“If you’re all focused on this one,” BT asked, “am I going to be alright?”
“You’ll be fine, I have enough concentration to work on this zombie and keep your virus at bay, but if people keep asking me questions, my strength is going to get a little diluted.”
“Mike! Come on, brother! What are you doing?” Gary asked.
“Zip it, man!” BT said, taking one hand off the rifle and pointing a huge finger in Gary’s direction.
I think it was the first time I had ever seen BT raise his voice to Gary, but I guess when you have the threat of becoming a zombie hanging over your head, all bets are off.
The zombie jerkily moved closer to me. It was like trying to force magnets of the same polarization together. The zombie really did not want anything to do with me. I kept reeling him in closer. My eyes were watering from the stink of it. Its gray, vein-lined face was less than six inches from mine. It finally stopped trying to find BT and its eyes locked onto mine. Its mouth opened up. It ran its gore-encrusted tongue over the shards of its remaining teeth. This one looked like it had eaten a bag of marbles; blood welled up from where its tongue made contact.
I cocked my head to the side, giving it a large area of my neck to peruse.
“What the hell?” Mary moaned, “I would have never let you in if I had known you were clinically insane. Make him stop!” Mary said to Gary.
“BT told me to zip it,” Gary mumbled.
The zombie eyed my neck greedily, and its mouth opened even wider. I didn’t think that was possible. It leaned in closer. A thick liquid dropped from its mouth and onto my neck. I was going to go with it being drool, not that that was much better, but it was worlds better than the other myriad fluids it could have been.
The zombie slowly eased its way in, the blood throbbing through my neck was too much. I might not be its favorite thing on the menu, but I was hot and it was hungry. I was holding the zombie a quarter inch from my neck. The strain in my mind and my body was beginning to wear me down. I could feel the heat of decay from its mouth on my neck. If I moved a fraction of an inch, it would bite, and then it licked my neck. Half vamp, former Marine, father of three, none of that mattered; my stomach threatened to completely turn itself inside out. I pulled away.
“Kill it,” I moaned to BT.
BT waited until all the noise from his shot went quiet. “What were you trying to prove?” he asked.
“That I can control them. That what is inside of you has stopped its advance, that’s what I am trying to prove.”
“That proves nothing,” Mary said defiantly. “I’m not letting either of you in here with my son and me.”
My head dragged even lower. I had expended a lot of energy with the useless test and I had a slow steady trickle being sent to BT. I could hear rustling inside the house.
“What are you doing, Gary?” Josh asked.
“If they can’t come in, little man, then I have to go out,” Gary told him.
“Wait,” Mary said. “Are you sure? You could spend some time here, with us,” she added, a little pleadingly.
“You guys have been great hosts, but that’s my brother and his friend,” Gary said.
BT and I looked at each other as Gary said “his friend.”
“I guess he didn’t like your ‘zip it’ comment,” I laughed.
BT shrugged.
“But they’re dangerous,” Mary yammered.
Gary stole a quick glance out the window, looking at us to maybe see if we had sprouted wings or maybe horns. “They don’t look any more dangerous than they usually do,” he said, pulling away from the window.
Mary looked out the window, I think to her, we had sprouted those things. “How can you say that? One is part vampire and the other is part zombie! What could possibly be more dangerous?”
“Mike’s plans,” Gary shot out without missing a beat.
“I heard that,” I told him.
“Sorry, it was the first thing out of my mouth, I didn’t even need to think about it.”
“Mom, we can’t leave them out there.”
“We most certainly can,” she answered him.
“She’s right, Josh. You guys don’t really know us and you certainly don’t owe us anything. Could you please just send out a few first aid supplies with Gary so I can field dress my friend’s wound?” I asked Mary.
“I’ll do it,” Mary agreed.
I didn’t know at the time she was talking about cleaning the wound herself, not just sending the stuff out.
We walked over to the front door, I expected to be greeted by Gary. Mary was looking around the front screen security door; and when she was satisfied there were no other boogey men besides BT and me present, she motioned for us to come in.
“You sure?” I asked her.
“No, so get in before I change my mind.”
BT brushed past me. Mary almost got her neck stuck craning it high enough to look at BT’s face this close.
BT sat calmly as Mary scrubbed, cleaned and disinfected his bite and a dozen or so other various scrapes and bruises.
“You don’t take very good care of yourself,” Mary chided him.
BT was in the middle of eating a Beef Stroganoff MRE packet. He didn’t really know what to say to her comment, so he just kept eating, but he did send me a knowing glance like “What the hell is she talking about? Doesn’t she know there’s a zombie apocalypse going on right now?” Or it might have just been indigestion. I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying him so much attention as I was one of the things inside of him.
“Man, it’s creeping me out the way you’re looking at me, and I’m trying to eat too,” BT said.
“Sorry man, I’m just…”
“I don’t want to know,” he said, cutting me off as he dug deeper into his foil food packet.
