“Is he asleep?” he asked, shielding his eyes.
“He has to be. Why would he stay up there?” BT was also looking up while he stretched out his back. Henry was walking around with a distinct limp as he worked the circulation back into his extremities.
Dennis reached down and grabbed a stick. He started poking Gary on his legs.
Gary moaned out. “Mom, is Glenn with you? He says it’s not as light out as it should be, he also said something about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Never did like horses, Mom.”
Tracy unexplainably shivered as Gary was apparently seeing two of his deceased family members.
“Gary, get your ass up.” Dennis was jabbing Gary with the stick. Tracy figured he was poking him with it harder than he needed so he wouldn’t have to hear what else Gary might have to say.
Gary was forgotten for the moment as they heard a horse whinny in the distance. Tracy looked to BT. He shrugged.
“Coincidence, right?” Dennis asked BT.
“I hope so.” That didn’t stop him from checking his rifle. “This mean we’re friends now?”
“For the time being. I figure you’re marginally better than pestilence,” Dennis told him.
“Travis, Justin, come on back,” Tracy said, loud enough for only them to hear. At least that’s what she hoped. The boys were off watching the zombies retreat.
“What’s going on?” Travis asked.
“We either have some biblical characters coming…or dinner,” BT told him.
“What?”
“Horse, BT? You’d eat horse?” Tracy asked him.
“I’d eat the saddle right now,” he told her.
“I don’t want to eat horse.” Justin came up alongside his brother. “The zombies are heading out. Not even looking back.”
“This can’t be good,” Dennis said to the group. “Whatever is scaring zombies away should be bad enough for us to be leaving as well.”
“I was going to give you shit for wanting to run, but I think I’m on your side with this one,” BT told him.
“Not that it matters but thank you, I guess.”
“It’s not Revelations, I think…but we can’t follow the zombies and I believe avoiding whoever is coming would be wise. We either go up that way and follow the tree line or down the other way. When we think we’ve skirted around them we should go deeper in until we can find a car or something. Sound good?” Tracy asked.
“Might be too late for that.” BT was urging everyone to get lower. “There’s definitely more than one horse out there and right now there’s no way of telling which way they’re going.”
Each member of the group had picked a tree to hide behind. Rifles out, they waited to acquire a target. The only thing that broke the silence was Gary’s rhythmic snoring.
“Someone should probably get him.” Tracy was looking directly at BT.
He started grumbling about always having to do the dirty work.
“Gary, get your ass up.” BT could just touch Gary if he reached up and jumped.
“Hornets!” Gary screamed before rolling off and into BT’s arms. “Well, this is awkward,” he said as he looked at BT.
BT immediately put him down.
“Where are the zombies? What’s going on?” Gary asked as he looked at everyone.
“Horses,” Tracy told him, putting a finger to her mouth. Although she was pretty certain that whoever was out there would have heard his earlier outburst.
“Horses?” he asked, a look of confusion on his face like he was remembering that he had just forgotten something but for the life of him couldn’t figure out what it was.
“I just need to let all of you know that if I see a skeleton riding one of those things, I’m going to have to leave,” BT told the group.
“Don’t worry, we’ll all be behind you,” Tracy told him.
“Yeah, definitely behind BT, because if we were in front, there would be the possibility that he would run us down. It would be like a semi hitting a VW Bug—he probably wouldn’t even know he’d done it,” Travis told the group.
“You know, sometimes being around a father, especially your father, too much can be detrimental.”
“Shh,” Tracy said, putting her hand out. “I think I see one.” She was whispering now.
The woods got quiet as everyone trained their rifles on where they figured the horses and potential enemies from the bible would manifest themselves. The only thing that could be heard was the adjustment of leather as men sat in their saddles and the barrels of rifles as they rested against tree bark.
“Please don’t be a skeleton, please don’t be a skeleton,” BT mumbled over and over again.
“What are you talking about?” Gary had asked at one point. “Why would there be a skeleton? Do I want to know?” He looked over at Travis who shook his head. “I liked sleeping better. I guess I’m running too if there’s a skeleton.”
“You’re the one that puts the idea in my head and then doesn’t remember? All you Talbots suck. I just want you to know that.”
“What is he talking about?” Gary turned to Tracy.
She looked over at him with a gaze that said if he didn’t shut up and right quick she was going to twist his nipple until it fell off. He got the hint.
“It’s around here somewhere. I remember that tree, reminded me of a guy I used to hang out with.”
“Trip?” Stephanie said as she stood, her rifle dropping down by her waist.
Chapter Seven – Mike Journal Entry 4
Gunfire intensified and then abruptly stopped.
‘Tommy, what’s going on out there?’
‘Can’t see much from inside this closet.’
‘Big help.’
‘Me being dead isn’t going to do any wonders.’
‘I have really got to tone it down. I had no idea sarcasm was contagious. Alright, when you have an opportunity could you please let me know if you find anything out?’
“Any idea what’s going on out there?” I asked Dixon.
“Well, she either won or she lost.”
“That’s about as helpful as…ummm, forget it.”
