The End ....

"In this, I'm in agreement with him." BT answered.

"Let the muffins burn Mike!" Durgan shouted angrily.

"That's hilarious, he believed me." I smiled with satisfaction.

"See, that's your problem," BT said. "You have piss poor comedic timing."

"Au contraire."

BT turned to face me. "Oh come on, you throw these huge words around, I bet you don't even know what half of them mean."

"I do know what half of them mean," I lied. I had turned to face BT, neither of us looking towards Durgan. The rifle shot changed that quickly.

"I'm fucking talking here!!" Durgan screamed. I could see an arc of spittle fly from his mouth even from this distance. "I need to talk to you now Talbot, there will be no more warning shots."

"You're the one with the motorized get up, why don't you come over here?" I replied.

"Not a chance, come here now or I start taking some pot shots through the windows at your brood over there."

"Asshole," I muttered

BT and I started the trek across the field.

"Not the colored one!" Durgan shouted.

"Who?" I asked back.

"The Negroid, he is not welcome here."

"Negroid? Who's a negroid?" I asked.

Red blotches were spreading across Durgan's face.

"I think he's talking about me," BT answered loudly.

"Holy shit! You're black?!"

"Now see Talbot, that's funny!" BT said to me. Then he turned to Durgan and said words that chilled my spine and warmed my heart. "Next time I see you, pencil dick, I'm going to snap your cracker neck."

I absently ran my hand over my neck, thankful those words weren't directed towards me. With that said, BT went back to his spot by the barn door. Durgan looked like he might have busted a few hundred blood vessels in his face as beacon-red flushed every exposed inch of his skin.

"Into the valley of death they rode." (I wanted to finish with the pop culture phrase of 'Because I'm the biggest baddest mofo around,' but I was scared shitless.) Until you've been shot, you can't even begin to understand how much you never want to experience that sensation again. Durgan was in complete control. I had my K-Bar on me but I was sure that he wasn't going to let me get that close. I got to within twenty feet. Durgan lowered his rifle to a point directly midway on my chest.

"Stop there," he said with a sneer. I complied. "Now kneel."

"Go fuck yourself, I'm all kneeled out." Fear and pride raged within me. I watched as Durgan's trigger finger whitened under the strain of holding back. I was playing a dangerous game but I had a hunch. I usually only bet on scratch tickets with a hunch, this was a big jump for me. "Listen, we both know if you had your choice you would have already pulled that trigger, so stop preaching and do your master's bidding, messenger boy." He really was an impressive shade of red, especially from this close up. She must have had him on a short leash because he was straining every muscle in his not too shabby bulk to pull that trigger and kill me.

Could I run up there with my knife and kill him? Did he have a fail-safe switch if he were threatened that would let him defend himself. I had NO compunction whatsoever with killing this man even if he could not defend himself, especially if he couldn't defend himself. I took two steps closer, still not dead.

"Stop." Eliza's voice said coldly. Durgan's features slackened as Eliza took the reins. "I will let this useless piece of meat kill you. I hate him for what he is but he is still of use to me, for now. But you are almost less than useless."

"Coming from you I think I consider that a compliment."

"You dare to jest with me? Will you still seek humor as I rip the unborn fetus out of your daughter's womb as you watch?"

Her words were so cold she made sure they were laced with the imagery of her act. I dry retched into the snow.

BT yelled from the barn. "Mike, you alright?" he asked with concern.

I stood back up, dragging my sleeve across my watering mouth and with my other hand I waved back towards him.

"Are you ready to listen?" It was phrased as a question, but there were no alternate choices.

I nodded dumbly.

"I want Tomas."

I shook my head in the negative, acidic bile threatening to once again make its triumphant return.

"I do not think you understand what I am saying to you Michael. I will flay the flesh from your seed as they scream your name in vain. You will watch as I disembowel your wife and let my zombies eat her while she lives on. The last thing you will see will be your friend Lawrence as he rips your neck open to drink deeply of your blood. He will be the only thing I spare, for I think I might like to keep him as a pet for a while."

I could almost swear I saw a flicker of jealousy cross Durgan's face. Apparently this wasn't part of the original plan.

"Michael, you cannot keep running from me. Eventually your unnaturally deep well of luck will run out and I'll be there when it happens. I gave you one opportunity to be spared, but you spurned it. I am giving you and your family a chance to survive as your kind do. I will not offer you sanctuary again; even now my legion is nearing."

I looked over Durgan's shoulder to see if anything was approaching. Her words snapped me back to the fore.

"Michael, even if you run today, I know where you are going. I know where your friends Alex and Paul have gone."

She never actually mentioned places. Was Eliza bluffing? Did she need to? If our lives were divided into a standard deck of 52 cards, Eliza was holding 50 of them. I was maybe looking at the "two of Hearts" and the "four of Clubs".

"You know I can't give him up. What kind of person would that make me?"

"A live one," she replied instantly. "You have known him for two months yet you would sacrifice yourself and your family for him? That is why humans are so weak." She fairly spat out the words. "He has led you down the path of destruction like he has so many others. He cares naught for any of you!"

"You lie, Eliza!"

She laughed, but no tone of merriment accompanied it. "You are foolish to believe that a 500-year old immortal cares at all about the fleeting lives of the humans he uses."

Her words stung deep. Being this close to her was keeping my mind clouded. I was having great difficulty distinguishing truth from lies in her venomous words. If ever a serpent spoke, it was now.

"You loved him once!" I shouted, hoping my words would knock something loose in that frozen countenance of hers.

"Michael, you misunderstand why I have let him live all these long years. Perhaps once when I was a girl I cared for him, but that is from a previous life. I now let him live merely to torment him. The look of pathetic sadness and longing on his face is what I thrive on. The pain his quest brings to others, that is all the solace I need. I forfeited my soul willingly when D'Arvain turned me. I could not now get it back even if perchance I wanted it, which I don't. I have been liberated. I am free to do as I please through this world." She spread Durgan's arms wide. "The world is mine, Michael, I have control over the largest army this planet has ever known."

I wanted to tell her that if we were talking about just sheer numbers, the army ant might protest her claims. Seemed like an inappropriate time though.

"Too bad you're dying then."

Durgan/Eliza looked pissed! If her zombies were in place, I would have been as good as dead. "Give me Tomas, Michael, and you and your kin can live out the rest of your pathetically short lives without interference from me."

Please don't misunderstand the tone of my words in this conversation; evil oozed from Eliza. She had some form of mental manipulation also and she was not afraid to place scenes of unbelievably gruesome acts of violence into my head. My knees knocked, my bladder yearned for release, my heart kept skipping beats. On occasion, I think I forgot to breathe. Still something was nagging. "Why are you even asking me? Why not just take him?"

I thought the contortions she put Durgan's face through were going to make his skin split like an overripe banana. Eliza did not do well when her authority was questioned.

"I mean if that piece of shit is here." I said motioning to her host body. "Then you must be close." The wheels in my head were threatening to spin off their axle. "It is light out though, does that whole vampire in the sun thing hold merit? At Lowe's it was daylight, but you looked way more like a zombie back then. Is there any chance I could find you before tonight and drive a stake into your shriveled black heart?"

"Enough!" she screamed. "I have listened to your ranting for entirely too long. Tomas or your family, Michael, you decide." With that she left Durgan. He fell forward a few inches as Eliza released him, then his eyes cleared and looked up at me. "I'll be back, Talbot." He started the snow mobile and gunned the engine heading straight for me. I rolled to my side and grabbed the K-Bar strapped to my ankle. As Durgan passed, I used his momentum and dragged my blade across his left calf. A small smile of satisfaction crept across my face as a crimson blossom spread out from the wound. His only acknowledgement was to open the throttle faster so he could leave quicker.

"Tommy is family," I told his/her retreating back. I dusted myself off and headed back to the barn.

"What's he want?" BT asked, as I wiped my blade off in the snow.

"He said something about making a trade for some blackberry preserves and a bushel of crab apples."

"You're not funny."

"Yeah, well neither is the alternative. They want Tommy. We need to get the hummer fueled and get the hell out of here before tonight."

"Dammit, I guess that means we aren't going to finish those beers then. Did you get hurt?" BT asked, finally noticing the blotch of red in the snow.

"Not mine, his. And no, unfortunately it wasn't a fatal blow."

"Good."

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"Because I want to do it myself."

Within an hour, we had ransacked the house for whatever might turn up as useful. It was a woefully pathetic yield. I was happy to find that the hummer actually had seat covers. I guess now that I'm thinking about it, they were designed to be removed and replaced if an occupant was to expire in there. Well that's a macabre thought. Not much, but some of the previous tenant's remains had seeped through. This was quickly fixed with a throw rug I pilfered from the upstairs bathroom.

I filled the hummer up to brimming with fuel. With the help of Tommy, Travis and Justin (I actually delegated) we put the half full remaining drum in the trunk.

"The first couple of hundred miles are going to suck," I said aloud.

Justin looked over at me, waiting for me to finish.

"The trunk isn't going to shut, gonna be as cold as Eliza's sn…." I stopped when Tracy was approaching with some boxes of food. "Uh, hi Hon."

"You've got that look of just getting caught in the cookie jar thing going on," she stared at me suspiciously. I shrugged. "Help me with these and drag your mind out of whatever gutter it's wriggling around in."

A few more back and forths and the hummer was as full as it was going to get and still hold occupants. I helped Carol into the front so she would be closest to the heat, wrapped her in a few blankets and then was halfway back to the house to get Henry when Tracy called from the front door.

"You seen Tommy?"

It was an innocent enough question, so then why did my bowels seize up? "No I…" I honestly couldn't remember the last time. Sure, he had helped with the barrel but when? We had been bustling around so much. There had been so much activity I didn't stop to take stock. "Get Travis and Justin!" I yelled.

"What?" Tracy asked concerned. She wasn't nearly as alarmed as I was. I was halfway around the eastward side of the house looking for any tracks that led away.

Justin and Travis ran up to me, alert for signs of trouble but not seeing any. "What's up Dad?" Travis asked, checking that the shotgun was loaded.

"I want you and Justin to go completely around this house look for any foot tracks that lead away. I think Tommy left and I want to catch him before he does anything stupid."

Travis went clockwise, Justin counter. I went back to the hummer where the snow was trampled down and tried to find a fresh set of tracks away from the vehicle. BT got wind of what was going on and went up to the barn to look. When the boys and BT all came back to me and shook their heads in the negative I went up to where I met Durgan and Eliza to see if the boy had followed my steps out there and then proceeded on.

I even got Henry into the fray. I figured he might not be a bloodhound and wouldn't be able to track a person, but the dog loved food and Tommy was a walking mini-mart. My heart was racing. I had once lost sight of Travis in a Target when he was about 5. Those thirty seconds had damn near made my heart explode. I was now up to about forty-five minutes of that sensation and I did not see a cessation in the near future. "TOMMY!" I screamed. It came out a mixture of tortured bereavement and soul wrenching sadness.

