There was always the chance I could just “accidently” lose my grip on Deneaux, letting her go WAY too short and right into the mix. Fucking conscience got in the way. Here I am, smack dab in the middle of a war where all the rules of a polite society are thrown out and yet I could not force myself to descend into that chaos. Well, if I’d learned anything from all this, a soul wasn’t necessarily tied to a code of ethics, I could still sense what was right and wrong.
“Throw her!” Tommy was standing like a wide receiver in football, waiting for the ball to come his way.
It was comical in a way. Come to think of it, her skin was leathery like a pigskin. This was in no shape, way, or form going to be an easy feat. My feet were pointed toward Tommy, I was upside down and I had to throw a human, well, a being at least. Calling her a human seems to send the wrong message. If I could have gripped her around the waist and thrown her like a traditional football, it would have been a lot easier. It would have been pretty cool to watch Deneaux do a spiral. Now I had to figure out where the best place was to grab her and swing her like a pendulum. I’d thought about grabbing the back of her shirt but there was a high percentage her top would come off and I’d seen enough nightmares in this lifetime that I wasn’t going to add to them.
There was her head, good possibility I’d snap it off, but oh well. I settled for under her arm. I had to swing her slightly side-armed to keep her feet from smacking into the heads of zombies below.
“One,” I grunted as I swung.
“Two.” She had a decent arc going.
“Three.” I let her sail.
She slipped a little as I released her and was going to fall short. “Fuck,” I muttered as she came within a hand span of hitting the ceiling, thus halting all of her forward momentum.
The back of her head clipped a zombie who looked up. His eyes grew wide like the heavens were dropping him gifts. It was now a race to see who would get to her first as Tommy left the relative safety of the doorway to catch her before she bounced off the floor and was sure to shatter a hip.
Tommy dove, lying out to catch her, he mostly succeeded. The zombie pounced as well, but Tommy was faster as he whisked her back and up even as he was rising. The bones that shattered were in the zombie’s mouth as he bit down hard on tile. Deneaux had once again slipped past her due date.
“Come on!” Tommy offered.
Funny how people think others need encouragement in these situations. I wasn’t getting pumped up for a job interview or asking Becky Collins out to the prom; I was desperately trying to save my skin. This was slightly more important than the chance to feel up Becky, slightly. I mean she had really nice breasts for a sophomore. She said ‘no’ by the way, went with Dennis as a matter of fact. I would have been pissed at him longer if she hadn’t drunk so much that night that she passed out before the prom king and queen were announced. She threw up all over the interior of his parents’ car. I mean like violent expulsions. There was stomach stew from the windshield to the backseat. The car reeked of gin and bile for weeks.
Add to that, Dennis had to schlep her drunk-ass, passed-out self to her parents’ front door. He’d told me he’d thought about ringing the doorbell and just hauling ass. Instead, he had waited with her in his arms as more of what was in her globbed all over the front of his rented tux, which he ended up buying because they couldn’t get out the sauce stains from the spaghetti she’d eaten earlier. How could you be mad at someone who had laid out hundreds of dollars for the occasion, ended up grounded for two weeks and basically missed the entire event as he monitored her sickness most of the night? I wanted to tell him it was karma for stealing my date, but even I’m not that big of an asshole. Oh, and to top it off, the bitch had completely thrown his ass under the bus by saying he’d supplied the liquor. I saw her reasoning—she was just trying to mitigate the trouble she was in. Mr. Collins had expressly forbid that they ever date again. Not that it mattered much. At age sixteen, puppy love kind of loses its luster when it is glommed over with vomit.
Wow, random thought as I moved closer to the door. Tommy had slid Deneaux past him and into the zombie-less room—much like one would a shuffleboard puck—before turning his attention on the zombie. He reached out with his left arm to keep it at bay, grabbing the tatters of its shirt while it growled and bit at him. Tommy simultaneously pulled him closer and spun him around. The back of the zombie’s head was to him as he wrapped a forearm around its neck and crushed. When the bones were sufficiently destroyed, he twisted the head off. It was vulgar in its savagery. His teeth were gritted as he looked up to me, the zombie falling to the floor, its head still in Tommy’s clutches. At some point, as I dropped down, he had gotten rid of it. We both ran into the room and began the task of barricading the door.
