There were no other dead animals, and unless it was a cat, I wasn’t tossing a live one down the chute. Okay, okay, I wouldn’t toss a live cat down there either, but I’d be more tempted. I grabbed some miscellaneous stuff around the lab and tossed it in.
“Glass? You’re throwing glass down there? If the incinerator is off, you do realize we’re going to have to land somewhere, right?” Tommy wiped his nose with his sleeve.
I was about to answer him that I hadn’t thought it out that far, when a blast of heat whooshed up toward me. “I guess that isn’t going to be a problem.”
“Just lucky.”
“Tell me again how lucky I am,” I said sarcastically, holding my arms out. The zombies started to stir again, and then I realized why. The heat from the incinerator was blowing by me and out to them. Must have smelled like a human barbecue in here. No wonder they wanted in so bad. “I guess we’re just waiting. If you had to take a guess, how much longer do you figure we have until the lights go out?”
“Eleven hours, forty minutes and thirty seconds give or take.”
“That’s, umm, pretty specific.”
“When you have as much time as I do, you learn how to mark it with precision.”
“Makes sense.”
We sat there in silence for a few minutes, the zombies having seemingly forgot about us for the moment. “Are you going to kill Deneaux if we catch up to her?” Tommy asked, breaking the silence.
“Almost seems like a disservice to man if I don’t. It’s just easier said than done. I mean, if she’s pointing a gun at me or at someone in my family, it goes without question that I will do whatever it takes. Cold blood, though? That’s a different story. Right now I’d like to do that Middle Eastern method of killing someone.”
“What?”
“The whole death by a thousand tiny slices. I think one for every sin she’s ever committed.”
“Somehow I think you’d come up short.”
I laughed. It was a gruesome notion, but there was humor in his response. “Yeah, you’re probably right. She’d so deserve it, though. Anything but a prolonged painful death for her would be to spit in the face of everyone she has harmed, Paul included.”
“Are you sure that was her?”
“I am. I don’t know why I am. Maybe not directly her fault. Paul was my best friend and wholly unsuited for an apocalypse. I get that. But even he wouldn’t go out shoeless and without a weapon, add to that there were signs they were together before his death. He found something out, or Deneaux suspected he’d found something out. Or…who knows—maybe they only had one bottle of fucking water and she didn’t want to share. Not something I would put past the woman. I have never hated a person as much as I hate her. Even your sister—she was almost as much a victim as she was a culprit. She was striking out for all the wrongs she perceived had been committed against her. Shit, even Durgan was just a dumbass trying to impose his will on everyone.
“But Deneaux, as far as I can tell, was a rich, entitled bitch from her very first demented breath. What she wasn’t given, she took with merciless cunning, not caring who or what she laid to waste. She’s as cold and calculating as they come. There’s no passion in what she does. At least Eliza and Durgan thought they had causes. Not Deneaux. There is no line she won’t cross or alliance she won’t make or break if it is for her betterment. She’s worse than a rabid dog. With a rabid dog, you know exactly what it is going to do, and you have to put it down before it does you some damage. Deneaux…you just don’t know why and when she is going to strike. She’s like a trusted loyal family dog until she just snaps. I fucking hate her, and she deserves to be put down, I just don’t know if I’m the one to do it.”
“I’ll do it,” Tommy said solemnly. “My hands are already stained too deeply to be washed away with the waters of absolution, I’ll try though.”
“I’m not asking you to do that, Tommy.”
“I know you’re not. It is still something that needs to be done.”
“I don’t want you adding to your immorality.”
“In the eyes of God, one murder is the same as a hundred thousand.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s not that he values the loss of a hundred thousand so insignificantly, it’s that he values the loss of the one so highly.”
“Oh.”
That was a point to ponder. I was certainly responsible for the deaths of many. So, at what point were they considered justifiable? Was there such a distinction with God? Did he give a shit? Or was the death of a person a murder no matter what the circumstances? All I could hope for at this point was that Hell would fill up and they’d have to have an early release program.
We sat there for hours, barely talking, both off in our own worlds waiting to be plunged into darkness; although we would have a few hours of light with the burners. If Tommy died going down the chute, I would be left to rot in this room. My guess was that, eventually, I would pull the zombie barrier away and give it a go that way. I was never one to sit idly by for too long with my thumb firmly entrenched in my ass. Just way too uncomfortable. Definitely going to do the trial-by-combat instead of giving the fire a go, figured I’d have all of eternity to mess with the flames.
Tommy was circling the globe’s religions, praying and chanting in Latin, English, Navajo and others I couldn’t identify. Why not? No clue if God was listening, but even a cardboard shield makes you feel better heading into battle. Nope, scratch that…that’s a lie, because you know the falsehood of the protection you wield. He had to believe in it, or why bother. I had mistakenly assumed that the lights were going to go from on to off. We nearly missed it. I had been focusing on a pattern on the floor that looked something like George Clooney when I realized it was becoming harder and harder to see the image. I stood up quickly when I realized what was going on.
“The lights are dimming, Tommy. It’s almost time. Help me light these burners.” My hands were trembling as I set the equipment up. The impending bleakness had me rattled. There are things I can deal with, and there are things I cannot. Not being able to see ranks right up there; just below losing a family member.