I could link with what I’d come to know as the Hugh-Mann’s, according to my great grandfather’s research. I read most of his findings while someone else had been driving. Contrary to popular belief, I can read; it’s writing that most seem to think I have a problem with. I could sense them and they were dormant for the moment, kind of like the stasis we had seen from other zombies, but if BT was to stray more than thirty feet or more, I lost concentration. Then any influence I had would be gone and the process would continue. Right now, I could keep him from becoming a zombie, but if he were to turn, there would be nothing I could do. That would be the point of no return.
Mary had seemed particularly nervous when she first started working on BT, but the more she got into the routine of her profession, the more she loosened up. And there was just something about the big man. If you were not on the opposing side, he made you feel safe.
“Is Mike still looking at me?” BT asked as he dived into a tuna casserole packet.
Mary looked up from a cut on his leg she was actually stitching up. “Yes,” she answered turning back towards her work.
“This food would be much more pleasurable if you weren’t looking at me, man,” BT said, never looking up. “And you too, little man.”
Josh was sitting at the table and looking at BT, slack-jawed. “Are you a wrestler?” Josh asked.
“Josh, that’s rude!” Mary said. BT umphed as she pulled a stitch too tight. “Sorry.”
BT nodded curtly.
“Competitive ballet dancer,” I told Josh.
“What?” BT and Josh both looked at me. Gary just shook his head as he came in from the living room.
“Sorry, it popped in my head.”
“It’s still all clear out there,” Gary said.
“We’ve got plenty of moonlight. When BT is all fixed up, we should probably get going,” I said. “Although the sun will be coming up soon,” I added as the sky to the east was already beginning to lighten up.
Mary’s shoulders slumped. We might not be her primary choice for guests, but we were company and at least one of us was comforting to her.
“I sure wish we could go with you guys,” Josh said.
“But if my dad came home, and we weren’t here, he wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Are you sure you won’t spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning?” Mary asked.
“There are three more of us out there, and I have no idea where they are or if anything has happened to them and they’ll only wait so long if they’re already at the rendezvous point. On top of that, I’m really late checking in with my brother. If I don’t check in with him soon, he might get a crazy idea to launch a rescue,” I said.
“Alright, let me just finish cleaning BT up,” Mary said, standing so she could go into the other room and get some more supplies. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to drag this out as long as possible. She might even scratch him a few more times so she’d have something else to put some Bacitracin on. I was going to keep an eye on her. BT wasn’t going to notice shit if she kept stuffing different MREs in front of his face.
“How many of those things you going to eat?” I asked him.
“Don’t bother me while I’m eating, man,” BT growled, placing one arm protectively around his newest packet, which looked like pork and beans or something equally as unappetizing.
And just like that it hit me. I thought back to Eliza’s caravan and the zombies under Eliza’s control. She wasn’t actively directing them to sit and behave. She had given them an earlier command and had somehow tied it off like those damn, infuriating bread ties. You know the ones; you can never figure out which way they are tied. You spin them to the left for a few turns before you realize that it isn’t getting any looser, so you do the other way, and for some physics-bending reason, you get the same result. I can’t even begin to tell you how many loaves of bread I have just ripped the plastic sleeve on. You want to talk about pissing my wife off? Alright, enough of a divergence.
I knew it was possible to tie commands off, I just wasn’t sure how to do it. I felt like I was five again and my dad was telling me to tie my shoe. Sure, he had showed me like fifteen times previous, but it might as well have been advanced geometry. I wonder if Eliza would be so kind as to give me a lesson. And then the second dawning came to my mind.
Tomas? I reached out tentatively. I felt like I had enough control that I could communicate with him and him alone, but I wasn’t completely sure.
“My sister is extremely angry with you, Michael,” Tomas answered.
So she’s not dead?
“What do you want?” Tomas said wearily, or maybe warily.
BT is in trouble. Now I panicked. How much information did I want to give him (or them)? Stupid, stupid, I should have not brought his name up. Forget it, nothing, I said, just about to close the connection.
“Michael, it was obviously important enough that you felt the need to seek me out.”
“Dammit!”
“What?” Gary asked.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“I don’t want to know,” Gary said, walking out of the room.
BT’s been infected. I laid it all out there; he was no worse off than he had been a moment before.
There was no response from Tomas for long seconds, and then I heard what could only be described as a sigh. “I’m sorry for your loss.” When I hesitated, Tomas spoke. “There is nothing I can do to help him.”
I actually think you might be able to.
“Even if I could, I do not understand why you think that I would be willing to help you.”
Cut the shit, Tomas! Tommy, George, whatever the hell you want to call yourself now. You are not so far removed from that boy I knew, the one that I adopted as one of my own. Eliza is not evil because she has no soul. Eliza is evil in spite of that. You helped me on that rooftop and you know it, no matter how you are trying to justify it to yourself or your bitchster. You could have let me and all the rest of us die up there. I’m telling you now, BT will die without your help! Don’t do what you think you’re supposed to do, or definitely not what your sister would want you to do, do what is right! I shouted internally.
“How is saving BT so that he can try and destroy us, doing what is right?” he asked.
He had a valid point from his angle. Just because I thought it was right didn’t mean everyone else would. Damn semantics.
