When The Light Goes Out (20 page)

I didn't see the cane coming.

I didn't even feel the pain after the first few blows.

The only thought in my mind was the fact that he was wielding the damned thing like he had practice. Pulling back, and lashing out like a trained expert. His grandchildren probably got a good number of bruises from the damned thing, and all I wanted to do was break it.

I went down.

Really, it was the blow to the face that got me. The only one that made me make a sound.

A whimper and a hand to my suddenly bleeding cheek. "Enough."

"What d'ye mean enough?" "What does it sound like?" "The brat needs manners." "So do you."

"Ye need a little bit of"

"Raise that cane to me and you'll never see it again." "Don't doubt him Blaz."

"Shut the 'ell up, Ianboy." "But I"

Maybe it was an attempt to shut him up, but just as I started looking up, I was hit again. This time to the temple, which I promptly grabbed. Wincing. Silently cursing myself for opening my mouth in the first place. I didn't entirely know why I did such things. They never turned out well. Not even since I was a kid. Nothing ever worked well for me.

"Jesus."

I felt blood slipping from somewhere, and my face felt hot. I didn't understand it. What had I done, other than give a little lip? What had I done to get my skull cracked? Was he doing that? What was bleeding?

"
Jesus
." "
Enough!
"

I almost couldn't believe that Malachi brought his voice above a dull roar. As it was, he outright shouted, and it echoed. I heard people turn to the scene, rather than saw. However the moment I opened my eyes I blushed at the way everyone was looking at me.

Sympathy.

Damned sympathy.

I didn't need sympathy.

But I wouldn't tell them that.

I just silently asked God to strike me with lightening. Take me out of my misery. Out of my embarrassment. Just take me out. I didn't want to deal with it anymore. The situation. The people. I specifically didn't want to deal with Blaz.

Then I realized I was thinking of death again. Bad.

"Bad, Excel. Bad."

"What?"

"See?! You knocked Excels brains around too much." "How do you figure?"

"'Bad, Excel. Bad.'"

Love how they were talking about me as if I wasn't there. "I'm
fine
."

"Than what are you talking about?" "Green."

"What?"

"You may be right Ian." "Huh?"

"Ye
are
right kiddo. Knocked Excels brains around
too
much." "Go die."

I tried to ignore the thwap that followed, but failed miserably, and just covered my head. "Lift that cane again, and I'm going to shove it"

"Zombies. Coming this way. We should go. You know? I'd like to live out the rest of my life as a human." "Technically zombies are human."

"Regular, noncannibalistic, human." "I see."

"Yeah, maybe leaving
is
a good idea."

I was having trouble identifying voices as I was pulled to my feet. There was just a blinding pain where the cane made contact with my skull. The pain made me completely white out. It made my vision fail. I wasn't sure what was going on, at all. The one, and only thing I knew for sure was that it was most definitely Malachi pulling me up. He was the only one close enough, unless the villagers decided to attack while the world was phasing out.

Damn, Blaz must have hit me hard. Really hard.

Omega
hard.

"Jesus, Blaz. What did you do?" "What d'ya mean?"

"Excel's all.. wobbly." "I dunno."

"Why don't we get going?"

I was promptly dragged by the wrist, tripping over my own feet as we moved, but walking nonetheless. I tried to remember the one foot in front of the other rule, as I didn't want to slow the group down. I didn't want to be left behind. I didn't want to be a problem.
The
problem.

I wouldn't be the reason our group of survivors stopped being so. I wouldn't be the death of them.

"Stop dragging your feet." "I can't help it."

"Stop it anyway."

So I tried. Picking my feet up unnecessarily high in an attempt to stop. Stepping faster to keep up. Taking smaller steps. But none of it helped until the world gradually came back into view, and I was able to see what was going on, and where we were going.

North.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

North. What was north that could possibly be useful to us? Water was north, if memory served. The station was north, along with the graveyard. Ah the graveyard, tombstones, rotting flesh under soil, everything. A pleasant place really if you could get over the ever growing population of dead people under your feet. There were beautiful flowers, rows, and rows of them. There were bushes, and fields of various colors and sizes. However, with zombies running about, I wasn't so sure I wanted to be anywhere close to a graveyard, no matter how attractive it happened to be. But for one stupid reason or another I felt I could trust Malachi. He was smart; he had to have a plan somewhere in that mind of his.

If not, we were all probably going to die, which wasn't something I wanted to think about. I didn't want to think about it with the world still white around the edges. My head was pounding, badly, and I couldn't help but wonder about Blaz. Wonder what it was that made him so crabby, rude, and cruel. I hadn't done anything I felt was bad enough to have my head beaten in.

Jesus.

It really did hurt.

Someone must have butt raped Blaz multiple times as a child (this, I do not say as a joke, mind). Drugged him up. Served him alcohol. Fed him lead. Something. Anything. Someone had to have done something terrible to him, something that could have messed up a growing boy, because he
was
messed up. Messed up in every sense of the phrase. He was an outright bastard, and I used the word often enough in my life. I'd met enough stick in the mud's in my short time on earth. There was just something not so right in the Irish man's head. I was positive of it.

"Dammit."