"Mike," Tracy said, placing her hand on my shoulder and handing me a foil packet. "I found this on the ground behind the hummer."

Tommy had written a note with a magic marker on an empty Pop-Tart packet. 'Dear Mr. Dad. I have gone to Lizzie. Please do not try and stop me.' I turned the packet over and inside out hoping there was more to it than just that. There had to be. Lives don't just end like this.

I knew Eliza had lied. Tommy was trying to save us all, at the expense of himself. For not the last time in this saga, I dropped to my knees and cupped my face in my hands. Tears of rage and sorrow poured through my fingers. BT stood in the snow next to me with a look of confounded anguish. Tracy rested against my back, her tears soaking into my jacket. The kids were lost in their own thoughts. Even Henry felt the pain of the loss, he howled like a Bassett Hound, something he had never done before and something I hoped he never had to do again.

Time was irrelevant. I could only mark passage by the frozen tears that had fallen to the ground. Nicole, or maybe it was Justin, hell, it might even have been Tracy, helped me to my feet. For a moment or two I twisted out of the haze of loss only because of the pain my locked knees caused when I attempted to use them. Someone put me behind the wheel of the hummer and maybe even started it. For a good four hours someone else that looked like me drove on that cold desolate roadway but it wasn't me. Someone that could almost be my twin was even nice enough to refill the tank and toss the 55-gallon drum out of the trunk. I would have to send them a Thank You letter later on. Jed and Jen's deaths had hit hard. I thought it could not get worse than when Brendon was killed, but this…this was intolerable. The emotional pain had forced me out of myself. I was on autopilot. Every time I thought of his smiling face trying to hand me some ungodly disgusting flavor of Pop-Tart, I would start to cry again. Unlike previous times, I didn't care who saw me. I was living but I wasn't alive.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - TOMMY'S DISAPPEARANCE -

Tomas had heard everything his sister had told Mr. Dad. He had no doubts that she would follow through with her threats. Lizzie was not one for idle intimidation; he had witnessed firsthand the depths her cruelty could take. Tomas could not watch another family he loved be killed merely for the sinister amusement of Lizzie.

He would stop this here and now. He would willingly give himself up to her, and before he would allow her to do to him whatever she needed to survive, he would make her promise that she would not harm the Talbots, ever. She would listen to him. She was his sister after all. With that thought in his head Tommy waited for his best chance to get away undetected. Tommy possessed more than a few of the powers his sister did and in all likelihood many more. Tommy could have walked away in plain sight and not been detected if he knew how to control it. As it was, he waited until everyone was in the house before he walked over the iced tracks the humvee had made coming up the driveway yesterday morning.

When Tommy felt he had gotten far enough away from the homestead he jumped into a small culvert. There he waited, covering his ears when he heard his dad crying his name. Tommy had been crying too. On more than one occasion he almost got up and walked back towards them, but all he could see if he walked that path were gravestones engraved with the names of the people he loved. That walkway was already long enough. He would not add to it, not this time, not ever again. He drove his fists deeper into his ears, oblivious to the pain he was causing himself. Tears pooled around him.

Tomas had been so intent on blocking out all extraneous sensations he had missed the noise of the Talbot clan as they had passed on by. Early nightfall was threatening on the horizon when he finally looked up. "Stupid, stupid," he said to himself, rubbing the remains of his tears away from his eyes and cheeks. The farmhouse that just the night before had seemed so safe now looked oddly menacing. No residual warmth remained there, only cold, impersonal death. Tommy stood up easily, having not felt any ill effects from being in a kneeling position in the cold snow for near on 4 hours. He never wondered why he never felt pain or got sick. It was just the way it had always been for as long as he could remember. He thought maybe it was because he was 'special' like Lizzie used to tell him.

Tomas looked once to the house, once to the roadway and then headed out across the field in an easterly direction. He was walking a straight line to the psychic beacon that his sister was sending out. Within a half hour he found himself face to face with her. His need to hug and kiss her were thwarted by the indifference she flared all around her.

"Welcome brother," she intoned, without even a remote hint of love or caring.

"Hi Lizzie," Tommy, said looking down at his shoes, wishing he was anywhere but here.

"I'm so glad you could make it," she said without regard.

"You'll leave the Talbots alone?" Tommy fairly begged.

"Oh come now brother, what does the death of one more perishable family mean to you. You are immortal like I am!" she shouted.

"I am nothing like you, Lizzie," Tommy said meekly. Lizzie laughed mockingly at him. "You will leave the Talbots alone or I will leave again."

"Oh it is far too late for that, Tomas. As for the Talbots, I do not think that I am quite done yet. He has defied me twice and I do not suffer fools gladly."

Tommy was panicked. He had done no good here; he had in fact made matters worse. If he had stayed away for a month, two at the most Lizzie would have died, no, Eliza would have died. Lizzie died 500 years ago. Tommy started to cry anew.

"Come, come brother. I will kill his family quickly if that makes you feel any better, but Michael, he will suffer in ways I have not yet dreamed." Her bitter laugh mirrored Tommy's feelings. "There is someone here that is going to help. Maybe you will recognize him."

Tommy saw the man being pushed up to Eliza's side. "Doc?" Doctor Baker looked like he had suffered greatly at the hands of his sister, and his family was nowhere to be seen.

Tommy registered Durgan's presence a fraction of a second too late. His sister had completely blocked his senses. The needle plunged far too deep, and sleep followed immediately.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - JOURNAL ENTRY 25 -

I had felt nothing, going on ten hours. I barely registered the Maine Stateline sign hanging askew. The most conversation since we had left the Powell House revolved around a bathroom break and even that was a pinched conversation. Pardon the pun. Tommy was one of our own. He was the shining light. He was the hope of a new dawn. All of that was lost. He was lost. We were lost. Eliza wasn't going to let us go. She was too prideful and too filled with hate to let anybody that stood up to her go unpunished.

Sure we might go unnoticed for a couple of months, but as soon as Justin ran out of his shots she would be able to home back in on him and we'd be on the run again. My thoughts were as black as the night, without even a single star to light my way. Would anybody protest if I just drove on into the ocean?

So this is what my life is reduced to. I will watch as those around me fall. Maybe I will get lucky and be next, then I won't have to suffer through this anymore. I don't know how much more of this I can take, my soul is already damn near transparent. I have done everything that is within and possibly beyond my human ability and still I have come up woefully short.

The slow, steady forced march to death that all of us experience has now turned into a 4x4 relay race. Jen handed the torch to Brendon, Brendon handed it to Tommy, who will Tommy hand it to? Every time I think that my despair has bottomed out I come to realize that I was only on a false shelf, the black plummeting drop wrenching my stomach into my throat, all sense of self and awareness enshrouded in misery. Existence hardly seemed worth the effort. How much pain does one feel from a self-inflicted gunshot?

'COWARD!' Echoed off the walls of the well I was trapped in.

Alone, in the dark, huddled against a wet dank wall, I shuddered in revulsion, of my situation and more so of myself. I just wanted to be done. The burden I carried now far exceeded my limits. Something had broken inside of me. Tommy had been the crutch upon which my spirit leaned on. With him gone it had crashed to the floor, smashing into millions of pieces like littered glitter. Pretty to look at but generally just a mess of color that gets everywhere but in the trash.

The soft glow of the moon lightly lit up the interior of the hummer, and I took long moments to gaze across the faces of the ones I loved. Yes, they would be the reason I would climb out of this pit. They would be the reason I would move forward no matter how much my will resisted. For them, I would never give up.

"You keep looking at me like that and you'd better take me out to dinner," BT said with one eye half open.

"Thank you BT," I choked out.

"Yeah, you're welcome. Now I know I'm pretty and it's tough to keep from looking at all this," he said swirling his hand around his face, "but I'd much rather you keep your eyes on the road."

"Thanks BT," I reiterated.

"We will get through this, Talbot," he said reaching up from the back and placing his hands on my shoulders. My shoulders shook, my silent tears crashing through my head. I knew the big man was hurting too. Tommy was dear to all of us. Right now BT was the Cliffs of Dover and I was the tide crashing into them. In a few millennia I might wear him down but for now he was going to be my rock. I reached over my chest and gripped his left hand with my right. If ever there were a strength I could anchor to, it was within this man. "This doesn't mean we're going steady now," I quipped half-heartedly.

I propped my knee up to hold the steering wheel as I tried to wipe away the cascading tears with my left sleeve. BT looked off to the side, letting me hold on to what little remained of my dignity. Tracy witnessed the whole scene. Maybe at a different time she would have commented that we made such a cute couple; now just didn't seem like that time.

The chain that ensnared my heart grew a little heavier that day as Tommy's death added its own links to the length. Someday I would be strong enough to carry it, but for now dragging it would have to do.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - JOURNAL ENTRY 26 -

Maine looked almost the same as it had before zombieism became a national pastime. It was indeed passed over from modernity. The towns we passed through seemed devoid of any type of life. Occasionally we would pass a murder of crows snacking on things better left to the imagination but that was it. Mainers were traditionally a strong stock of folks that did not much like or trust people-from-away. But hey, they were Red Sox fans, so they have that going for them. Population wise, proximity (or lack thereof) to major cities and a general distrust of all things governmental may have worked in this reclusive state's favor.

We weren't being attacked by zombies but at the same time I wasn't seeing a welcome wagon. Odds were that we had passed under more than one rifle scope as we drove on but Mainers live under the premise of 'if you don't screw with us, we won't shoot you.' (Sort of like Northeast Texas.) Some buildings had been destroyed, others ransacked. There was the occasional crashed car but for the most part this looked better than pre-zombie Detroit. Okay so that's not saying a whole hell of a lot, but we are still talking Armageddon here.

Travis looked out the window. I could tell he was starting to see things that looked familiar. "How much further?" he asked with a hint of excitement in his voice.

God, I hoped my family was okay. I needed the infusion of hope that they would offer. "Hour or so, depending on fuel." The gauge couldn't go any lower. As it was, the hummer was sucking up the rusted bits of the fuel tank. I wonder what the mpg is on diesel-soaked metal fragments? If the truck died now that hour would now become a 10-hour sojourn that Carol and possibly BT wouldn't make. I started looking around for another viable means of transportation, but any survivors had beaten me to it. Mainers typically survive some of the harshest weather conditions on the barest minimum of supplies. Anything that could help them weather this 'storm' was long gone. I'd have a better chance of getting quality dental care in England. As if on cue and to make my heart skip another beat, the hummer sputtered once, twice and then lurched forward.

Tracy looked over at me nervously. "We going to make it?"

Both variations of that question had a huge '?' at the end. I didn't say it out loud. No need to, we all felt it.

The hummer got further than I expected but less than was needed. We were a full fifteen miles short of our destination when she quit. We were on a slight downgrade and I was able to eke out another tenth of a mile. Excellent, only 14 and 9/10ths miles to go. Carol, BT, Nicole and Henry could not make this march. Hell, the way I felt, I wasn't sure if I could.

