'Til Death Do Us Part (89 page)

T
hen Ron’s next words doubled me over. “Dad didn’t make it
,
Mike.”

I staggered a step or two back, Tracy was there for support. I’m not ashamed
to say that I cried like a five-year-
old. I cried for the loss of my dad, my mom, my brother, my niece, Jed, Jen, Alex, Paul, Erin, Brian and at least a dozen other good souls we had lost along the way.

I stayed for a long time in that darkened basement, when Ron had
told me how our father had died.
I wanted to be as close to his final earthly spot as was possible. The battle raged on above me, but now it was more o
f a fish in the barrel scenario.
We
had position, ammo and security, I wasn’t needed upstairs.

It would be another
three
days before the horde dwindled down to an unlucky few. I had joined in the fray if only to
vent my
misguided revenge. I wished desperately that they gave a shit for what t
hey did.
I had switched out my
MP
-4 for a Mosin-Nagant Russian WWII sniper rifle, a bit of overkill when the 7.62 by 4.42 round struck hom
e. I watched each individual I
hit as the back of its head blew out in a spray of white
,
crushed bone and diseased gray matter.

I drilled
five hundred and twenty-six
z
ombies into the ground that day
, but whose counting
. M
y fingers ached from jamming that many rounds through the old gun, my anger increased at each one
,
t
hat
they didn’t care,
that
they didn’t give a shit when the zombie next to them fell, that their sisters, brothers, fathers and friends were
dying
all around them
. That was what stopped any war—
when the killing just became too much, when neither side could stomach the mounting atrocities. The zombies would not stop, they would never stop, not until each and everyone one of them was dead.

Three days after the death of Eliza, the war at Camp Talbot was over. I could not do much more than shiver as
I sat in a rocker
,
on
the part of
Ron’s deck
that was not on the blood steeped lawn
. I watched
,
as he pushed piles of dead zombies into giant pyres with his tractor.
The
boys
were keeping vigilance over him.
Gary rode on the tractor as
an
added layer of protection.

“Will this ever get better?” I asked, my teeth chattering even in the
seventy-
degree heat of the day and two blankets wrapped around my legs.

“Not anytime soon
, Mr. T,
” Tommy said as he sat beside me suffering through the same symptoms. “With Eliza
,
gone we’ve lost a piece of us.”

I felt like a hard core heroin junkie who
had gone
cold turkey, my bones dripped in pain, if that makes any sense. I’d already taken a loss I did not figure I could absorb when I had lost my soul, but with the absence of whatever Eliza had filled the void in with
,
I was adrift in a sea of black. My innards ached as they seemed to move around in the shell that once housed me.

“It would be bette
r to die,” I told him with vacant eyes, “tha
n to live like this.”

He may have nodded in reply or it could have been my shivering that gave the illusion of movement on his part.

***

“Can you do anything?” Tracy asked Azile as she looked through the window and out at her husband who was so obviously suffering.

Azile shook her head, she also was trapped in her own misery.

***

“There’s more,
” Tommy said.

I stood
,
hoping that my bones were not as hollow as I felt. “Do tell
.
I could use a bit of shitty news right about now.”

“The order I put to halt the progress of BT’s zombieism will unravel now that I no longer have as much power.”

My legs weren’t hollow
,
but they were having great difficulty supporting my weight at the moment. “How long?” I asked him.

With considerable effort, Tommy shrugged his shoulders.

“You once told me that you saw your sister get bitten
,
then she ultimately killed her sire. How did she survive? Did she walk all these years like this? Is tha
t even possible? I feel
hollow
, Tommy.
I can sense the pain I should be feeling, but I’m numb to it. With every beat of my heart I flip from my heart breaking at the death of my father to an absolute fathomless void, where nothing not even emotions can stem from.
I know I should be concerned for my friend’s health,
sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not
. I know I should be loving my family
,
and yet
there are times when
I can’t even remember what the emotion entails.
I
felt more concern for a dead squirrel in the roadway when I was human than I do now.”

***

Tracy shivered as she overheard words she wasn’t supposed to.

