? Eliza’s name screamed across my brain, enough so that Tommy recoiled.
“Did I ever tell you I did a stint on As the World—”
“Villain, right? Had to be. Come on, Deneaux, I really just want to kind of kill you both and get back to my family.”
“I was actually the twin sister of one of the stars, which was funny, because we looked nothing alike. Yes, I was the villain. I shot her husband after we slept together and he realized I wasn’t his wife. He said he’d known because we’d done things he’d never done before.”
“Gross, just gross.” I had a crappy taste in my mouth.
“Handsome man, unfortunately he was a lemon squeezer.” She was looking off to a far-gone time.
“Yes, horrible. Agree with her, Tommy.” I smacked him on the shoulder.
“Horrible,” he said, looking at me. “What’s a lemon squeezer?”
I shrugged.
She whipped back to the present in less than heartbeat. “The satellites, Michael. He will track your family and you, should you escape. He needs what you carry inside, and no matter what he promises, he will do everything in his power to attain it. As for your family, they are now collateral damage. Had you not taken him prisoner, they would already be dead. I saved them.”
“You?”
“Yes me. I called back the drones.”
“You launched drones!?” I asked Captain Najarian. I was in his face. Any closer and I might have to take him out for dinner.
“I had my orders.” He stood tall under my withering gaze.
“Funny, that’s the same defense the Germans at Auschwitz used. It wasn’t adequate then, and it sure as shit isn’t adequate now. I thought you were one of the decent ones.” I grabbed him by the throat and immediately applied enough pressure to cut off his air supply.
No one moved, not even Tommy. Deneaux looked on with a smug sort of satisfaction and maybe the tiniest of glints in her eyes like she was either excited or scared; or more likely both from what was going on. Captain Najarian wrapped his hands around my arm as I lifted him off the ground.
“Mr. T, he could still help us get out of here.” Tommy took a step closer but, as of yet, had not interfered.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t crush the life out of him?”
“I’m not saying he isn’t worthy of a cruel death, I am merely saying that, much like Mrs. Deneaux wants to use us for her own means, we can do the same with the captain.”
“Looks like it’s your lucky day, Captain,” I said as I rattled him about a couple of times and unceremoniously dropped him to the floor.
He drew in great ragged breaths, his hands caressing his neck. I stepped over him and to the shrinking form of Dixon. “So much for the deal,” I said to him as I moved his hands aside to see the bullet wound Deneaux had put in his thigh.
“What...what did you expect me to do?” He was near to crying. “What are you going to do...!” It trailed off into a scream as I stuck my index finger up to the second knuckle in his wound. “Man, who knows where my hands have been today. A good chance this is probably going to get infected.” I was wiggling my finger around. I laid my right arm across Dixon’s chest, holding him down like a vise as I probed deeper. “Damn, I’m almost all the way through.”
Even Deneaux winced. “Really, Michael, is that necessary?”
“Don’t you even start!” I pulled my finger out from Dixon’s wound, it made a large satisfying sucking sound as I did so. I was now pointing that blood covered digit at Deneaux. She stared transfixed at the fat droplets of blood as they fell from it. The bat was something—she didn’t so much as flinch.
“We kill, Michael. All of us in this room, we kill. Don’t be so shocked by it, and don’t even try to deny it. I know what you’re thinking, that you killed them all to ensure the safety of your family. Can you honestly hold that truism for each and every one of them? Weren’t there at least a few times where it wasn’t directly related to self-defense or family preservation but rather it was more advantageous if he or she were dead?”
“This is different, Deneaux. He was going to kill my family in cold-blood, my innocent family.”
“Innocent?” she scoffed. “They knew about this place, he was protecting his own by eliminating them. Would you have let a hostile force leave your brother’s home to get reinforcements? He was defending what is dear to him. Look at that wheel spinning in your head; it is a sight to behold.”
“You’ve muddied the waters enough, Deneaux. What point are you going to make that changes my mind about your and Dixon’s fate?”
<
br /> “This deal is for me, he is on his own.”
Even through his misery Dixon took the time to shoot a glare at Deneaux. “How did your husband put up with you for so many years?”
“As long as he did what I told him to do, we got along fabulously. I warned you not to go down to Michael’s cell. I told you when I found out he and his family were here that you should kill them immediately. No offense,” she said to me.
I waved it off. I was offended, but she would not have cared.
“How did not listening to me work out, Dixon?”
“Fuck you, Vivian.”
“You wanted to, didn’t you? If you had played your cards right this all could have been yours.”
I’m pretty sure if she’d had a skirt or a dress on she would have pulled the front up. Tommy turned away, embarrassed. I was wondering if I could make it to the waste bucket in time to launch my lunch into it. “Wow, how did that become the most disturbing thing the day has yet to offer? Deneaux, out with it, we’re running short on time. Why am I not going to kill you along with my buddy Dix here?”
If his wound in his leg didn’t hurt so much, and wasn’t gushing blood because of my ministrations, I think Dixon would have taken this time to make a run for it.
“I can disable the computer system in this facility…forever,” she added at the end when I didn’t immediately react.
I was about to tell her “big fucking whoop” when I finally figured it out. “No computers, no satellites.”
She touched her nose. “Exactly.”
“You can’t!” Captain Najarian said as loudly as his tortured throat would allow, which wasn’t much above a hoarse, whispered yell. “You’ll be condemning the lives of thousands.”
“Pity,” Deneaux said. “What of it, Michael?”
“If I kill Dixon what does it matter?” I asked.
“Do you truly believe that someone else, perhaps even the captain here, will not immediately take hold of the throne? There are always more idiots. Isn’t that one of your lines?”