"Any ideas?" Tracy asked me. She knew the score. We were in a lot of trouble.

"I was thinking maybe Triple A." She didn't rise to the bait. It wasn't that great of a joke anyway. She scanned the roadway ahead of us. The gusts coming from the Northeast blew snow across the desolate roadway. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of noon and there was no way we were going to be at my dad's before dark. One shotgun with seventeen shots. Once they were gone then what? Deaders could catch us. Speeders would have a field day. "Shit." I said as I rubbed my hand across my face.

"Should we just stay here and wait?" Carol asked. I understood her distress.

I turned to look at her. "We can't." I could have elaborated and said that waiting was tantamount to death. Zombies, the elements or just plain old every day assholes would come across us sooner or later.

"Mike, my mom can't make it," Tracy pleaded.

"What do you suggest? Should I let someone else die?!" I yelled.

"Oh, Mike," Tracy sobbed. She fully realized now the burden I hefted. "None of those deaths were your fault. Bad things happen to good people."

Nicole full out started to cry, her loss coming to the fore again.

"My job is to protect, them, us. It's what I do now. It's all I do now and I failed them!"

"Mike." BT shot out. "We all look out for each other. It is not just your (italicized) job. There was nothing you, or any one of us for that matter, could have done."

I nodded in agreement, not because I felt that was the case but rather to end the discussion.

"Can't you maybe go for help and come back for us?" Tracy asked hopefully.

"Tracy, even at a decent pace, in these conditions I won't get there for at least another three hours. I don't even know what I'll find. Absolute best case scenario, I'm back here in four hours. Since this has started, how many best case scenarios have we come across?"

"None," Tracy said, lowering her head.

"Even with the shotgun you guys are sitting ducks. We can't take that big of a chance of splitting up. I won't survive if anything happens to any of you."

Carol was first out the door. "Let's get this over with," she stated flatly.

Can't really argue with that logic, so we all piled out. The biting sting of wind-blown ice crystals against my skin was both invigorating and alarming. An hour of that and it would begin to feel like someone was dragging frozen sandpaper across my face.

"What about Henry, Dad?" Travis asked.

Henry's idea of a walk generally consisted of getting up from his comfortable pillow, going over to his dish, eating heartily, playing for 15 minutes, wandering outside, taking care of business, then going back to his comfortable pillow. Henry wouldn't make it more than a mile before he would just stubbornly lie down and wait for me to do something about it.

"Winter in Maine," I replied slowly, deep in thought.

"Folks couldn't retire to Mississippi?" BT asked as he grabbed the remainder of blankets out of the truck.

"What?" Justin asked, picking up on my earlier comment.

"Winter in Maine. We should be able to find sleds, or something that we can use." The faintest glimmer of hope flickered. The problem with Maine is there just aren't that many houses, especially where we were. We were a half mile and a full hour into our trudge through slushy snow before we came across a potential house to take respite in, maybe find some supplies and some transport.

It was a small Colonial, set off the main street by 50 feet or so. I told everyone to stay where they were while I checked it out. When I looked back to them the betting money was even on whether Carol or Henry were going to stop walking first. BT was straining but he might make it just out of meanness. I was 15 feet from the house when I heard the tell tale cocking of a pistol.

"That's far enough mister," a voice called out from a shade drawn window. One small corner was pulled up to reveal a very large caliber weapon pointed in my direction. The voice sounded feminine, or it quite possibly was a young male. That didn't help matters much; it didn't matter who pulled the trigger, I'd still be just as dead.

"We just need a little help," I said, holding my hands out in appeal, thankful and regretful at the same time that I left the shotgun behind.

"Don't care," came the reply. I definitely pegged it as female this time.

"You don't understand... ."

She cut me off. "I said I don't care." There was no hostility in her voice, no anger, no derision. She was merely stating a fact.

I could argue with her another ten minutes and maybe get shot for my troubles, not really how I wanted to end my day. "Someday you'll have to atone for this," I said as I turned and walked back towards the roadway.

It was then I heard the cackling of someone who had traveled far past the line of sanity.

"Didn't go so well?" Justin asked, looking over my shoulder at the house.

"It's good to see some things never change," I told him as I walked on past.

"What's he talking about?" Justin asked Travis.

"Too bad they didn't put any brains in those shots you take." Travis replied.

"What are you talking about?" Justin queried.

"The whole Captain Obvious thing." Travis replied.

"Oh!" Slapping palm to head, Justin laughed.

"Mike, Mom needs a rest and so does BT but he'll never tell you that," Tracy said, grabbing my elbow as she came up beside me. I had not even realized it as I walked at a slow, steady pace but already Carol and BT were a good 50 yards behind.

"Shit, this isn't working out so well." I told Tracy. We were stuck. "Okay, go back and take a rest with them. There's a house a little ways up; I'm going to see what I can find." A quarter mile later I came upon a double wide that had seen better days. Nobody lived here. The snow that had piled in the open doorway was my first clue. The cold metallic stench of death was the second as I got closer. I took a big intake of air and stuck my head through the doorway. The gloom of the interior was dimmed even further with the mound of bodies that littered the floor. A small fierce battle had raged here. There were no victors. Arterial blood had cascaded down the far wall. Punctured intestine nestled in the couch like a throw pillow. Something closely resembling brain matter coated the door. I was perilously close to falling into it if I didn't get some fresh air.

I pulled my head out. There was nothing in there I wanted to retrieve. I walked around the house and was rewarded for my efforts with a small green and white striped metal Tuff Shed, its door still closed. That boded well for what I was looking for. The door slid open with only a minimal amount of effort. My eyes had nearly adjusted to the dimly lit interior when the first gunshot rang out back from the direction where I'd left my family. I grabbed what I needed to and ran full tilt back to the roadway. I had not made it even that far before another three shots rang out. At this pace they would be out of ammo before I made it another hundred yards.

I could see my family making what haste they could towards me, being followed entirely too closely by zombies. "Shit!" I started to sprint.

Travis was down to five shots when I got to them. It looked like there were maybe another dozen or so zombies left to continue on after us. Now I'm no mathematician, but even I knew that unless they lined up real nice like, with head against head so we could kill more than one per shot, we were screwed.

"Someone call a cab?" I asked as I pulled the toboggans up.

Carol looked relieved, if a little dubious. Tracy helped her down; Henry watched raptly and then, realizing what this new fangled contraption was for, plopped down in front of her, nearly asleep before Justin and Tracy grabbed the ropes.

"Let's go BT." I said. Looking at him and to our approaching party crashers.

BT's pride was taking a huge hit. I know he wanted to argue that he could do it on his own, but even he knew his limitations. He laid down heavily on the un-cushioned slab of wood with a grunt. I pulled the rope over my head and laid it against my chest. "You ready?" I asked him. "I feel like that dog that pulls the Grinch's sleigh when it's all full from stealing everybody's stuff in Whoville."

"Max," BT answered.

"Huh?" I asked turning back around.

"The dog's name was Max … and mush!"

For a fleeting moment I didn't think I was going to be able to get enough traction to get this train moving. I was feeling like the little engine that could. My feet were moving faster than they had a right to but I was making damn little headway. It was the roar of Travis' shotgun that got me going. My first half-dozen steps had worn a smooth spot through the ice and snow and I took off, not like a rocket, more like a snail late for a hot date.

For an hour and a half we were in stalemate mode. We were making better time with the sleds, but not enough to outpace the zombies. We had traveled maybe three miles. Travis had taken over the other sled for his mother. Nicole intermittently got on and off depending on her fatigue level, and how bad she felt for those laboring to usher her along. My legs were screaming in protest. All higher thought had been replaced with the plodding effort of putting the next foot in front of the other and outpacing the deaders. Strain oozed into pain, pain stumbled into numbness, numbness dispersed leaving behind pain. Ever faster I cycled through those stages, stopping always longer in the depths of misery.

Night quickly descended. It seemed to happen in between steps. I was lost in a state of fugue, fatigue and torment. Occasionally Tracy would come up beside me and pull, sometimes it was Tommy, once or twice Brendon actually came to help, but he mostly pulled the other sled when Nicole was on it. I sometimes saw Jen up ahead, never speaking but always waving us forward. I would have raised my hand to wave back but the effort was beyond my capability. My chest was rubbed raw and bleeding from the contact with the old hemp rope. I heard distant gunshots but they did not hold any significance for me.

The smell of rotten meat was the only thing that kept me moving, that and the desire to be away from it. No matter how far I traversed it always seemed to be creeping right up behind me. I couldn't even tell if my legs were still moving; I had lost control of my extremities.

"Mike!" someone screamed. Cognitively, I barely registered the fact that someone was talking to me.

The sensation of falling was capped off by my knees painfully striking the ground. My legs shook uncontrollably. I was done for and unfortunately so was the poor bastard I think that I had been pulling. I fell off to the side, my face making a loud slapping sound as it also found its way to the cold, icy surface.

The lights of God blinded my eyes. This was not the ethereal, pleasant, loving lights I had encountered previously. These were harsh and glaring. Promised Land, ready or not, here I come. My labored breathing was overshadowed by the eruption of firearms coming to life around me. 'God has a fifty cal? Fucken sweet.' That was what actually went through my mind. Something swung passed my line of sight. The bright lights illuminated a flying spider man. I would have sworn I heard a battle cry just as this figure slammed into a tree on the far side of the clearing, making my fall to the ground seem like a tender caress in comparison. The figure stood up, wobbling a bit and brought his gun to bear. My vision blurred as gore splatter from above rained down on me. Spider-man had disposed of at least four or five zombies that had come within biting distance of me.

'Spidey is an awesome shot.' I thought right before I passed out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - JOURNAL ENTRY 27 -

I had no idea what time it was when I finally came to. Whenever it was, it wasn't long enough. My legs were still throbbing and more irritably still, they were twitching randomly. I looked like I was trying to do River Dance. It took me moments longer for the fog to lift.

"Zombies!" I yelled, hopping out of the cot I was in, my legs giving out as fast as I tried to stand. The resulting heap I made on the floor was not a flattering sight.

BT had not left my side since I had collapsed from exhaustion. I was to later learn it was more to do with the company we were keeping than any outright concern he had for me. "Mike, Mike," BT said, standing from the chair next to my bed that I had not noticed previously.

"Zombies, BT. We gotta get out of here." My lips were pulled back in fear, my eyes so wide the whites were showing all around. "Where is everyone else?"

"Mike," BT said grabbing me by the shoulders to help me back onto my cot. "We're okay," he said, gently placing me down with no more difficulty than a child would have putting their favorite toy away. My legs were still flailing. I was more than a little self-conscious about it and placed my arms on them, trying to slow them down. "They've been doing that since we got here," BT said pointing to my legs. "Was freaken the shit out of me for the first couple of hours. Kind of used to it now, can damn near tell time to their rhythm."

