by Mark Tufo
“I promise! I fucking promise! Just do it!”
“What are you doing?” BT asked. He’d been following and listening.
“You shouldn’t have agreed to that,” Tommy said. I didn’t like that this was his sentiment after he had already done it to me.
I knew in my heart any chance of redemption I may have had was squandered. I’d damned myself and I’d damned them all. I thought of a final confrontation with those who would judge my life. There was no amount of good that could balance unleashing the apocalypse that would be Deneaux.
“What have I done?” I held the microphone to my head. Deneaux had left her side on; we could hear her shots and the cries of surprise from the people holding our loved ones captive. My only hope now was that Deneaux would succeed in saving them and then as they retreated to a safer place she would trip and fall onto a land mine. All of my problems solved.
No, I was not going to be able to leave this one up to providence. I would honor this promise and so much more. Deneaux had sealed her fate when she’d forced me to meet her at this crossroads. I knew which road I was going to take. There was no doubt in my mind, Victor Talbot, having presented Eliza to the world, had found a particularly toasty section of hell to spend the rest of eternity in. If I were to be the second Talbot to spread an evil plague called Deneaux, I might get an entire wing named after me down there. There were more tires screeching and more shots fired, then nothing. I looked at the radio as if it had betrayed me.
“Did anybody hear anything, not on the radio?” I got a bunch of shaking heads in return.
“What do we do now, dad?” Travis asked.
“We have to wait.” Might have been the hardest words I’d ever had to say. I was not great at waiting; just ask my wife about any of our trips to the DMV. I’m ashamed to admit I’d seen spoiled brats at the toy store around Christmastime act better behaved. Tried to raise Deneaux a dozen, two dozen, fuck it, a hundred times on the radio. Nothing. She had either failed or died. I don’t think she would have been stupid enough to seek me out if she had not succeeded. There was a chance my family was dead and she was either halfway to California or nestling in nicely with Knox’s illusions of dementia. I’d stayed up on the roof even during the worst of the weather that had rolled in. Had made a decent shelter out of those windshield sun block devices the store sold. It was nearly waterproof; not that this mattered, as I continually walked around in a desperate bid to see something.
“Why didn’t she ask you to do this?” I asked Tommy as I sat in the store. I was wringing my hands.
“The short, Mr. T? I think she’d be pleased as punch to see the reaction she’s getting from you right now.”
“This is what I get. I allow a venomous snake into my house and then cry “why me?” when it bites someone. I mean what did I really expect was going to happen? How can I have such a blind eye to her?”
“She’s had a lot more experience with being the type of person she is. Your problem, Mr. T, is that your first instinct is to trust. This won’t be the last time it will cost you.”
I looked at his back as he walked away. I knew he was right. At some point, someone near to me, someone else, was going to burn me something fierce, just wish I knew who it was so I could avoid them.
It was eighteen hours later when we finally heard from her.
“I’m coming to the automotive store,” Deneaux said, breathlessly, like she was getting ready to be in the throes of passion. Not a visual I wanted to entertain, just what it sounded like.
“Is everyone alright?” My lips pressed up so tightly against the radio I was in danger of shredding them against the metal screen.
“Everyone that I could save, is safe,” she replied.
“That’s not really an answer,” BT said to me.
“Who exactly?” I asked.
“I can’t be expected to remember all their names.”
“Fucking try!” I shouted.
She sighed. “Alright, alright, all the flea-infested animals, your son and the weird baby along with the other little girl from the gas station. And whether you like it or not I saved your mother-in-law,” she laughed. “How disappointing is that, Michael, that you can’t even get rid of your mother-in-law in an apocalyptic event? What wrongs you must have committed in previous lives!”
“She’s a good person and I love her. Why would I want to be rid of her?”
“It’s just us, Michael you don’t have to feed me any lines.”
“I’d like to feed her my fist!”
“Oh, is that the big, surly black fellow I hear?” she asked slightly bemused, if her tone was any indicator.