This time we were not encumbered with any limitations as we stacked stuff from one end of the room to the other. It would be difficult to get through, but not impossible. We were once again trapped as the din of a battle waged mere feet away assailed our ears. The ape had not yet succumbed. I couldn’t be sure, but from the heavy thud sounds, I was fairly confident he was swinging a bulker around like a bat.
“As soon as either of them is done, they’re going to come this way.”
“Yup,” Tommy answered abruptly.
“What’s the matter, Tommy? This getting to you? We’ve been in worse situations.” That was partly a lie.
“Did you see the zombie?”
“Which one? There’s like a hundred of them in there.”
“The one I killed.”
“They’re not people anymore, Tommy. You of all people should know that. And why now? We’ve been doing this for months.”
“He was a person once.”
“Tommy?”
“Mr. T, it was Doc.”
I stumbled backwards like I’d been punched in the nose. My eyes watered, my chest pounded, my head swam, and my equilibrium took this moment to lose itself. I staggered to a chair.
“Are you sure?” It was the only thing I could think to ask.
Tommy didn’t need to answer. The expression on his face was the only indication I needed.
“Fuck, where’s Porkchop?”
“This has got to end, doesn’t it, Mr. T? At some point doesn’t it just have to end?”
“Of course it does. At some point everything comes to pass.” Note that I didn’t exactly say how this was going to end, or that the outcome was going to be favorable. But yes, change was inevitable.
Tommy sat just as Deneaux began to moan and stir.
“Well, she ought to make everything better,” I said sourly. “And since when did we get back on the menu? I thought as non-humans we were immune to the zombies?”
“There’s not much they won’t eat and there is a scarcity of food plus...”
“Plus? There’s a plus?”
“They’re opportunistic, we’re here, they’re hungry.”
“Can’t you push them away or something?”
“You already know the answer, with the loss of Eliza we both lost a significant portion of that ability. I’m not sure if I could tell one to close its mouth while it chewed.”
“I wish Deneaux would wake up, that’s how little I want to talk about this.”
Chapter Thirteen – Tracy
“Should have just taken a fucking scooter!” BT said, moving his elbows around trying to find room that wasn’t there.
The four-cylinder gas and battery powered hybrid struggled with carrying nearly its own weight in passengers.
“For once, Trip is the smart one in this equation,” BT lamented.
Trip had grabbed the saddle off the horse he’d been riding and had, with some redneck ingenuity, fastened it to the roof of the car. With his feet in the stirrups and one hand on the pommel he was screaming at the top of his lungs, “Yeeeee-ahhh!” It was his jumping up and down on the saddle that was driving BT crazy. Every time he did it, the roof would collapse a little more, cramping those inside by incre
mental degrees.
“Leave him be, he’s the only one having any fun these days. And I, for one, find it endearing,” Tracy admonished BT.
“You would, you’ve had sufficient practice riding on the crazy train,” BT said sourly. “Why’d he come anyway?”
Tracy shot him a glance that simultaneously seared and froze his face. “You done bitching?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He put his hands in his lap.
“Shit, Mom, you rock!” Travis said, truly amazed at the power his mother could wield.
“How many times do I have to tell you? No swearing!” She was looking through the rearview mirror.
“Yes, ma’am,” Travis echoed, smiling at BT as the big man turned around to smile at him.
“Oh, my God.” Tracy had been about to reprimand BT for egging her son on. When she came in to view of the Demense facility, all of that changed.
It was one thing to see the zombies stream by, it was quite another to see that many all congealed in one spot.
“Must be a hell of a concert!” Trip yelled.