"I'm glad I can be a source of entertainment for you."

BT got grave seriously quick. "Mike, I know we've been through a lot and I count you up there with some of my best friends but what you did back there…." BT sniffed. "Man, I don't know that anyone I've ever known my entire life would have done that for me except maybe my mom."

"She as big as you?"

He laughed. "No, she might have been 110 after Thanksgiving dinner but she was tough as nails. Mike, I don't know that I can ever repay you."

"BT, this isn't about keeping score. It was just my turn. Next time though it's on you." BT did something very uncharacteristic for him and leaned down and gave me a hug. I accepted mostly because I was too tired to do anything else.

"I'm gonna go get your wife," he said, standing up. My shoulder was suspiciously wet from where his cheek had rested.

"One thing, BT."

"Yeah." He stopped.

"Where the hell are we?"

"You don't know?" he laughed as he left.

I heard footfalls coming down the hallway towards my room. Unless Tracy had gained 100 pounds and now had combat boots on, this wasn't her. I was apprehensive, even if BT had given me no reason to be. Paranoia was the foundation from which I had survived thus far. I did not see a reason to deviate from the norm, distorted as it might be.

I could see nothing as the figure stopped in the doorway and was now silhouetted in the light from beyond him.

"Happy Birthday little brother, what took you so long?"

"Ron? Ron!" I jumped out of the bed to only be met with the previous fate. Isn't that the definition of insanity, to repeat the same action over and over, expecting different results?

"The one and only," he said, picking me up and placing me back on the cot.

"Getting a little sick of that."

"Eh, stop trying to stand and it won't happen."

"That's what the world needs…a pragmatist."

He gave me a hug to rival BT's. "Didn't think you were going to make your own party."

"Wasn't so sure myself." I told him.

"I've heard."

"Yeah?"

"Nicole has been telling us your story from the day it started. She's damn near a tape machine the way she plays it back."

"I know. Where are you up to?" I asked him.

"When Paul and Alex left to go down South." Two more souls I missed. "Are you up for joining us?" His affirmative nod left unspoken that the extended Talbot clan was in good shape, if not whole.

"I don't think I'm ready, Ron." That had more to do with listening to Nicole's retelling of our story than anything else. I could not go through those losses again, not now, not ever.

Ron, as intuitive as ever, picked up on my mood. "We need a break anyway, Mike, Nicole can finish the story later on. I've had to keep Dad on a leash from busting in here every twenty seconds."

"Alright, but I can't walk and I'm sure as hell not going to let you carry me in there."

"Got that figured out," he said, leaving the room and coming back quickly with a wheeled office chair.

"That'll do, I guess."

"One more thing, Mike," Ron started, as he got me into the chair. I looked up at him. We've been over this ground, nobody prefaces anything good with 'One more thing…' and ends it with 'you've won a million bucks!!!!' It's always more along the lines of 'One more thing…I ran over your cat.' "Naw, maybe I'll just let you see for yourself," he said as he began to wheel me out of the room and down the hallway.

"Is it about Dad?" I asked nervously. We had lost Mom not so long ago and I was concerned that it might have been too much for him.

"Dad? Hell no. This zombie stuff has been the best thing for him."

"Really? How the hell is a zombie apocalypse the best thing for anyone?"

"He's been doing what you have been doing Mike, protecting his own. It's brought a spark to his eye that I thought Mom's death had permanently extinguished. Come Spring he was planning on making a trek out to get you."

"Are you kidding me?" I asked incredulously.

Ron shook his head. "He's been worried sick about you guys. If the weather hadn't been so crappy he would have left a month ago. I've been barely holding onto him telling him that if you were alive you'd be trying to get back here."

"If?"

Ron shrugged his shoulders.

I shrugged my shoulders too. Hell, the Colorado Talbots almost bought the farm on Day One and it hadn't gotten much easier since then.

"So what then?"

We were turning into the kitchen. My eyes immediately teared up. The kitchen was packed way past fire code. Besides Tracy, Carol, Nicole, Justin, Travis, BT and Henry, there was also my Dad, my sister Lyndsey, her husband Steve and their son Jesse. Ron's wife Nancy stood to the side with their kids Meredith, Melissa and Mark. Standing somewhat at the position of attention, seemingly guarding the gathering was something that used to pass as my brother Gary.

His head was wrapped in what once was a red bandanna. It had been washed one too many times and now suspiciously resembled what one might buy for their eight year old daughter. His outfit was a hunter camouflage arrangement. On his camo clad pants was tied the largest bowie knife I had ever seen, and his mismatched combat boots were quite literally the kicker.

"What gives?" I whispered to Ron.

"He thinks he's Rambo."

"More like Gambo," I said without thinking. For all the extended Talbot clan that was in presence there were some notable absences. Ron's oldest daughter Melanie was not here and neither was my brother Glenn, along with his wife and three kids.

"Have you heard anything?" I asked Ron as I scanned the room.

A look of sorrow and worry crossed his face. His tight lipped stare made me think an answer was not forthcoming. Finally he said, "Melanie called from Massachusetts the night it started, said her boyfriend had beat her up, even bit her a few times."

My heart sank.

Ron pressed on. "At the time I just figured he had been an asshole whose ass I was going to have to kick eventually, I just wanted my baby home and I told her that." He paused to wipe his hand over his eyes. "We haven't heard from her since then. I've driven the route down to Mass a couple of times since then, just trying to find her car. More for some closure I guess, than anything else. Then sometimes I think that maybe her boyfriend wasn't infected and had just drank too much and she needs my help." We both knew that was a lie. Melanie's boyfriend Dan was a born again Christian. I don't think he even listened to music unless it was of the Gospel variety.

"I can't get the picture of her cold and hurt huddled in some alleyway out of my head."

I reached my hand up and grabbed his. The pain wasn't lessened but mutual comfort was increased.

"What about Glenn?"

"Nothing."

Glenn was Gary's twin brother, he lived in NC and for a fleeting second I thought of calling Paul on my cell and seeing if he would stop in and check on him. A small sigh for all that had been lost escaped me. Luckily the room was noisy enough to cover up my transgression. I was spared any further insight as my dad got sight of me. He started to full on cry with relief when he saw me. My cheeks flamed but then I realized how would I feel if one of my kids was missing and there was no way to tell what had happened to them. My tear ducts matched him drop for drop. All in all it was an incredible night. I was home! Gambo was going to take some getting used to. I would learn later from Ron that something in Gary had broken when he lost the connection to Glen. He shook my hand once and then took up his vigil again by the front door.

I noticed a large red scrape on the side of his face, my spider man was revealed. Occasionally he would reach up and touch it only to pull back with a wince when he got near it.

"You should put some Neosporin on that," I told him later that night. I also thanked him for saving our lives.

I kid you not, he deepened his voice to tell me that he was alright and saving lives was his business.

"Mike, I thought you were the nutty one," BT said coming up to my side when there was a lull around my chair. "You whip these people up in a blender and you could make peanut butter."

"BT, I didn't just come into existence like this. I was carefully molded and sculpted."

"Apparently crafted by crazy artisans and they did a fine job," BT said looking around the cacophony that was the Talbot's. "Are we planning on staying here?"

I didn't realize that he was serious when I answered, "You're hilarious, man." Had I looked to see his response to my words, I would have seen him mouth the word 'Great' and it would have been used sarcastically.

My sister came up carrying a tray of what at one time may or may not have been some sort of edible food product. Right now it resembled something more along the lines of what Henry would evacuate after a particularly bad bout of bloody diarrhea.

"I made your favorite," she said, sticking the plate of something under my nose. It even smelled like the aforementioned waste product.

"My favorite what?" I asked seriously.

My sister laughed, thinking that I had just made a joke. Lyndsey had on occasion been known to burn water. She had once made raspberry jello that was green and nearly as hard as a brick. Her husband Steve, unbeknownst to my sister even though everyone else knew, had paid a substantial amount of money for a doctor to write up papers that he suffered from some rare genetic stomach disorder that only allowed him to eat take-out. Her son Jesse while growing up had found multiple sympathetic parents that would feed 'the starving boy' dinner. He had actually worked out a calendar of where he would eat on any given night.

Lyndsey and Steve's dog, Baxter, had suffered for all the discarded meals. He died young and not happy.

BT grabbed a cookie thinking it was the socially acceptable thing to do, and my sister beamed at him. I shook my head frenetically side to side at him, waving my arms over my head, telling him 'no.' It was too late; he brought the thing up to his mouth. My sister was nodding in the affirmative, silently willing him onward. I couldn't watch. I turned away as he nearly chipped a tooth biting down on what might have been a pebble chip. Maybe it was only Formica, that made more sense.

BT shifted it to his stronger back teeth, trying to get some leverage.

I'd had enough. "Lyndsey, I think Steve needs something."

As soon as Lyndsey turned away, BT flung that thing with a flick of his wrist like a skipping stone. It smashed into the wall behind Gambo, who thought we were now under attack as he dropped and rolled. He came back up with his knife at the ready. I put my face in my hands. 'Oh no, what have I got us into.'

Eventually the room quieted down once Gambo realized we weren't under attack and something akin to order was restored. The room quieted as all eyes once again turned to Nicole. She was an adept storyteller and she had left her audience wanting more.

"You want to stay for this?" Ron asked me. "How about a beer?"

Tracy pulled up a chair from the kitchen table and sat next to me so she could grab my hand.

"Any chance you have some Molson?"

Ron looked at me with that 'What do you think? face'. He was a self-made millionaire who lived a frugal life. I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled out a white can that had the word 'Beer' in stark black letters.

He handed me a can of Busch. "I see you're moving up," I told him sarcastically.

"Yeah, when I knew something was really wrong we went to Tozier's (the local grocery store) and damn near emptied it out."

"The end of the world and you couldn't splurge on something a little better?"

"What's wrong with Busch? It cost almost $4.50 a twelve pack."

"Is this a joke? Are you hiding the good stuff?" But I saw the futility in that tactic. Ron wouldn't needlessly spend money on a joke.

"What?" he asked.

I choked four of those things down as Nicole picked up her narrative from the Motel 6 to the Red Neck encounter. She had to stop on more than one occasion as she recounted what had occurred at Carol's homestead. The entire room was wrapped up in her story. This was the direction life was going, when families gathered around for storytelling. No more television or video games. The families that survived would be strengthened by the closeness of doing things the way they had been done in bygone eras.

Nicole had pushed on. In her story we now were at Camp Custer and it was looking like humanity had gained a toe hold; unfortunately it was all a lie. Nicole told of our escape from the camp and then of our time at the Powell farm. I wept silently as she told of Tommy's leaving. Tracy's hand pressed mine more firmly. I was in the grips of a burgeoning buzz as the story wrapped up. There was a collective inhalation as she finished, almost like everyone had forgotten to breathe.