There was knocking on the door. “Mr. Talbot, Mr. Hawes, this is Captain Najarian.”
“Captain, could you please enlighten us on the situation?” Dixon asked.
“May I approach?”
“Of course,” Dixon said.
I arched an eyebrow. “You unarmed?”
“Same as before.”
“Then like, Monty Hall used to say, ‘Come on down!’ ”
“I’m curious, Mr. Talbot, were you already insane before the vampire bite?”
“Careful, Mr. Hawes, we’re not quite friends yet. Just because we’ve survived this far doesn’t mean both of us still will.”
“I have honored my part of the agreement; your family is miles from here. If, however, you decide to renege on your part, I still have the capability to pick them up at any time.”
“I knew you’d put a tracking device on that truck.”
“Of course. I had to make sure you would comply and wouldn’t try an escape, kill me, or kill yourself. If anything happens except your complete complicity, I will butcher them like livestock. Are we clear, Mr. Talbot?”
To say I wanted to snap his neck would be like saying I only wanted to be friends with Farrah Fawcett when she came out with that now famous swimsuit poster. Come on! I was thirteen, and I don’t think there was a straight pubescent male on the planet that didn’t fawn over that picture. It sort of lost its luster that next year when Paul decided to lick the poster in an oft-viewed portion of the portrait. I’d had to take it down because his dried saliva had left a telltale sign of his defacing. If I remember correctly, Cheryl Tiegs had taken her spot. Oh, if you only still had Google to see what I was talking about. Fantasy doesn’t even begin to cover the stirrings she, erm, “aroused” in me. I hoped Dixon hadn’t seen that far away dreamy look I sometimes used to get when I thought about that pink bi
kini.
“We’re clear, Mr. Hawes, but I believe you need to rethink your stance before you go spewing at the mouth. Going to be extremely tough for you to give the order to get my family if I shove your femur down your throat first. Don’t you think?”
Captain Najarian appeared just as my words had been processed in Dixon’s head and he had the opportunity to realize precisely how dangerous I still was.
“What was…?” Dixon coughed to clear his throat, his voice an octave or two higher than he wished. “What was the commotion about?”
“I was right to put guards on the Talbots. Deneaux sent a team to kill them, but luckily they were long gone. We planted the room with my soldiers, so it was a pretty big surprise for them.”
“The threat has been quelled then?” Dixon asked, wanting to be as far away from me as possible.
“Not quite, sir. She still has a fair number of personnel at her disposal, and she has control of the nerve center.”
“Nerve center?” I asked. “It’s not like this is a spaceship. What’s the worst she can do? Turn off the lights? Make the temperature go up past eighty degrees? Oooh that would be atrocious.”
“It’s a little more involved than that,” the captain said.
It was easy to see I’d irked him a bit. Good. Why should he be any different?
“This base runs off of nuclear power, so if she got creative, she could turn this entire facility into a thermonuclear device. That would create temperatures in excess of eighty degrees,” he said sarcastically.
“Our Viv is entirely too narcissistic to blow herself up. What else can she do?” I asked.
“If she figures out Mr. Hawes’ security code, she can open up the doors. That will leave us vulnerable to attack. Or she could activate the automated security system.”
“Oooh, alarms!” I shook one of my hands in the air.
“I don’t consider fifty caliber machineguns pivoting on a turret using laser targeting systems as something to think so casually on.”
I stopped. “Yeah, me neither. Where are those things located?”
“Every hallway. She could cut down every person in this place twice before she ran out of ammunition.”
“Can’t they be disabled? Cut off the power or throw down a grenade? Something like that?”
The captain shook his head. “They sit behind two inches of hardened steel, and the only thing that shows is the barrel muzzle.”
“What about smoke? Blind them I mean?”
“Infra-red back-up I’m afraid,” Dixon said.
“You really left this woman alone in your office? What is wrong with you?” I was pacing back and forth. I never broke stride as I spoke. “Captain Najarian, you keep reaching for that Colt 1911 you have tucked in your waistline, I’m going to kill you both by repeatedly slamming your skulls together.” He stopped, I kept pacing. “Okay, so your password for a place like this has to be something stupid hard, right? Like 1028-bit encryption or something. I mean, how is she going to get past that?”
Red lights began to spin on the wall as a powerful klaxon wailed three times.
“Well, it would appear she got past my security.”
“So I take that to mean it wasn’t some huge encryption then.”
“It was her birth date.”
“This is the guy you let lead you?” I asked the captain.
“The pay was good,” he replied. “We should probably stay put in the cell. Once she figures out how to activate the guns, they’ll be online in ten seconds.”
‘Tommy, you’d better stay wherever you are. Deneaux all of a sudden has an army.’
‘I can think of no scarier thought,’ he replied in earnest.
‘I’m serious—don’t move. She has the ability to activate machineguns in the corridors.’
‘What’s wrong with this place?’
‘I don’t know, Tommy, I don’t. I wish I did.’
‘You alright?’
‘Sleeping with the enemy right now, but they need me as much as I need them at the moment. So I’m okay for a bit. Would really like to get out of here soon though.’