***

“Eliza killed her sire.
She
was not diminished from his death
, but rather enhanced by it.
That
was why she never let any of her charges live for very long, lest they try to take her power from her. The emptiness will go away, you’ll fill it in with something
, Mr. T. M
y sister filled hers in with hate and cruelty for everyone and everything. But that’s not who you are, you have it,
we
,
”
he stressed, “h
ave it in us to fill it with something better.”

“You’re still a vampire right?” I asked him.

“I am.” He
let
his head drop.

“Why now the change back to this
‘
Tommy
’
persona? How can I ever trust or believe you, if I ever even care again?”

“I took on a large part of my sis
ter when she turned me. W
ith her influence gone
,
I’m more the boy you remember.”

“I wish I could believe that…I do…
for my family.”

I watched as zombies burned by the hundreds.
With
some effort
,
I was able to wa
lk down towards one of the pyres.
I should have been close enough for my skin to be melting
,
and still I quaked in the unoccupied recesses of my mind.

“You alright
,
Mike?” Ron asked a good
fifteen
feet behind me. I turned to see his hands shielding his face from the intense heat.

I waved him away
,
not because I was concerned for his safety
,
but rather
,
I wanted to be alone. I wondered if I would feel anything if I walked just a few more feet into the intense blaze.

Tommy stepped up beside me. “The shaman did it.”

I didn’t say anything.
I realized that at one time I would have had an answer for him, something revolving around, ‘Sure now all we need is some peyote, a shaman and sweat lodge and we’ll be all set.’

“We have a witch,
” Tommy said
,
filling in the gaps in the conversation.

I turned and we walked back towards the house. Travis was watching me as I entered.

I went to BT’s room. “Good news
,
buddy.”

“They d
iscovered a cure for sarcasm?” h
e answered.

“Better…road trip,
” I told him.

“You’re kidding
,
right? You’re not
, are you? Fuck…
why? This is about the Jeep isn’t it? You want to go back and get your fucking Jeep! No
,
Mike I’m not traveling across the damn zombie infested country for a damn Jeep I won’t do it!”

I’ll admit that thought had crossed my mind, but even I wasn’t that nuts, although if our travels brought us anywhere near Colorado I was going to snag it.

“No
,
my friend
, we need to find Doc Baker,
” I told him.

“Oh
,
m
an, you know he’s probably dead,
” BT said.

“I asked Tommy, he said he wasn’t.”

“And you believe the Edward wannabe?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Nothing, it was a character in a book I read before all this shit happened.”

“We need the Doc, BT.”

“Need? Why who’s
dying?”

I kept staring not saying anything.

“Oh shit, it’s me isn’t it?
Dammit, I finally get to rest my damn body and now we got to go gallivanting all over the damn place again.” BT put his shoes on.

I walked out in to the hallway. “Boys!”

“Not a chance
,
Talbot,
not unless I’m coming with you,
” Tracy said.

“Are you friggen clairvoyant?” I asked her.

“No
,
you’re just transparent.”

“I would like to go to,
” Azile said
,
raising her hand slightly above her head.

“Fine
…
pack up. Travis
,
keep an eye on your uncle, I’m going to see if I can get in his closet trap door.
”
 

Mrs. Dene
au
x watched from the truck cab as Tracy plunged the knife in
to Eliza’s chest. “Didn’t see that coming.” She said making sure to keep low and not attract any attention. She regretted her decision now to leave the Talbot household, once again she would be on her own. She wasn’t overly concerned because she did what all survivors did, she survived. She waited for another three days in th
at
cab, living off the stores the driver had left behind, it wasn’t much but it was more than her and her boyfriend had when he had
got them lost hiking the Ozark M
ountains some forty years previous. At one point during the ordeal she had thought about killing him so she could feed. Luckily for Baxter he had redeemed himself the following morning by trapping a rabbit which they had shared over a small fire.

With no zombies in sight, Mrs. Deneaux left the confines of the truck cab, she
stepped down onto the pavement, took care of some pressing matters. She then unhitched the tr
a
iler, got back in and started the rig up. E
ven she had to laugh at the irony
of it all
as she
drove
off into the sunset.

“
Why me?
”
I begged. Her silence only confounded my bewilderment.
“
I can
’
t.
”