Tracy let out an involuntary laugh because from this distance that’s exactly what it looked like, a crowd of people trying to get into a particularly hot event.
“Tracy.” BT was saying a lot with that one word. Short of a couple of tanks, there was no way they could get through that many zombies. The car came to an abrupt stop.
“Whoa, this horse is trying to throw me!” Trip shouted.
“Mom? Why are you stopping? We can get through that or find a way around them.” Justin had wriggled his way up so that his head was next to his mother’s.
They were on a small rise, but it was enough to see that Justin’s words were only wishful thinking. The building was blanketed with zombies.
“There’s...there’s thousands,” Tracy said, a distant look to her eyes.
Getting to Mike was of the utmost importance to her, yet she would not needlessly endanger those with her in a quest that had a significant chance for failure. Her head dropped down nearly to her chest.
“Mom? Travis asked. “Are we going?”
BT said nothing as he watched tears fall soundlessly onto Tracy’s lap.
“Boys, let’s get out and take a look.” BT urged everyone out so that Tracy could have a moment to mourn her decision. They didn’t have anything near to what they needed, personnel or weapon-wise, to get through that many zombies. To go in would mean their deaths. That wasn’t drama—it was fact. To stay out, meant Mike’s death. If this was a simple life exchange, BT would have charged in no questions asked. Mike, for all his shortcomings and foibles was his brother plain and simple. Obviously not biologically but certainly cosmically.
If Tracy hadn’t stopped when she did, BT would have spoken up had she gotten closer. Mike had asked him to look out for their family. To attempt a rescue under these circumstances would have spelled instant doom. He would be doing little to honor Mike if he had his whole family join him in death.
“I didn’t think we’d ever see more zombies than we did at Grandma’s house.” Travis was throwing rocks off the small hill.
“Is there anything we can do?” Justin asked.
BT shook his head tersely.
“Who’s going to tell Mom?” Travis asked.
“She already knows,” BT replied.
“What now?” Justin asked, a shine to his eyes from tears that threatened to fall.
“Well, just because we can’t get in, doesn’t mean your dad can’t get out.”
“You believe that?” Justin wiped at his left eye.
“Most of me says no. No way anyone could get out of there. But your dad isn’t just anyone, we all know that. If there’s a way, I’m sure he will make it the most difficult, extreme escape possible.”
“That a joke?” Justin was rubbing his other eye now, doing his best to make it look exactly like he was not rubbing tears away.
“It’s okay to cry. You’re no less of a man for showing emotion.”
“Yeah you are,” Travis whispered in his brother’s ear.
Justin pushed Travis. “Ass.”
BT marveled at how resilient the boys were. They were able to process and assimilate new information at a much faster rate than any of the adults. He figured part of that was their youth, but a larger, more significant portion had to do with the age they grew up in. The rate they were bombarded with information almost dwarfed anything from the previous generations combined since the dawn of mankind. It was no wonder they could react faster and think through problems with an alarming speed. For some, the mega-doses of information could cause people to withdraw, including his own nephews who wouldn’t so much as grunt at him when he would visit. Too engrossed in their video games. These two would mourn and they would cry and they would move on. It was inevitable.
It was Tracy he feared for. There was a good chance she wouldn’t recover from this, at least not fully. Shells didn’t survive well in this world. They were too brittle for the rough handling they were likely to get. There was no infrastructure around anymore that could spare the time to coddle those who were fragile. Shells were broken and discarded on a daily basis now.
BT walked back to the car while the boys horsed around a little longer. It was their way of dealing with the danger their father was in. Who was he to tell them it was wrong?
“We should get going soon, chief.” Trip had dropped down from the car roof. He smacked BT across the chest to punctuate his point.
“Go? Go where?” BT asked, looking at his chest to make sure there wasn’t residue from whatever Trip had been doing last. Knowing the man’s penchant for drug use, there was no telling.
“The concert, man, the concert. Look, they’re filing in. We’re going to miss the opening song, man, and that always sets the tone for the rest of the show.” Trip was excited.