‘I don’t feel too bad for you. I’m next to all the mop buckets, and I think the janitors must have had to clean up the bathrooms after a tainted chili dinner.’
‘Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.’
I exited out of that conversation faster than when Tracy asked me if her new jeans were slimming. I mean, honestly, the jeans looked fantastic and I could not think much beyond how I was going to get them off of her. The problem was, had I answered with, “Yes, honey, they are indeed slimming”, I would have been immediately nailed with, “So I was fat-looking beforehand?” Oh, and if I had been so wrapped up in a World Series game watching the Red Sox in, like, game seven and they were up by a run in the ninth inning and I just hadn’t been paying all that much attention and said, “No, they’re not”, well, that has its own inherent dangers built in. Men, by nature, are built for win or lose. We can deal with either scenario, sometimes poorly, other times with dignified grace. But we need to win or we need to lose. Why do you think guys are so competitive with each other? It’s because we understand that. I beat Paul four games to three in darts, he beat me four games to three in pool. It makes sense. When cavemen would go out and hunt, they either struck gold, and brought a mammoth home, or they starved. It’s win or lose, plain, simple, easy. Then women were thrown into the mix, and men have been clueless ever since as they constantly, and repeatedly, put us into situations where we can never win. The outcome is always a loss. Even when we think there is a possibility of a bright outcome they will change the rules of engagement.
I mean, honestly, can you imagine if you were playing basketball with your friends and you scored the final points and then your buddy on the opposing team says you need to hit a home run to win? I mean, where do you go from there? That’s what women do to us, and it means nothing that we know this. We’re still powerless to defend against it. Maybe genetically we got the brawn, but they’re so beguiling that they win, hands down. Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, Deneaux has machineguns and I’m stuck.
“Dixon, honey,” Deneaux’s voice grated over the PA system. “Can you hear me, my darling? Has Michael killed you yet?” She cackled. “I think it’s so sweet you used my birth date as your password.”
“I thought they didn’t make years before Jesus?” I asked, unfortunately knowing that Deneaux would not be able to hear it.
“I might not have ever guessed that, thankfully you kept it under your keyboard on a handy sticky note.” She cackled again.
“You might as well have just said, ‘here’ when you walked out of your office,” I berated him. “New World Order my ass, you’re as stupid as the Old World Order that got us into this mess to begin with.”
Dixon stood defiant; he wasn’t a meek man, that was for certain. I wouldn’t have thought him trusting either, yet he might as well have handed the keys to a Lamborghini to his fifteen-year-old son and told him not to drive it while he, himself, was out of town on business.
I turned my attention to someone who actually might have an answer. “Captain Najarian, any answers?”
He was thinking about it. “Well, she’s effectively got us pinned down, and she’ll be able to allow whoever is loyal to her the ability to move around. She can go on the offensive at any time. She has us divided and will be able to strike at will at each pocket of defenders.”
“Move around how? Will she have to monitor their progress, shut down the gun in each corridor and then bring them back up once they’re clear?”
“That’s one way but it’s cumbersome and not very practical in a battle situation. No, more than likely they’ll have remotes.”
“Like for a TV?”
“It’s a little more high tech than that. It has codes that are ciphered and change every few seconds. It will automatically send out a pulse that controls the gun in whatever corridor the wearer of the remote is in, effectively shutting
the gun down.”
“How big is it?”
“About the size of a pack of cigarettes.”
“I could go for a cigarette right now.” I may have started to daydream. “Sorry…so we need to get a hold of this remote. Probably going to have our chance soon enough.”
“We can’t go out there.” Dixon looked a little pale. It was easy sending others off to die in the name of one cause or another. It was a completely different sensation when you discovered you were being sent to the front lines, although in this case the front lines were coming to us.
“Don’t sweat it,” I told him. “We’re not going out there.” He seemed to relax, although it was easy enough to see he didn’t trust me. And why should he? “They’ll be coming for us soon enough.”
“I suppose you’re right, she can’t really afford to let either one of us walk away from this.”
Machinegun fire was repeatedly ripping through anyone foolish enough to test the system. Up to this point, cold, calculating steel and lead was winning every time. Yeah, so which of you reading this journal thought machines taking over the world was a far-fetched plot? Not me. Not then, and certainly not now. Here was something that held no emotion, cared for nothing or nobody. It had been created for one purpose, the destruction of life. It had been given the power and the instructions to do so. It would not be riddled with guilt. It would not suffer PTSD. It would just do its job; not happily, not sadly. Man had been trying to create the perfect soldier since at least the Spartans in ancient Greece. The perfect soldier could not contain flesh and blood, or the capacity to think. Machines take over the world? Absolutely.
“So how does this work? Do they have to get some poor bastard to stick his arm through the doorway and click the remote?”
“The opening of the door will automatically trigger it, shutting the gun off. If you don’t mind my asking, why will Deneaux bother with us at all? I mean, I get why she’ll have to attack some of the troops, as they will be in the way of areas vital to the operation of this facility. But we’re locked away here, we can’t go anywhere we can’t do anything. She could just starve us out.”