“Who else?” I asked quietly.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I have your wife, as well.”
I did not like it at all that she had my wife. “She’s alright?”
“Of course she is, I held up my end of the agreement; are you prepared to hold up yours?”
“That thing off?” BT asked, I nodded. “Can you even do what she asks?”
“I guess, I mean, I have the virus inside of me. I don’t think she’ll get what she wants though.”
“You can’t, you know.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Do I just kill her when she shows up?” he asked. “And how does she know we’re here?”
“This is Deneaux, it’s her job to know. And don’t you think she knows we’ll try to stop her?”
“But what can she do once they’re all back here?”
“She said she was alone,” I replied.
“Even better.”
“Not really, buddy. She’s way smarter than we are at setting up things like this. She has a deck of cards in her hand I bet she’s willing to play.”
“So, she’s got them held captive or something? We’ll just beat her until she tells us where they’re at.” BT was getting angry.
“She’s thought of that, too.”
“No way man. She’s not the devil.”
I gave him a stink eye.
“Well maybe she is a devil, but she’s not the devil. You seem mighty sure she’s some evil mastermind. Maybe she’s just a mean, bitter, old woman. Maybe she doesn’t really have it all figured out.”
“I like your thought process, man, I really do. I think you’re throwing your good copper pennies in a dried-up well, though.”
We watched as the demonic driving Deneaux barreled up the roadway, a lit cigarette in a hand hanging out the driver side window. Johnny Cash blaring on the radio, she gave not two shits about who heard her coming.
“She’s way too confident,” my son said. I was thinking the same thing. What did she know that we didn’t? I hadn’t personally spoken to any of those she’d supposedly saved. Had she already betrayed us and was now setting us up? The truth was even stranger, at least considering who was involved.
I was at the door about to go out into the parking lot to meet her when she kept on going. Drove right the fuck past. She knew where we were; she tossed a cigarette out the window and held up one finger, and not the middle one, the “wait” one.
“What is she doing?” Meredith asked.
I could only shake my head. She drove past. I waited the allotted fifteen seconds and was heading outside–nearly got spotted by a pickup truck full of assholes. Amazing how many of them you can fit in the back of a full-sized one. That’s the thing about assholes, they don’t like to do anything on their own; they’re pack animals. I pulled myself back in just as they passed.
“Safe to say she’s been compromised,” Tommy said.
“But she just led them away, right?” BT had a confused look on his face.
“Her cigarette looked funny,” Travis said. “Too long.”
“What the hell is going on?” I was looking to the spot it had landed. He was right. “Going for it; cover me,” I said as I went outside. I did a quick scan, including the sky for another drone, moved fairly quickly, and retrieved a butt that was wrapped in a piece of
scratch paper.
It was a note, but I wasn’t foolhardy enough to read it out in the open. When I got back we all huddled around when I opened it. The handwriting was atrocious, hastily written, possibly with her left hand-unless she’d been in the midst of a heart attack or stroke, one could only hope.
“Comp…K has wife others, MJ @ 2 Stevens.”
“Comp?” Travis asked.
“Compromised?” I threw out there, it seemed to stick. That wasn’t the part that hurt though, it was that the K most assuredly stood for Knox, and he had my wife and son. “Let’s go.”
“Where, man?” BT asked.
“Wherever the hell 2 Stevens Road is,” I said, going to grab my things.
“And where exactly is Stevens Road?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but we need to go.”
“I get it, man! We need to go! But we can’t wander around hoping to stumble across it. We need a plan. And I don’t know if we should blindly trust this,” he said, holding the note up.
“There’s a lot of fishy going on here,” Meredith said.
“Yeah Mr. T,” Tommy said. I was feeling mighty outnumbered. I looked to Travis, he was ready to follow wherever I went to save our family.
“If she’s compromised, like she says, isn’t she likely to have made a deal?” BT asked.