“He’s right,” Gary said.
“Not you too.” BT shook his head.
“Well, not the concert part, but they are going in. I can’t tell for certain, but I’d say at least a quarter of the zombies have gone into that building. They keep going in at this pace, there will be no more of them outside in an hour.”
“So?” Stephanie asked. “Inside, outside, what’s the difference? Seems like it would be worse. There will be nowhere to run. You’d be trapped.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. She turned to see Tracy looking at her. “I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. “I...I was just talking before I thought.”
“I’m glad I never do that,” Trip told his wife.
BT wanted to tell him that was because he never thought. But now was not the time.
“It’s alright; it’s not like I don’t know what’s going on.” Tracy was staring off into the distance with everyone else.
“You know this is Mike we’re talking about, right?” BT offered.
“We’ll wait until all or most are inside and then I’d like to get in a little closer. Just in case, I mean,” Tracy said.
“Of course,” BT answered.
Henry was looking where they all were. His stub of a tail wagged back and forth twice before he sat down.
“I think he agrees with you.” BT reached down to pet the dog’s head.
Chapter Fourteen – Maine
Ron paced along his deck. He hadn’t heard anything from either of his brothers in close to a week. Odds were good that Mike had just destroyed another truck and the radio along with; he’d just have to wait it out. There was a constant roiling within his gut, though. Part of it was the not knowing what was going on, and part was being one of the few adults left at his home to defend in case of attack. The amount of responsibility was beginning to take its toll. When he wasn’t on guard duty, he was repairing parts of their home or its defenses. And when he would finally go to sleep, his dreams were littered with the various nightmarish instances that could still befall them.
Unlike Mike, he’d had his shit together before all this apocalypse crap had happened. He had not nee
ded a court order to join the Marine Corps to stay out of jail. He had, instead, stayed in corporate America. He’d risen through the ranks to become successful and then took the money to invest where his expertise in business had really excelled—in real estate. He’d done so well that he’d found a way to build his dream home, with his wife, and retire early. He felt the sweet fruit was his just rewards for toiling the soil so diligently.
And now where had that gotten him? Money certainly meant nothing anymore. His once beautiful home would now be considered an extreme fixer-upper with additional projects. There were enough dead bodies in and around his yard to rival Gettysburg. His father had perished defending the inhabitants.
“It’s not a home anymore. It’s a fortress. A prison, really.” He had his hands on the deck railing and was looking out over the pond. “We were going to travel. See the world. I was going to make it up to Nancy for all those times I had to work late or fly off to who-knows-where to fix who-knows-what. Seemed so important back then. I knew this was the goal I was trying to achieve and for what?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Ron’s wife, Nancy startled him as he spoke aloud. “No one could have known this was how it was going to turn out.”
He waited for her to join him at the railing before he spoke again. “I know, I know, it’s just that, for the first time in my life, I feel so wholly unprepared. I love my brother, so don’t take this out of context. But growing up, he was a fuck-up. If there was a way to get into trouble, sure as shit, he would find it. Trust me, back then it was nice to have him around, because it always took the focus off the rest of us. Short of stealing a car, I could pretty much fly under the radar. He just did whatever he wanted, daring the consequences to catch up with him. It was sort of amazing to watch from the sidelines sometimes.”
“As his older brother you never thought to maybe help him out?”
“We tried, all of us. It was like trying to straighten a spring; you could push and pull as much as you liked, and eventually it would look like he was straight and narrow. But you turned your back for an instant, and he would spiral back to his true form. He just didn’t care. He isn’t a bad person—he’s not mean. I don’t think he intentionally goes around with the attitude of seeking out messes. He just doesn’t care about what could happen on the other end of his actions. It’s like there’s a big disconnect there for him. Most of us look at the world and think if I do ‘A’ to get to ‘B’ then ‘C’ is a potential for the outcome. Whereas Mike is like, ‘Fucking A!’”