Tommy took the equipment from me and, one by one, set them up and lit them. Compared to the existing light, they barely registered. In a few minutes they were going to look like miniature suns in the comparative gloom.
Both of us turned to watch the lights as they pulsed, offering their dazzling brilliance only a little while longer. Bright, dim, bright, dim, off.
“Shit,” I muttered. The Bunsen burners did their job admirably, but their sphere of influence wasn’t more than a couple of feet. We still loved them for their effort.
“I guess it’s time.” Tommy’s shoulders were sagging as he headed over to the incinerator opening.
“Hold on, killer.” I’d meant it as a jest, to halt him before he did something irrational. “Sorry, wrong usage of words. Let’s toss something down there that’s a little less valuable first.”
Tommy looked at me. “That’d probably be a better idea.”
“Wait, really? You really (I stressed really) didn’t think of that? And they say I’m the one that doesn’t think things through.”
“There’s a first for everything, Mr. T.”
“Good one. Okay, let me toss this stool down there.” The noise was horrendously loud in a building where all function had stopped. Ball bearings in a running dryer at three am in your bedroom while you were trying to sleep would have been quieter…and more preferable. The noise ended in a flash. The brilliance of the jetted flames would wreak havoc on my night vision for the next half hour.
“Probably a good idea you did that first,” Tommy said as he rubbed his eyes.
The zombies began to once again hammer at the door. I wondered if they cared about the dark. With nothing else to focus on, they were working extra hard on that door. Probably the whole wall that separated us in reality, but we couldn’t hear them smacking the cinder block bricks
. The door, however, sounded like Gabriel was blowing his horn. We could hear the handle twisting back and forth as one of them was trying to open it.
“This sucks,” I said, my gaze riveted on a door I couldn’t see.
“Look at it from my perspective,” Tommy said.
“Huh?”
“I’m stuck here with you.”
“Really? Now you joke? We’ve been stuck here for twelve hours and you haven’t said so much as a how do you do and now you’re telling jokes? I wish we had more—” I smacked my forehead.
“What? What’s going on?” Tommy asked.
“Let’s light the burners that are fixed to the stations.”
Within a couple of minutes we had the whole room lit up like the Sistine Chapel. A little Barry White, a bedroom, my wife, no zombies or Tommy, and this would almost be an idyllic setting.
“Now what?” Tommy asked.
I knew what he was referring to. Our best escape avenue was blocked. The zombies were plan “Z”. (See what I did there?) Going that route was so horrendous that it was the last, last ditch effort. There was no way we could fight effectively and hold the small flames, and we sure as hell couldn’t go out there without them. We’d be just as lost and have the added difficulty of not being able to see them. This was worse than “suicide mode” on your favorite video game. I was so bad at vids that I would play in “Bambi mode” and still get slaughtered. I was not liking our chances.
“We fight, I guess. I can’t imagine staying here and waiting to starve to death. Or watching you start looking at me like I’m a man-sized pile of roast beef.”
“Not funny, Mr. T.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. Let’s get locked and loaded and we’ll pull a Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.”
“I’m truly sorry, Mr. T.”
“For what, Tommy? This isn’t your fault.”
“The whole thing I guess. I’ve second-guessed everything that has happened. I was pretty sure from the convergence of events that something momentous was about to happen. I should have gathered us all up beforehand and found us a nice island to wait it out on.”
“If you came to me even an hour before my fateful shower and subsequent stepping into Henry poop fiasco, I wouldn’t have listened to you. I would have believed you to be some crazy religious zealot or doomsday word spreader. I’m not sure what you could have done that would have changed anything. You’ve done all you could and more. Hold your head up…we’re not done yet. We may not have souls, but I don’t think we’re quite forsaken just yet.”
“So you say.”
“Come on, kid, you’re usually the eternal optimist. Don’t have that fail on me, or we’ll be in a world of hurt.”
He “hurumphed” or something much like that, and then hefted his gun up after checking the magazine. I took a deep breath in the hopes it would quell my nerves; it didn’t work. I started picking up furniture and began to move it as silently as possible. I didn’t want to give the zombies any advance notice as to our motives. I’d moved enough stuff that I could open the door and really get the party started.
“Ready?” I asked, although I’m pretty sure it was more intended for me. And by the way, I wasn’t.
I looked over to Tommy in true stalling fashion. Just because you know the end is near doesn’t mean you literally want to go running into it headlong. His expression was dour and also jumpy, but not jumpy in the traditional way. Shadows were playing across his face, giving it movement where there was none.
“What are you waiting for?” he growled.
“Good game face. Hold on.” I pointed to the burners at the stations, they were sputtering.
He got it quickly enough. “They’re running out of gas.”
He said it just a wee bit louder than I would have liked, and more things happened in that instant than my mind could process. A zombie that must have been at the top of his Brain Eating 101 class turned the knob and pushed the door open. My attention was on the small fires around the periphery of the room, and I was slow to react as the door swung open, hitting me hard in the knee. I moved forward to shut it, but the press of zombies on the other side prevented that from happening.