“She led them away and told us where MJ is, sounds like she’s still playing for this team.” That logic didn’t even sound good to my own ears.
“What if they want to bring us out into the open and she’s luring us?” Tommy asked.
“They know where we are,” I fought on.
“And what’s easier to attack?” BT added. “People in a defendable position or…”
“I get it, I get it. You can’t expect me to just sit back and do nothing, though, can you? You heard the screams on the radio.”
“There’s a chance the whole thing was a set-up, dad,” Travis said.
There was some relief in that, that maybe the despot didn’t have them. Sure, that would mean Deneaux had flipped sides, but that was always a given.
“If she told them what you are, he’s going to want you alive, Mike,” BT said. “You as well, Tommy. No reason to think he wouldn’t want to be king forever.”
“I hate her,” I said putting my head against the wall. “What the hell do we do now? She’s sufficiently put enough doubt in our heads that she’s immobilized us. We don’t want to do anything for fear of it being the wrong move.”
“Sounds exactly like her,” Meredith said.
“I think no matter what, Mike, we should get out of here,” BT said. “Got to figure at the minimum they know we’re here.”
“You’re right.” I went behind the counter, rummaged on the shelves underneath the register for a minute before I found what I was looking for–a grease-stained, old and ripped phone book. I’d been a fan of new technologies, but was happy to see we hadn’t completely forsaken all of the classics. I ripped out the first few pages–they invariably contained a map of the surrounding area printed on them. I folded them up and stuffed them in my pocket. “Let’s go.”
“Ummm, Uncle, if they know we’re here, doesn’t it stand to reason that they have this place surrounded or at least under surveillance?” Meredith voiced her concern.
I looked to each of them. Varying degrees of fear, doubt and anxiety warred among their features. “We can play the ‘what if” game for all eternity. Inaction is just as dangerous as the wrong action. I’ve got a hunch that Deneaux might be playing both sides, waiting to see who comes out on top before she hops back on or over to a new bandwagon as the case may be. She’s always thought we have an uncanny ability to win; my gut says she may have given us a small window to prove her right again.”
“You just said you hated her,” BT piped up.
“Yup. Gotta know your enemies. Let’s go.” I went out first, rifle at the ready. The odds I’d see where the shot came from were minimal if we were being watched. I turned my head when I heard a dog barking off in the distance, maybe a few streets over; there was more barking, nothing for a few seconds, then those high-pitched yelps as something or some things got a hold of it. My guess was rats; they were going to hem us in again with the little vermin, then we began to hear the chittering, tiny squeakings of them.
“That what I think it is?” BT asked. Though he already knew, he began to run in the exact opposite direction, which was easily the best and most natural option, given the circumstances. We’d gone about fifty yards and Meredith was already twenty behind us, she looked like she was running in uneven heels or had one mother of a rock in her shoe.
“They got worse,” she said as I went back. She was leaning heavily against me as I half carried, half dragged her. More times than not, the toes of her boots were scraping across the ground.
“Were you going to say something?” I looked down and her boots were wet, it was either burst blisters or blood.
“I don’t think so,” she said, giving me a weak smile.
We’d gone a half mile and I was starting to lose sight of BT, who was seemingly running in a blind panic. Tommy and Travis had held back somewhat, as an intermediary so we could see them and they could see him. When they stopped, I could not immediately tell why until I looked past and BT was on his knees, hands up in the air, rifle on the ground next to him. I saw two camo-clad men approaching him with what looked like M-16s.
I made Meredith take a hard right with me. No way Tommy and Travis weren’t spotted. I needed to get around the men and get us free. I deposited my niece on a small porch completely enclosed by the privacy of a few strategically placed oaks.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her as she gingerly sat down. I went through a small gate, then hopped a fence. I was going through the backyards before I cut back to get to BT. When I was across from where I needed to be, I slowly worked my way to the front. BT was face down on the ground, his hands had been zip-tied behind him. One of the men had his rifle trained on him as the other was now directing Travis and Tommy to drop their weapons and come forward. I saw the barrel of the rifle before I saw the person wielding it. No doubt he’d known I was coming. I grabbed it and forcibly wrenched it from his hands even as the word “stop” was coming out of his mouth. He hit me in the jaw hard enough with his fist that the marbles in my head would be spinning for a good long while. I took a few steps to the side, he had pulled out his Ka-Bar. I brought my rifle up.