Ron turned to me, not one to ever miss much. "How much time do we have until Eliza finds us?" he asked me directly.

"She's done with us, isn't she?" Carol asked anxiously. "What more could she want? She has her brother."

"That might have been the original intent," Ron answered her. "But she doesn't seem the type to let a transgression slide."

I nodded in assent. "I figure a month and half," I said, alluding to the amount of shots Justin possessed.

"That'll give us plenty of time to shore up some weak spots," my dad added.

"We'll have to get the electric fence up before Spring then," Ron said, thinking more out loud than telling anyone.

"Wait!" I said, standing on my wobbly legs. "You guys don't get it, we can't stay here."

Gary started to protest. "I've already lost one brother, I won't lose another."

"You can't know that," my dad said angrily to Gary. He then turned my way and looked like he was going to ground me. Ron gave me that condescending look that only an older brother can pull off.

"Guys, did you hear Nicole's story? Were you listening? Eliza took out a military base in less than a day, what do you think she'll do here?"

"What are you going to do Mike?" Ron asked. "Keep running? For the rest of your lives? Seems to me Eliza will be able to outlast you if she is what you say she is. No, you'll stay and we'll see this through to the end."

"That's easy for you to say now Ron. But when your family is in peril, what then?"

Ron looked more than a little pissed that I was questioning his authority or his ability to protect us all. "You know, you little pissant, it hasn't been all tea and roses before you got here, we've had our own trials and battles."

"How many Ron? A couple dozen maybe? Any speeders? Did they have a distinct, directed purpose? Were they being single mindedly ordered to end your lives?"

Ron's rage came to the surface. His fists clenched at his sides. He shook his head slowly in the negative. "None of those things, Mike. So what do you propose? Should we just let you, all of you, just walk out of our lives?"

"I will not risk your lives, any of you," I said sweeping my arm across the room, "for ours."

"You already did Mike," my sister said. "The second you walked up that road, we all became involved."

I sat back down defeated, but not beaten. A direct confrontation would not work, but Tommy had shown me how I could take care of this. We would leave when the opportunity presented itself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE -

"Where is he, Tomas?" Eliza asked as she walked around the gurney Tommy was strapped to. Rivulets of blood poured from a half dozen lacerations on his chest and stomach. Tears of pain and fear cascaded down his face. "Come, come, Tomas I will find them soon enough. Once the boy runs out of his poison that blocks me." She spat.

"What did you do to Doc?" Tommy cried.

"Don't concern yourself with him. He has paid for what he has done to me as Michael must," she said as she dragged a fingernail through a particularly deep wound. Tommy screamed. "Now you can save us all some trouble, Tomas. Tell me where he is and I will end his worthless existence. I know you can see him."

Tommy shook his head violently from side to side. "NO!" he screamed in rage.

"Again." Eliza said almost sweetly to Durgan.

The crack of the bullwhip as it sliced through the air at supersonic speed crucified Tommy's flesh as it split it deeply. Blood welled in the newly formed crevice. Tommy's screams pierced the air.

Durgan had worked up a lather of sweat by the time Tommy had finally given Eliza something. Tommy hadn't meant to give her anything, and it wasn't exactly what she had hoped for, but it was a start and it might turn out to be better than what she had originally planned.

"You've done well, brother. You might be able to keep me from linking with Michael but I can pick through your thoughts as easily as I can my own," Eliza said as she licked a runnel of blood from his cheek.

Tommy sobbed inconsolably as she left him, tied to the bed and alone in the dark. "I'm sorry Auntie Marta," he wailed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - JOURNAL ENTRY 28 -

I came out of sleep violently. I could have sworn I heard Tommy and he didn't sound good at all. Trying to go back to bed now was beyond useless. I became fully awake as my feet hit the near freezing floor boards. In the best of times Ron kept his home a balmy 48 degrees in the winter. Now, as I watched my breath, I thought to grab an extra sweater, blanket, thermal underwear and electric socks. I was headed towards the pellet stove. I was going to stoke that stove so high it was going to turn cherry red. Then I laughed at myself. 'Who am I kidding? Ron probably has each individual pellet counted. That or he has the door to the stove padlocked. That would be just like him,' I thought, as I headed into the living room.

It was even worse. He was guarding the damn thing. I had to get closer before I realized my mistake. It was my father. He turned to look as I approached. The look of joy as I got closer warmed my heart enough to almost make me forget that the mucous in my nostrils was hardening from the frigidness.

"You look cold, come closer to the fire. Your brother would rather put on 4 jackets instead of burning fuel. He'd get away with it too, if it weren't for Nancy putting her foot down."

I dragged a chair close to my dad's. We sat there for long moments staring at the fire, neither of us saying anything. He broke the ice, almost literally.

"It sounds like you've had it rough, Mike."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"As much as I miss your mother, I'm glad she isn't here for this. This is no way for anybody to live. I was worried sick about you, Tracy and the kids. I felt helpless."

I nodded in agreement. "Been there a few times myself," I said commiserating with him.

"I suppose you have," he said, glancing over towards me. "We don't have much here, but we have each other." My dad turned back towards the fire, his eyes glistening.

Did he know I was planning on leaving? It sure seemed like it. "Dad, you don't understand."

"Michael, what don't I understand?" He turned back to me. "Do you think that you would do something for your family that I would not do for mine? Would you not stand with your brothers and sister as they would stand with you? Didn't the Marines teach you anything? We do not retreat."

"Yeah, but we withdraw strategically."

"Point taken," my dad said with a slight bow of his head. "Still, we are stronger together. We need to meet this threat head on."

"Dad, don't take me wrong. If I thought we had any chance of success I would gladly stay and fight but Eliza is unlike anyone any of us have ever encountered." My dad listened as I recounted my brushings with the Queen of the Dead. I'll give him this. He didn't ground me for lying.

"What are you planning on doing then?" my father asked. He would patiently hear me out. Whether or not he would let me act was still open for debate.

"Justin's shots have bought us some time. But none of that matters, I still have to go back and get Tommy."

"Sounds to me, son, like that boy was leading you along and into a trap the whole time."

"Dad, you might be right, maybe it did even start out like that. I don't know. If you met the kid you'd know there isn't a deceitful bone in him. He radiates love and warmth. He was like traveling with our own personal saint." My dad still looked skeptical. "Dad, I know what you must be thinking, but I loved the kid enough to adopt him. It wasn't a fluke. He wasn't tricking me into caring for him. Hell Dad, I don't know if I can even count how many times he saved our lives. I think now it's time to start evening the score."

"From what you said, can't you sit and wait for them to come here?"

"Possibly, in a month and half, the link with Justin and Eliza will be re-established. I don't want Justin to have to go through that again. If I can somehow bring some resolution before then, so much the better. For good or bad I never told Tommy exactly where we were going. I mean, I know he knew we were coming to Maine but other than that… ." I shrugged my shoulders. I kept my grim thoughts to myself, that at least she wouldn't be able to beat that information out of him. My soul took another dent thinking of that. "I haven't heard anything from him since he left."

"I hate to ask this Michael, but do you think he is still alive?"

I took an involuntary large gasp of air. I had thought of that possibility but hearing it verbalized struck heavily. "Dad, he has to be," I almost cried. "I'd know." But would I? All I had received from our connection was black nothingness, sort of like death.

"You can't put your family through that. You've got a pregnant daughter."

"Wait, you know?"

"Yeah, she told me."

"She hasn't even told me."

"Well that's probably because I'm infinitely more likable."

"Wonderful."

"But that's beside the point."

"May be beside your point, but I'm the one being poked with it."

"Michael, I'm trying to be serious."

"So am I."

"You're lucky your mother loved you, I would have made the stork fly on by if I saw you coming. Listen, you've got a pregnant daughter, a sick son and your youngest is barely hitting manhood. Are those the people you want to expose to danger?"

"Come on Dad, obviously not. I wish I could round up my old platoon and teach that bitch what a fire team is all about, but I don't have that luxury." I might be 45 but I can't even begin to convey the feelings of safety and warmth that flooded through me as my dad wrapped me in his arms. I almost wanted to suck my thumb.

"Will Nicole stay behind?"

"I'll ask her, Dad. I'll even try to convince her and her mother that they should stay here. I already know the answer I'm going to get."

"Can't you make them stay?"

"You're hilarious, have you met Tracy?"

My dad laughed. "How long, Michael?"

"Well not tonight for sure." My father looked sternly at me. He'd known me long enough to realize that getting a straight answer out of me could be damn near infuriating. "A couple of weeks," I told him.

"How are you planning on finding her?"

"That's never really been much of a problem. To tell you the truth, I'll just venture out and I can almost guarantee she'll take care of the rest."

He squeezed my knee and got up painfully. "I'm going to bed Michael. I love you."

"I love you too, Dad." I stayed another hour staring into the fire, trying to make some sort of contact with Tommy. My only reward was a blossoming headache.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - JOURNAL ENTRY 29 -

The dismality of my mood did not lighten with the breaking of dawn. The shingles that my sister was going to try to pass off as French toast were not going to make matters any better. She somehow made them smell like steaming broccoli mixed with liver. I had to get out. I went into the garage, thankful that my father had kept my skates hanging up where I had left them. The peacefulness of being out on the ice was exactly what my soul needed. I grabbed my hockey stick and a couple of pucks and headed out to the pond, a mere 50 yards away.

It was cold but not nearly as frigid as Ron's house had been the night before. I was halfway to the edge of the ice, my head down checking my footing, when Gary scared the hell out of me.

"Going to do some skating, little brother?" I did a complete 360 looking for him. "Up here."

I looked up. He was about 15 feet high in a tree with a deluxe model hunter's stand. It was actually a pretty neat set up. It had a chair, a canopy roof, wind break walls all around and it must have even had a small heater in there too because he looked pretty toasty. I think I even saw a curing sleeve of meat, maybe salami. It was more a small tree house than a stand.

"Nice set up. You got heat in there?"

"Sort of, the Coleman lamp I've got running keeps it nice in here. Better than the house, that's for sure."

We both said "cheap bastard" at the same time. Who it was directed at was common knowledge.

"There enough room to sleep up there?" I asked him. He laughed, but I was serious.

"Have fun Mike, haven't seen anything around here you need to be worried about. There's some deer on the other side of the pond but I haven't been able to get a clear shot at them."

"You don't mind if I skate? I don't want to scare them away."

"No, enjoy yourself, a couple of days ago I shoveled off a hockey rink."

"Sweet, thanks." I trudged on through the snow. My fingers froze as I laced up my skates. "Why has no one ever created Velcro laces for skates? Another million dollar idea I'll never be able to bring to fruition now." I said sourly.

"You say something?" my brother shouted. I had forgot how easily sound could travel over the pond. I shook my head in the negative.