Listen, we can go round and round, but here’s the deal: BT has been bit. I have halted the advance of the virus, but I do not know how to hold it off indefinitely.
There was a bigger pause than when I had told him about BT’s infection. I thought maybe I had not made myself clear enough.
After more long moments of silence, he responded. “Eliza grows suspicious and is even now attempting to see what I am doing. We do not have much time. You will have to give me access to him.”
I wasn’t so sure about this, I just wanted a “how to.” Once he had his fingers inside BT, so to speak, he could do something irreversible.
“Michael, I can sense your indecision. You’re right. I could have let you all die on that rooftop. What purpose would it serve to now undo that? I’m running out of time, Michael.”
Dammit.
“What the hell is that?!” BT yelled in exclamation.
“It’s just a little hydrogen peroxide,” Mary answered. “The same stuff I’ve been using this whole time.”
“No, in me! Something’s in me,” he said, standing in alarm.
“Josh, get out of here!” Mary yelled. “He’s turning into a zombie!”
“I am?” BT asked with alarm.
“Hold on!” I yelled, coming in late to the party. I had been so intent on watching what Tomas was doing, I was unaware of my physical surroundings. Gary was moments away from putting a bullet in BT.
“Mike! What’s going on?” BT asked, looking like he was getting ready to jump out of his own skin.
“I asked for some help,” I told him.
“What kind of help and who specifically?” he asked with a very large note of concern.
“I asked Tomas for some help.”
“Tomas, as in Eliza’s brother, Tomas?” Mary asked Gary.
Gary shrugged his shoulders. “I told her everything. You guys were gone for a long time.”
“Yes, that Tomas,” I said, answering her question.
“Mike, don’t you think you should have maybe asked me before you let the enemy in?”
“Tomas is here?” Josh asked, running to the front window. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Did you ever stop to think that he could really do some damage?” BT asked. He was more than a little pissed off.
“I took a risk. It was a calculated risk,” I told him.
“With my life!” he yelled, bringing his fist down on the table. Mary jumped as if she were startled, but it could have been that the shock wave from the table had caused her to raise up off the floor.
“There were not many options, my friend,” I told him.
“Don’t pull that ‘my friend’ shit with me!” he roared.
I hadn’t seen him this mad in a long time, if ever.
“He’s inside me!” he said thumping his fist against his chest.
“It’s done,” Tomas intoned. “Do not contact me again.”
We’ll see, I answered him, but he was already gone.
“You don’t get it, BT, I had to ask for his help. I couldn’t hold them off indefinitely. While I’m thinking about it or while I’m conscious, it’s easy enough to keep telling the parasites to stay put. But I have no idea what happens if I sleep. And I love you, my friend, but I don’t always want to be within shouting distance, do you?” I asked throwing it back at him.
“Well, not really,” he answered, a small measure of anger dropping off.
“I guess I’d never have to worry about running out of toilet paper,” I told him.
“What are you talking about?” Gary asked.
“Because BT will always be around and if Mike runs out, BT will be able to hear him. Have you not been listening to the conversation?” Josh asked.
“So am I suppose
d to shoot him, Mike?” Gary asked me.
“I think he’s fine now.”
“How would you know that?” BT asked me suspiciously.
“Tomas is gone,” I told him.
“So how would you know if I’m good or not?” BT asked once again, threatening me with his finger.
I didn’t answer. I was hoping against all odds he would just drop it.
“Are you saying you can get in me too?!” His temper was beginning to flare again. “So what? I’m like a 7-Eleven? Always open?” BT was pacing around Mary’s small kitchen. He was running his hand across his head. “I don’t like this shit, Mike. Sorry, kid,” BT said to Josh. “I think I’d rather have Eliza rooting around in there. At least, I’d know what she was up to. You scare the shit out of me, man.”
“So you can like mind control him?” Josh asked, making his arms move like a robot.
“Really?” Gary asked, “Because there’s a few things I’d really love to see him do.”
“Nobody is making me do anything I don’t want to do, right?” BT asked, threatening to come over and smash my skull if I didn’t give him an immediate answer that completely meshed with his.
“I can’t control him,” I told Josh.
“Damn right, I’m uncontrollable,” BT said, crossing his arms.
“Okay, rebel, calm down, so I can finish cleaning you up,” Mary said. “We’re out of immediate danger, yes?” Mary asked, looking over towards me.
I nodded my answer, hoping that BT hadn’t picked it up. No such luck.
“What am I thinking now?” BT asked me.
“You’re thinking about how you’d like to pop my head off my bony body,” I told him.
He bounced up like a spring-loaded toy. “He can read my damn thoughts!” he yelled.
“Relax,” Mary laughed. “Even I could have read your thoughts about that.”
BT seemed to settle down as he finally sat. “How would you feel if you had a crazy Talbot running around in your head?” he asked her.
“Just so we’re clear,” Gary said, “he’s talking about Mike and not me.”
BT looked defeated or maybe just tired. I couldn’t really blame him either way. I couldn’t even begin to think about what he’d been through the last few hours.