“Put it down.” The words hurt to say. I was slowly moving my jaw, it wasn’t busted, but I was going to want my food soft for a couple of days, I mean, provided I made it to my next meal. “You look like you know what you’re doing with that…trained, even, but so am I. With the rifle I mean. I’m not fucking around, Major,” I sneered when I saw the insignia on his collars. “If you want to play soldier in Knox’s psychotic little fuck-fest that’s one thing, but don’t you dare desecrate my beloved Corps uniform. I should shoot you just for that, but I just want my friends back unharmed.”
He put the knife down, way too willingly. “You’re not with that idiot then?” he asked. His hands up by his side.
“You telling me you’re not either?”
“Son, I am wearing this uniform because I am a Marine, not some para-military mercenary wannabe.”
“I’m thinking we might be close to the same age; you calling me son weirds me out a little. This isn’t the South. And listen, I’ve had my fill of potential mind-fuckery today, seems like a pretty good time to denounce your affiliation, considering you know…this.” I said as I jiggled my gun.
“Winters–let the man up!” The major yelled across the yard.
Winters turned. “You think that’s–” He stopped when he saw me holding a rifle on his commander. He moved fast, bringing his rifle to bear on me. “Put it down now!” he screamed as he advanced. “Biddie! Got a problem!” He never took his eyes off of me.
“Stand down!” I was sparing glances to the man that had me dead to r
ights on my side. I moved in closer, slowly putting the major between me and that rifle while pointing my muzzle straight at the Major’s head. “I’ll take his head off!” I told him. “Sanders,” I saw the man’s name on his camouflage blouse, or at least it was the name of the person he’d taken it from, “Sanders, tell him to stop. I’m getting mighty nervous.” I had my finger on the trigger. At this point even if Winters shot me, odds were good I was going to plug one into Sanders’ cranium.
“Whoa, everyone, just take a step back!” Sanders ordered. Had to admit the man had that officer authority about him and that’s hard to fake. Couldn’t stand it too much when I was in the Corps, but out here someone takes charge well enough for others to follow, you have to admire that. And now that it got Winters to stop moving, I was alright with Sanders having it. It kept others less powerful from becoming the slaves of those that wielded power indiscriminately. “Winters stop, it’s me he has that gun pointed at, son.”
“I’ve got a shot, sir,” Winters answered. Biddeford came running up, I now had two rifles pointed at me, although he seemed torn between spending time on me and following up on Travis and Tommy who, I would imagine, would be coming up to investigate any second now.
“Someone better get me up off the motherfucking pavement!” BT yelled. “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.” He strained and I watched two sets of heavy zip ties break in half and fly off into the air like string.
“Major Sanders, if that is who you are, I have you, no two ways about it. They kill me, I’ll still kill you. And those boys coming up the road right now are excellent shots; those two with you are going to get hurt or maybe die if there’s a firefight. Plus, well, that gigantic black man is coming over here now and you’ll notice he’s so pissed he didn’t even grab his weapon. He’s just going to knock heads together like coconuts. Not sure who will be dead when it all shakes out, but we’ll both take some losses and I’m not really up for that, at least not on my side.”
It was a standoff at the moment, a lot of guns pointing in a lot of different directions and we were just one itchy finger from a bloodbath. Tommy and Travis were up here now and had fanned out to the side of Winters and Biddeford, giving us superior position. BT had finally gone back and retrieved his rifle when he realized that neither man was going to let him get in close enough to play head bongos. He seemed genuinely put out about it as he reached down and snatched the weapon off the ground.