The weather was crisp and had a bite to it, not like a grizzly bear mind you, more like a pissed off weasel. It was invigorating. Pulling the cold air deep into my lungs was somehow refreshing. I'll say this for the apocalypse, the air had gotten a lot cleaner since man's machinations no longer wheeled and spun. I could feel Gary's gaze on me for a while. Really wasn't a whole bunch else to look at, and then even I must have become boring because he started to belt out his rendition of 'Sister Christian' while listening to what appeared to be an ancient Walkman by the bulky look of it.

"Might as well get an old reel to reel," I muttered to myself as I finally finished lacing my skates. I dropped the puck on the ice, grabbed my stick and just flat out enjoyed the feeling of cool air sliding across my face as I glided on the ice. The sound of my blades cutting across the frozen water was interrupted only by my occasional less than stellar slap shots and Gary's high-pitched tone deaf crooning. It sounded like he was halfway through 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns and Roses, but I wouldn't attest to that fact in court. When I said aloud "Good thing American Idol can't hear this," I immediately wished I hadn't. That one malignant thought spiraled into thoughts about the host, Ryan Seacrest, and then right back to Tommy.

The thought of the kid missing and most likely with Eliza brought me to a complete halt. It also saved my life. I had been concentrating so hard on my skating and puck control I had not even checked my surroundings. Four zombies dressed like hunters were almost halfway across the pond. They had entered from across the other side. Their pace was hampered somewhat by the snow but they were now less than 25 feet away.

They had come upwind from me so that I could not smell them. My hope was that it was an unintentional coincidence, not that I had come across many of those lately. I quickly patted down my pockets. No gun. I absolutely could not believe my stupidity. It was just that I had come home, I should be safe, I shouldn't have to wear a gun constantly. Having a gun in the outside world had been such a necessity not having one was akin to a mother going to a grocery store with her infant and not bringing a diaper bag, who does that? "Only the ill prepared," I said aloud. "Yeah but without a diaper bag you only have a fussy smelly baby, without a gun you have death. Talbot, stop talking to yourself." Yep, I said that aloud.

Plan B: Get Gary's attention, he had a 30-30 and from this range it should be pretty easy pickings. I shouted until my throat felt like I had swallowed fish bones, but Gary was looking in the complete opposite direction down the access road and now singing some horrible nightmare equivalent of 'Every Rose Has a Thorn'. I made a snowball but unless I had a slingshot or Dwight Evan's arm (the star outfielder for the Red Sox in the 70's) I was never going to be able to hit him. The lead zombie had just entered onto the rink from the opposite corner. He immediately slipped and fell on his head. Somehow I didn't think a concussion was going to stop him.

"GARY!!!" I reached way down for that and put everything into it from my Marine Corps years. I would be sucking down Sucrets for three days to pay for that scream but it was worth it.

There must have been a lull on Gary's mix cassette (yes it was a cassette) because he turned to see where the offending noise had come from.

"Zombies!" he screamed, his headphones still on.

"You think?"

"What?" he screamed again.

I motioned for him to take off the headphones.

"Oh sorry!" he screamed again. "Zombies," he said in a much more conversational tone with the ear gear off.

All four zombies had made it onto the shoveled ice. Their progress was greatly impeded but it would only be a matter of time. Gary lifted his rifle up, from this angle the barrel looked like a cannon.

"Umm, I'd rather you waited until I moved," I yelled, a little too late. His first round blew one of my pucks up.

"Was that your puck?"

"Are you kidding me!" I yelled at him.

"Bet I couldn't do that again if I tried."

"I really wish you wouldn't."

The sound of the shot reverberating through the woods brought some reinforcements from the Talbot clan. I had begun to punch holes through the snow with my skate laden feet. The zombies were halfway across the rink by this time. I was in no immediate danger of being caught but I honestly didn't want to dull my blades by walking on the ground. Trivial matter, sure I know that, but when's the next time I'm going to be able to take them down to the hardware store to get them sharpened?

Gary's next shot splintered the lead zombie's head in two. "Hell of a shot!" I yelled, getting away from the killing rink.

"Can't stand zombies, Mike!" he yelled back.

"I got that," I said, giving him the thumbs up.

My dad was on the porch watching, a look of concern on his face; the illusion of peace had been shattered.

My nephew Mark asked his dad, my brother Ron, something and then headed down to the edge of the pond with his gun. Looked like a .22 long rifle caliber. It's a relatively high velocity round but it is used mostly for small game. Now I'm not saying I'd want to get shot with one, I was just wondering how effective it would be against men. Travis and Justin immediately followed with much heavier calibers.

Mark's first shot skidded off the lead hunter zombie's head, a three inch swath of skin pulled back to reveal a gleaming shiny white skull. I thanked God I had not eaten Lyn's breakfast because I could not imagine that it would taste any better coming up than it had going down. Mark's next shot, much like Gary's puck crusher, could not be duplicated on a bet. It skidded to the left this time nearly making an equal skin flap. It looked like the zombie was trying to sprout a head visor. The whole front of his forehead was exposed in all its horrid glory. The small window of quiet was only broken by Gary's splashing vomit as it rained down from on high.

He, unlike the hunters was downhill; the smell of his tossed up salami would take that magically delicious deli meat off my menu for the remainder of my life.

"Sorry," he gurgled. There is something disturbingly fascinating about watching half digested round meat slices swirl through the air in a haze of brownish bile. My reverie was short lived as much larger rounds punched through the air. The Flapper fell in a puddle of his own making. Mark took a few more shots, actually felling one of the smaller zombies. Travis' shotgun ended the minor threat that had unveiled itself.

My dad had come down to the edge of the pond to see if he knew any of the men, but the gory nature of zombie killing can make even the most basic of identification damn near impossible.

"The big guy with the peeled back scalp looks like a guy I'd seen a few times in the post office. The other three, can't really tell." My dad looked more than a little upset. "Haven't had any this close to the house in over a week."

"We tend to have that effect," I said absently.

Gary's dry retching filled the air.

"You alright?" Ron asked him.

Something along the lines of "fine" was Gary's only response. A perimeter of brown now encircled the tree he was perched in.

Ronnie's youngest daughter Melissa ran out of the house to see what all the 'to do' was about. Like a typical teenage girl, she was way late to the party. All she got to witness was Gary's fragile constitution expressing itself.

"Oh my God, why is everyone out here watching Uncle Gary puke. Eww, that is so gross! It's way too cold out here. Why does Mark have a rifle? Do I smell gunpowder or is that Uncle Gary? Dad, are you going to get Aunt Lyndsey away from the stove, she's making the house smell like dead mice again! Mom says Mark has to clean his room. Can't you make my cell phone work again? I haven't heard from my friends in Massachusetts in forever. Do you think I could turn on the second generator, I really want to use a hair dryer. Are there dead guys over there? Oh gross, I'm so not cleaning that up." The whirlwind that was Missy immediately turned and fled back into the house. The scene was once again quiet, broken only by Gary's gurgling geyser.

Ron came down to inspect the situation, then looked over at me. "You had nothing to do with this little brother."

"Can you be so sure? Ron, she took down a fully fortified military base in a few hours."

"This is just a coincidence."

I wasn't nearly as convinced as he was. She couldn't have found us this quickly, could she? She had Tommy and if she could follow his link to us then that was really the answer, wasn't it? That's why I hadn't heard anything from the kid. He knew that too. "Oh Tommy." My gut was beginning to feel a lot like Gary's.

My sister poked her head out the door. "Breakfast!" she yelled. Gary threw up again. Now I don't know if it was in response to my sister's threat but his timing was impeccable.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - JOURNAL ENTRY 30 -

"You can't be serious, Mike?" Tracy asked. I stopped packing to look over at her. "You don't honestly think those zombies were from Eliza?"

"They probably weren't, at least not this time, but it really is only a matter of time. Eventually Justin's shots will run out or Tommy is going to cave and the mind highway is going to open at that point. Eliza will just waltz on down the yellow brick road."

"Nicole won't stay behind, and are you going to be the one to tell BT he's staying here?"

"It's for the best, and I really wish you'd stay here too," I said grabbing her shoulders tenderly.

She shrugged my hands off. "Not a chance. Tommy has as much access to me as he does to you, and I don't trust you not to get into trouble."

"But I've been doing it for so long, why stop now," I asked facetiously.

"Yeah, I just wish you weren't in such a rush to hook up with it again."

"This is my … our family I cannot bring her to them. She's already taken Tommy away. I will not let her do us more harm."

"Do you think you can get him back?"

"I have to try." Which loosely translated to, 'I doubt it, but I'll die trying.' Now the hard part of the equation was, was I willing to sacrifice my two sons in a vain attempt?

"If Nicole stays behind, can't Tommy link to her?" Tracy asked.

It was a valid question. Tommy was so completely enamored with her, he could barely say 'hi.' Making that intimate linkage through the mind would probably shut him down. I smiled wryly at that thought. I missed that kid. So much so that I would be willing to try one of his cherry frosted sausage Pop-Tarts.

"I'll tell Nicole, but you get the pleasure of telling BT."

"I'd rather eat Lyndsey's cooking!" I groused.

"Come on, be realistic. BT will only kick your ass. Your sister's cooking can kill you."

"True. What about your mom?"

"I think she'll be thrilled to stay here. She'll be able to watch over Nicole, and truth be told I think she might be a little smitten with your dad."

"Really?"

"Why not? You had to get your good looks from somewhere."

Man, that woman knew how to stroke my ego. I was the violin and she was the world-class musician. The real damned problem was that I knew I was being played. I just couldn't do anything about it. "Wouldn't that make us brother and sister if they hooked up?"

"First off I don't think they'd use the term 'hooking up' and second, ewww, what is wrong with you?"

I grew serious. "You know, Tracy, I'd prefer you stay here also."

"I know you would,." she said, stroking my cheek. She turned to go downstairs and talk to her daughter.

That was the end of that discussion. How the hell was I going to tell BT and survive? I did the long march down the hallway. Nicole was on the couch wrapped up in her grandmother's arms, both had tears streaking down their faces. BT was sitting across watching the entire scene unfold. He looked over at me suspiciously. "Don't you even think it, Talbot." He fairly thundered. "I can't eat any more of your sister's food," he added in a conspiratorial tone.

Melissa had been standing at the entry to the living room. "It'll be alright, Nicole, this way I can brush your hair and then Dad will have to let us turn on the extra generator for the hair dryers and then we can give each other pedicures and manicures, it will be amazing! So what do you think of Justin Bieber? I always thought he was a little too pretty, but I'd still go out with him. Did you watch the Twilight movies? Oh, why couldn't we have had vampires or werewolves instead of stinky zombies and then there was this one time when this boy Matt kissed me and my whole face felt hot. He was super cute and he was going out with Cathy Jacobsen, I can't stand her but I would have kissed him anyway." As Melissa rambled on, Nicole cried harder.

"Mike, my man. Come on," BT said pleadingly.

"BT, I can't think of anyplace I'd rather have you than by my side, but you need to heal."