“They’re in!” I punctuated those words with a burst of rounds.
My last couple pinged into the ceiling above us as I was pushed over a chair. The room went incredibly dim to the point where it looked like we were only receiving the illumination from a crescent moon through a pair of sheer curtains.
“Mr. T!” Tommy screamed in alarm.
“I’m okay!”
I’d dropped my flame and was scurrying backwards, pushing with my legs and one free hand. The zombies seemed less hindered by the dark than we were, as they were using their sense of smell to hone in on Tommy and me. I put a round in the knee and thigh of the one closest to me. I had to pull back quicker or I was in serious trouble of having his face fall directly in my lap. I’d shattered his patella and a fair amount of ligaments if the backwards bending of his leg were any indication. He fell to the side, saving me from becoming a eunuch.
Tommy’s lone light in the abysmal sea of death and dearth should have instilled hope, a beacon of life. Not so much, it just allowed enough radiance to let us know how hopeless the current situation was.
“I’m coming,” I heard him say.
I could not pull back far enough to feel confident that I had the time to stand. I thought all was lost when I felt hands on my sleeve. Tommy almost got a gut full of lead for his troubles. My feet were off the ground and swaying much like a four-year-old being whisked out of a toy store for throwing a world-class tantrum.
“Gotta hurry!” Tommy yelled. I don’t know whom that was for. I was right next to him. “This might hurt!”
I didn’t even have the time to ask what was going to hurt when I found myself airborne. What the fuck did you do? Was my thought as I hit the incinerator opening and found myself falling at an alarming rate. I was going headfirst down the tube, and for a few flittering heartbeats, I did not believe I had enough room to move my arms up to protect my noggin. I was thinking I would pull a Humpty Dumpty as I flew to the floor below, and that’s of course if I wasn’t instantly flash fried. Just because the gas burners upstairs had petered out didn’t mean this oven was empty.
I was like Superman, arms outstretched over my head as I hurtled through space. Unfortunately, my Kryptonite was either propane or concrete. The carnival ride only lasted a couple of seconds. Then the walls of the chute were gone and I was floating in free space. The smell of gas became overpowering; I felt a fine mist of it cover my body like I was a car in a car wash. I waited for the brilliance of a fire to quench all that I was or all that I would ever be. Instead, I was rewarded with the snapping sound of my left wrist folding in on itself. It was broken and I smelled like the flooded engine of a ‘57 Edsel. I rolled away, harnessing my broken wrist against my body. The pain would have been blinding, but that didn’t matter much as I couldn’t see anything. I could have poked myself in the eye with my own hand.
I stood up, gritting my teeth from the pain in my arm. With my right, I cradled the injury. Then what? I couldn’t go anywhere. I would end up smacking into unseen things nose first. I thought of shuffling slowly and letting the tips of my boots run into obstacles, but where was I going to go? I’d only been in the dark for less than a minute and I was already barreling toward the throes of a serious panic attack. How had Tommy done this for two weeks? I’d come to a new appreciation of the depths of his resolve and courage.
I could hear Tommy’s gun firing. He was screaming as well, it was difficult to tell whether it was in pain or outrage. Then there was nothing but utter silence to go hand-in-hand with absolute blindness. I’d been in some serious scrapes in my life, and certainly recently, but nothing had prepared me for the desolation I was feeling now. There was a possibility I’d even take Trip’s rock-raping excursion through his escape tunnel over this. Luckily it was completely dark, and no one could see
just how much I was startled when something big found its way down the chute.
It was quite possible a zombie had fallen in from the press of so many of its brethren; or worse, followed me down. I winced as I let go of my broken wrist and moved the rifle to my side, holding it tight. Aiming was going to be a bit tricky with only one arm, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine resting the barrel on my forearm. The vibration from the recoil would be more than enough for me to drop the firearm from pain. Whatever was in the chute was soundless as it made its quick descent. I could hear the gas jets hissing, though nothing came out this time and the clicking of an ignition system that was not receiving the necessary spark to ignite the propellant. There was the sound of shoes hitting cement and nothing else. I was doing my best to hold my runaway breath to hear something, anything that would let me know if I should start firing.
“Mr. T?” It was said so softly that I thought it might be my overactive and protective imagination making it up. “I’ve got a lighter.”
That I heard. “No!” I told him, stepping back. “I’m covered in gas.” Not that it made a difference lighter-wise, but I told him that I’d broken my wrist as well.
“You’re going to have to take off what you can so that I can see your arm and set it. It will heal faster if it doesn’t need to move on its own. I’ll help you.”
“Nothing against you, Tommy, I’m just not comfortable with another man helping me undress.”
“That’s not a very progressive thought, Mr. T.”
“No, I guess the way I said it isn’t. I wouldn’t feel any more comfortable, probably worse so, if you were a woman that I wasn’t married to. How’s that? Is that better for your delicate sensibilities?”
“Just hurry, I think the zombies are going to figure out soon enough how to get down here, and we need to figure out how to get out.”
That was all the motivation I needed. In a minute or two, I was down to my boxer briefs and socks. I tossed my soaked clothing as far away from myself as possible.