I raised a hand to my skull, wondering why no one seemed to give a damn. Maybe it was the whole running for their lives bit. But there was still blood running from somewhere down my forehead, onto my cheeks. It was uncomfortable, only slightly more so then when it was the blood of one zombie or another, some odd hours ago. I barely made the connection, almost didn't have the thought that the zombies might have been able to smell the blood.

Until I got taken down.

At first, I wasn't sure what was going on. Something smacked into me at the waist, and my head cracked against the floor sending my semi conscious mind into a white pit yet again. But all I noticed was the pain. There was this screeching pain that just wouldn't fade. It seemed to steal any strength I would have had to keep the chomping creature away from me.

That was the other thing I was aware. The noise.

Now, for the record, zombie teeth mashing together sound nothing – nothing – like regular, human teeth chattering in (oh, let's say) the cold. They actually make this rather wet noise. Knife ripping through flesh wet. Maybe even teeth chewing on tongue wet. I couldn't be sure as I couldn't see anything that was going on.

There was screaming.

High pitched, frightened screaming.

Though, logically, it should have been me screaming.

I should have been bellowing, completely throwing my lungs out. I should have been fighting, frantically. I should have been kicking, and punching, using every ounce of strength I

had to throw the damned thing off of me. But I wasn't. I was just lying there, pondering the reason behind the terrified shouts.

Part of me was seriously expecting pain. The bone deep kind that doesn't fade away. Really, with the mashing sounds of the decaying teeth I was surprised a chunk or two of my collar bone wasn't completely torn away yet. I was shocked I wasn't bleeding out of countless wounds. Somehow I was perfectly fine, even after a short eternity of just laying on the ground.

Maybe the damned thing was confused about whether I was dead or alive. Maybe it thought that I smelled normal, but didn't quite look right.

Did they prefer fresh meat?

Did they only want to eat their own kill? I couldn't be sure.

"
Excel!
" "Fight back!" "Get
off
of her!"

"Get him
off
of you!"

"Why aren't you fighting?!" "Excel!"

"
Excel!
" "
Excel!
"

Excel (verb): to surpass; be superior to; outdo.

Somehow, at one point or another, my parents had gotten it into their heads to name me a verb. An action word, as it was described to me so often throughout elementary school. I could live with that. I could live with the fact that it sounded kind of stupid, and I got teased for guest starring in many an essay. I didn't mind that I didn't have a normal name, because that could be contributed to my parents doing drugs. It was the fact that the word just didn't fit me that bothered me so damned much.

I mean, come on. I'd just been beaten, repeatedly, by an old man. I was about to have my throat torn out by a zombie. There were dozens of people screaming at me to stop being half passed out, and get the hell up. I was superior to no one. I couldn't even outdo someone who'd died at one point in their life.

Now if that isn't just an outright fail.

Bang
.

This time it sounded even closer, and I felt the blow in my chest.

Perhaps it was just the undead body landing on top of me, but I really did feel it. I felt it all the way to my spine, and managed to groan, but not to raise my arms. It was as if I

was completely paralyzed. The world was still completely white around me, but I knew I wasn't dead. Dead people don't feel pain.

I was feeling obscene amounts of it. "Excel, get up!"

"Come
on
, Excel!"

"Excel, you can't just lay there all day!"

I wanted so badly to tell them to make me. Say I didn't want to. Tell them to just
watch
me lay there all day. Crazed cannibalistic dead people aside, I was more than willing to just lay there. Unmoving. I was completely willing to quietly wait out the pain. Not that it would help really. I wasn't sure anything less than a grotesque amount of morphine would make the pain go away.

It was just too much.

Then the weight on my chest lifted, and for a good moment I could breath. A moment, mind. After I'd had my moment, something stabbed me right in the center of my ribs, and I

heard a voice proclaiming that I was dead, and they could all start moving again. Fucking Irish bastard.

"I'm not dead yet." I couldn't immediately believe I was using the phrase. "I'm not dead yet, and if you don't move that god-damned cane I'm doing to snap it into a million little pieces and make you digest each and every one of them. Mind you, that does not mean I will allow you to eat them. If I'm in the mood, I might just insert them manually."

"Big words coming from the kiddo on the ground. I don't think yer in any position to talk, young'un."

"Why isn't
he
dead yet?" I contributed irritability from the pain to the gall with which I spoke. I couldn't even believe the words exiting my swollen lips. But it didn't shut me up. "Seriously. Why isn't he dead yet? Zombies don't like old people? Wouldn't blame 'em. This one's old, and sour. Really sour. Bad milk sour. I mean, come on, this one's past his expiration date."

I could almost see the intake of breath, the way the kids were staring at me. I swore I could hear them backing away.

"Don't you miss your parents telling you to take the dinosaur for a walk?" The world was beginning to fade back into color.

"I can see it now. 'Don't ferget yer stone and chisel,
Blazypoo
. Take good notes in
Making Fire 101
. We could use the tips!' Like me accent?" Normally my tone wouldn't have been quite so mocking, however, more than half way from my head, it was. I was outright insulting the man, and some little voice in my brain warned me that I was indeed doing so. But I didn't care. At first, at least. It was unfortunate that the world chose that moment to fade completely back into view.