"Then wait."

"We don't have that kind of time my friend. She'll find us long before then. It has to be this way. She won't be expecting me to come for her."

"Said the mouse to the eagle," BT said dejectedly.

"Appreciate the sentiment," I retorted sarcastically.

"You know what I meant."

"Yeah, unfortunately it's a fitting analogy."

"I'm going with you," I heard from behind me. I didn't turn around, I knew who the artificially deep voice belonged to.

"Thanks, Gary," I said, looking squarely at BT. I was going to add that this was a family thing, but hell if BT wasn't family.

"You dead set on this expedition?" Ron asked. I merely nodded. I didn't want to do it. I had to do it. "I've got something for you then," he said as he quickly left the room.

My hope was for a cloak of invincibility, the shortwave radio transmitter he gave me was the next best thing.

My dad steered clear of me for the next two days leading up to our departure. For as much as he stayed away, BT made up for it, damn near crawling up my ass. My dad's avoidance hurt. Every time I walked into a room he was in, he would walk out. I don't even think he was doing it intentionally. Maybe it was his subconscious way of reconciling my upcoming departure. Nicole was disconsolate. Her hormones were already out of whack because of the pregnancy and her family leaving her behind was not sitting well. The only thing that kept her from constantly barraging me with her pleas was a morning sickness that thankfully lasted all day. More times than not she was relegated to the bathroom.

Carol was fast becoming a favorite within the Talbot household. She had gently but forcibly pushed my sister out of the kitchen. Much silent cheering ensued.

I had no idea what day it was when I awoke on the morning of our departure. It was cold but the sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue. Still, I couldn't shake the darkness around my heart. Old words haunted me and I wasn't listening to them. 'The sacrifice of the one for the many.' I was endangering five lives for Tommy. How would God transcribe this in his vast bookkeeping ledgers? Folly or wisdom?

The entire clan was in the kitchen patiently awaiting whatever divine concoction Carol was preparing for breakfast.

"You always were late to rise," my dad said, the first words he had spoken to me in days.

"It can't be 6:30," I said in my defense.

"6:48," Gary threw in for good measure. The face paint he had smeared on his face and lips were getting all over the breakfast roll he was trying to eat.

"That can't be good for you." Lyndsey told him.

I wanted to tell her it was probably better for him than what she had been feeding him but I couldn't get the words to come out.

BT looked miserable, and the distant retching noises from the bathroom told me Nicole felt like he looked.

"I wish you weren't going little brother," Ron said, getting up from the table. His wife Nancy came up behind him, placing her head on his shoulder as I wrapped my arms around them both. There were no words that could sufficiently express how I felt. My emotions were raggedly torn in two. I was stuck between duty and a hard place.

One by one we said our goodbyes. The sun was climbing higher into the sky, my misgivings digging deeper, until it finally became my father's turn. I had seen the man cry twice in his life. First when my mom had died and now. I did not like what that implied.

"You come back here, all of you. Do you understand me?" he said through his tears. "Make sure you bring your brother back too."

I silently nodded my head up and down. Words would have been intertwined with sobs and then it would have just been a blubbery mess. This was harder than fighting zombies. Heartache loss and homesickness hurt more than war. There was no time to feel emotions in the heat of battle. You merely survived longer than your enemy. I had lived to die another day and that's really the best any of us can do. We were leaving home…again. Some of us, probably all of us, wouldn't make it back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE -

Eliza strode into the room. She could smell the fear pheromones exude off of the men as they stood patiently waiting for her arrival. She did not acknowledge any of them as she laid down her order. "Prepare your men, we leave in ten minutes."

"Eliza… mistress," one of the bolder men started. "I, um, that is some of the men are concerned over your hold on the zombies after what happened at the base."

Eliza crossed the length of the room in less than a blink, her left hand on the top of the man's scalp as she bent his neck far beyond God's original design. Her teeth sank deeply into his neck as the snap of vertebrae echoed off the walls. Nobody stirred as she drank her fill. When she was done, she allowed the empty carcass to fall hollowly to the floor. As she exited the room, the remaining men scrambled to be ready by her deadline.

Fifty military troop transport trucks, laden with zombies, rolled away from the military base that was up until recently, the largest humanity hold-out in the United States. What little remained was burning uncontrollably. Twenty or so human stock had been rounded up as prisoners. Sort of like a meals on wheels for Eliza.

Durgan drove the lead humvee. Along with him were Eliza and Tommy. The malevolence that was Eliza was unaffected by the underlying current of virtue that issued forth from Tommy. Those first few days, Tommy had pleaded with the being that looked like his sister. He had learned the hard way, the thing that possessed her body now wanted nothing more to do with him unless it furthered her quest. Tommy had dozens of slashes that were weeping puss and blood and they stung every time he moved. His pain and discomfort seemed about the only thing that brought any emotion from his sister, and it wasn't the kind he was hoping for.

She turned back to look at him, her eyes blazing with fury. "You know little brother, when I am finally healed, I have decided I will fully turn you."

Tommy's eyes snapped wide open. He shook his head furiously from side to side.

"Oh yes," she said, dragging a nail across his cheek bringing up an angry red welt. "We'll be able to have all those fun times that we missed out on all these years." Her throat mimicked a laugh. Her eyes never moved from his. "I think when I finally catch up with Michael Talbot, it would be fascinating for me to watch you drain him of his life." Eliza grasped his face in her hand. His struggles ceased as he realized the futility. "We will rule this new world, little brother, you and I. No more hiding in the shadows."

Durgan couldn't help but notice she did not mention him in that equation. To question Eliza, however, invoked death.

CHAPTER FORTY - PAUL AND ALEX -

For the first three hours since Alex had driven away from the Talbots, he was completely convinced he had made the singular biggest epic mistake of his life. This wasn't about losing money on a sporting bet or picking up the wrong brand of tampons at the store (both of which could land you in a lot of hot water). No, this was about lives, his, his wife's and most importantly, his two small children.

"Marta, this doesn't feel right,." He said over the rumble of the 500 hp diesel engine. The further they got away from the comforting sphere of Tommy's presence, the more the harsh reality of the world drew closer.

"I, too, wish that Tommy had come with us," she said, staring straight through the windshield.

Alex worried that she might be regressing into that near catatonic state she had been in before they got to Little Turtle. Everything had started to turn for the better for the Carbonaras when they arrived there and met Mike and Tommy. Now all that was gained was lost.

"Should I turn around?" he asked Marta.

"I still do not think he would come with us, that Michael Talbot has some sort of hold over him," she said, Michael's name coming out more like a swear word than a means of identification.

Alex didn't think that was the case at all, more like the polar opposite, but he was not going to fight with his wife. The last time he had won she wasn't even there. It had been more of a moral victory. "I meant more along the lines of going with them."

Marta did not answer for a few ticks longer than was expected in the situation. He held out hope that she might be considering his request. That was a short lived dream. She turned to look at him, dark ringed eyes narrowed to half their normal size, her nostrils flared open, her mouth pinched down to a line. It was not an attractive pose, it was no 'Magnum' from Zoolander. Alex had seen it twice before. Once when the youngest had just been born and he told her that he and a bunch of friends were going to a strip joint, and the second time had been when he told Marta the day before, his mother came to visit for two weeks. Those two transgressions had cost him dearly in kowtowing and flowers. And right now he wouldn't be able to make amends because he hadn't seen a florist in months.

"Michael Talbot is the devil," she spat. "Death has gotten fat and lazy merely following in Michael's wake. Is it not bad enough he has taken my nephew into the depths of el infierno with him. You do not think that is payment enough?! You think he needs to have our two pequenos also?" She was fairly crying now. "El es el Diablo," she muttered, making the sign of the Trinity on her chest.

Marta only reverted to her native tongue under times of great distress. The three days after the zombie invasion were laden with a steady stream of the Rosary Prayer's, Our Father's and Hail Mary's. He even thought he recognized some paganism mixed in and they were all in Spanish. No, going back to find Mike was not going to be an option, unless of course he could come across an industrial sized bottle of Ambien. He could slip a few in her water every day, what she didn't know... 'Yeah and when she finally woke up and realized what was happening she'd slip a nail file through the small of my back,' he thought. It still seemed like the right thing to do, even if he could almost feel the grooved surface of the small metal utensil dragging against the jagged edges of his lacerated vertebrae.

After another hour of uncomfortable silence Alex pulled the truck over. Marta merely looked over at him. "Bathroom break," he said as he slid out of the truck.

They had no sooner come to a complete stop then Paul rolled open the big door in the back. He jumped down and began popping and stretching his back and legs, his gun left forgotten within the confines of the trailer. Alex couldn't help but remember that Mike's first priority every time they stopped was to check the integrity of their perimeter. Paul could have been eaten twice before he finished his routine.

"Hey Alex," Paul said, bending at the waist to stretch out his hamstrings.

"Just what I wanted to see… your ass," Mrs. Devereaux said as she reached the edge of the trailer. "Are you going to keep pretending you're a 25 year old athlete or are you going to help me down off this truck?"

Paul stood up, looking straight at Alex. "She hasn't quit bitching for the last three hours."

Alex was extremely thankful he was the only one that knew how to drive the truck. The punishment he took steering the big rig was paltry compared to being stuck in the back with that witch.

"I wish that BT fellow were still here," she started. "Those blacks know how to drive. Mexicans on the other hand…" she finished off by looking straight at Alex.

"You're welcome," Alex said, walking away. Alex wished she had gone with Mike, because Mike would have definitely turned around if only to be rid of her wicked tongue.

Erin, Paul's wife, ultimately helped Mrs. Devereaux off the truck. "You could have done better, my dear," Mrs. Devereaux said to her.

"You're welcome," Erin replied exasperatedly.

Joann, then Jodi, the young mother with three kids, came next. April, whose last amorous affair ended in the death of her latest fling, only came out when she was absolutely sure no one was getting eaten. April hadn't slept well in days; her eyes looked like she had already ended up as the trailer trash she was destined to become, and her abusive husband with the wife beater t-shirt had once again shown her the business end of his knuckles.

Alex couldn't help but feel that he was on the end of a practical joke gone completely awry. He had willingly left a trained Marine, his two crack shot sons, the largest man he had ever seen in his life and a boy who might have a direct connection to Dios, for this rag tag group. He shook his head. He had to go back, this was a death sentence. Marta would have to listen to him and she may have, if what happened next never transpired. The next few moments, ultimately made him forget to even bring it up.

Alex rounded the truck to find Jodi and her three kids, Eddy who was 8, his younger sister Renee 4 and their infant sister Penelope, but something wasn't quite right. Her kids were up against the truck and she was a few feet away sobbing uncontrollably. The revelation struck Alex immediately but still ultimately too late. It was a firing squad, composed of a deranged mother and her unsuspecting children. She had grabbed a pistol from the small arsenal they possessed in the trailer and was waving it around violently.

"God has forsaken us," she said to Alex.

"Wait Jodi there's still…"

"Hope?" she laughed. "Not for us. We're dead already. We just haven't realized our true potential yet. I will not allow my children to become those demons," she said, referring to the zombies.

Alex wondered if that was what they truly were. "Jodi, don't do this. They're your children. For the love of God..."

"You don't understand, Alex, I'm doing it FOR the love of God."

Paul rounded the corner to see what was happening. "Holy shit!"

Her eyes barely glanced over towards him. Her attention swung back to her children, who were becoming increasingly distraught over the amount of emotions being issued forth, even if they didn't understand what was truly happening.

"Mom, I'm scared," Jodi's oldest son Eddy said. "Can we come with you?" he said, referring to bridging the physical gap between them now.

"Oh honey, we are all gonna be going together," she said, referring to something much vaster and catastrophic.

"Jodi wait!" Alex shouted, fearful that the conclusion to this macabre scene was rapidly approaching.

"Don't you dare come any closer!" she yelled shrilly.

By now all of the occupants of the truck were behind Paul watching in grisly fascination. Even Mrs. Devereaux, who always found a way to interject the wrong word at the wrong moment, was silent.

Erin came to the forefront. "Jodi, those are your children and you're scaring them." By now all three of the children were crying inconsolably.

"This is for their own good, Erin," Jodi said clearly.

"What is for their own good?" Erin asked with alarm in her voice.

Jodi never answered directly, she let the roar of her gun finish her statement. Alex didn't know whether to turn and run away or run forward to stop the travesty as it was taking place. One second a gurgling crying rotund bundle of joy disintegrated into a burst form of human parts and down feathers as the sleeping bag he was swaddled in ruptured. Jodi's gun did not stop as she swung it slightly to the left and drove a bullet into the awaiting mouth of her daughter. The look of betrayal was immediately wiped clean from Renee's face as the back of her head erupted onto the trailer bed. The gun roared again as Eddy ducked under the truck, the bullet coming dangerously close to his leg.

It was April that reacted the quickest, knocking Jodi off of her feet. The gun went off one more time. April rolled over covered in blood, none of which was hers. Jodi lay still, a fatal wound pumping out her life, one heartbeat at a time.

Her eyes shifted over to April's. "Do you smell rotten eggs?" and said no more.

"Brimstone," Mrs. Devereaux said, her eyes as large as saucers.

Eddy had buried himself deep into Joann's midriff. They were both shaking.

Paul's face nearly matched the color of the snow. "Do we bury them? Do we have shovels?" Then he threw up.

"We will place them in the snow and say a prayer. It is the best we can offer them right now," Alex said.

Paul managed to nod in agreement, even with his head between his legs. Alex held it in as he dragged Jodi over to the embankment and still held a tight grip as he picked up the small girl. It was when he got to the infant that all his composure ran in floods out of his system. He fell to his knees as he placed the remains of the infant boy in the snow bank. "God, I don't understand!" he shouted. "Why would you save them, for this!" His shoulders quaked. Paul gently helped him up.

It was long moments before any of them could speak. It was finally Paul that managed. "God, I know that I have my doubts about your existence but if you are there, please allow these two children to enter into Heaven's Gate and show your mercy unto their mother. She thought she was doing what was right. Amen." He wouldn't swear that his prayers were answered, but he felt better for saying it.

Marta was sitting in the passenger seat when Alex finally got in. She kept her gaze straight ahead and did not even acknowledge his presence.

'Three hours in,' Alex thought, 'and we've already lost three people and my wife is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.' The red stain of death faded in his rearview mirror as he put the truck into gear and sped down south and away from this tragedy. All thoughts of Mike were pushed far back into the linings of his brain. It would be far too late to turn around by the time that thought came up again.

That first night they stayed in an old gas station. The glass building was not what Alex would consider an optimum place to hole up, but fueling the truck's tanks with a hand pump had taken almost an hour and he was exhausted. Eddy, and April for that matter, cried for most of the night. This was one of the old school service facilities that hadn't yet figured out that the real money lay in selling tacquitos and slushees. This place smelled stale, like old motor oil and sweat. The Slim Jim beef snacks display looked long empty.

It was cold and the few emergency blankets on the shelves would have a hard time keeping a cat warm. At a time when the travelers should have been huddling for warmth, they were all lost in their own thoughts. Each of them marked out their individual nooks, putting as much distance as they could between themselves. Alex offered to take first watch. Mrs. Devereaux, who had never taken a watch before, told him that he looked exhausted and that she was willing to do it.

Alex couldn't help himself and he didn't mean to be as harsh in his thoughts as he was, but it came out all the same. 'Bitch has a soul.'

Mrs. Devereaux knew that not many people liked her, and to be quite honest that was alright with her because she wanted very little to do with humanity. Her bastard husband had become a cliché, having run off with his twenty-something secretary. 'I knew he was full of shit when he said that Viagra prescription was for us,' she thought bitterly. The last time they had sex, George Senior had been in office. Not only had her husband run off, he had managed to hide all their assets beforehand. She had barely been able to scrape together enough to buy the run-down little town home in Little Turtle. She wouldn't be eating cat food anytime soon but her days of caviar and pearls were long over.

She had never been able to reconcile to the fact that she was now living in the type of housing that her servants had. This wasn't her station; she was above this. She had grabbed as many of her possessions out of her mansion as she could before the sheriff threw her out. Her townhome was crammed full of mink stoles, rare paintings, statues of varying sizes and antique furniture. If she had sold half, she would have wanted for nothing but she had already lost so much she could not fathom parting with any more.

Mrs. Devereaux had no time for religion. Much like Karl Marx, she felt it was the opiate of the masses. It was for the poor fools who had nothing in this lifetime and could only hope for the promise of a better afterlife. She knew better. There was only now. Take what was needed now. There is no judgment at the end. Your actions are not balanced and weighed. You have one run through. This wasn't practice for a higher purpose. She had lived her entire life under that premise. She knew others thought her a bitch and worse. She really did not care. More times than not she got what she wanted; it did not matter who got upset. It was dominion over others, that was how the animal world was set up. You ran the machine or the machine ran you, and she much preferred the role of decision maker. That, of course was up until today when she had witnessed a young mother murder two out of her three children. The burnt egg smell could only refer to sulphur, and sulphur meant brimstone. Everything she believed had immediately come into question. Were there now consequences for one's actions? Was this a new development or had it always been like this?

"Should have stayed with Michael," she cackled softly. "He might be a prickly S.O.B. but he'd keep me alive a lot longer than these buffoons." That was her last thought before she fell asleep, her head pressed up against the cold glass.

The sunshine was diffused through the grime streaked windows and was further hindered by the bodies that pressed against the outside windows. Mrs. Devereaux let out an involuntary scream as she opened her eyes only to be facing an opaque, rheumy puss leaking eye. Alex was the first to react, Paul was close behind him.

Alex scrambled out of his foil blanket. Ten to fifteen zombies were in a small cluster around the spot Mrs. Devereaux had previously been occupying. "Oh mi madre," he said worriedly.

"Whoa, shit," Paul said, no more alarmed than if someone had burnt his English muffin.

They had learned their lesson in Vona. The truck was parked right up against the store. Anything wider than 5 inches was going to have a hell of a time getting through. With so few travelers now, fitting them all in the cab for emergency purposes would not be a problem. Eddy began to scream uncontrollably, either from waking and realizing his family was no more or because zombies were at the window. The noise seemed to agitate the zombies, who began to bounce again and again off of the windows. The small store began to vibrate from the effect.

"We should go," Erin said to Paul.

"You're right, this frozen indecision is going to get us killed," Paul replied.

"What?" Alex asked him.

"This shit. We're sitting here watching zombies trying to break in and we might as well be sitting on our hands. Mike would have someone posted to watch them while the rest of us grabbed anything that was useful and we made our hasty escape. Mike would have stopped yesterday from happening."

Marta made the sign of the trinity on her chest.

"You can't know that, Paul," Alex said defensively.

"What were we thinking?" Paul replied, a look of frustration etched across his face.

"We were thinking we wanted to get to our families as much as he wanted to get to his own. We still do."

"Will we?" Joann asked.

A spider thin crack developed in the pane of glass directly opposite them. "I think maybe we should discuss this later, Alex said hurriedly. "Everyone in the truck."

The service station was now in the hands of the zombies. The small loss should have meant nothing to Alex but it rankled him all the same. He wanted to draw a line in the sand but the tide had already shifted and the beach was covered.

They drove for a couple of miles with the nine of them in the front and the sleeping quarters. Even Mrs. Devereaux somehow found this tangle of humanity comforting. The cold of the night was quickly replaced with the heat of the living.

"I've been thinking," Alex said. "Maybe it's time we found something a little smaller to drive. Something a little easier on the kidneys, something we can all take turns driving."

"Yeah, I won't miss sitting in the back bouncing around like a super ball," Erin added.

"I wish I had a super ball," Eddy sniffed.

Erin hugged him tight. "I'll get you one the next time we stop."

"Will we still be together?" Eddy asked.

Alex hadn't thought about it much but the kid's question made sense. They would be splitting up again in the next couple of days.

"Are we still planning on once again halving our numbers?" Mrs. Devereaux asked incredulously.

"That's been the plan all along. I don't see why we should change it now," Paul answered her.

"What of myself, Joann, April and Eddy?" she asked.

"You can choose who to stay with, or obviously you can keep going on."

Mrs. Devereaux looked over dubiously at Paul. "Just how long do you think any of us would survive on our own?"

Paul had reached his limit. His stress meter had always ridden a little higher than the national average and these extraordinary circumstances certainly had not helped matters. He red-lined. "You know what!? I've been making mistakes since this all started. Mike told me that if there was ever a national emergency, I was supposed to get Erin and Rebel and get to his house as fast as I could. Well what did I do? I got my family trapped in our attic. I got our dog killed. I damn near killed Mike's son when they came to rescue us, and what does Mike do for me? He saves Erin and me. He gives us a relatively safe place to stay and makes sure we have food to eat. Then when everything goes to hell, what does he do? He saves us all, all of us! Then what do we do? We leave him. We leave the most capable person who could get us through all of this. I watched a woman damn near kill her entire family yesterday. Now I'm not saying Mike could have prevented it. That woman had lost hope, hope that there was a better future for her children. But Mike brings us that hope. Maybe she would have felt that hope long enough at least to push on to the next day and the next. Let's not forget last night. Mrs. Devereaux takes first watch and nobody thought to relieve her. We were lucky it was only a dozen zombies, what happens next time?"

"Eliza is following him though," April said meekly. "Or at least his son."

"That's really the reason we all left, isn't it," he said, stating a fact. "We were afraid, we were cowards. We took what we thought was going to be the easier path."

"Now see here," Mrs. Devereaux started. "We are not cowards because we want to survive."

"You would think that." Paul shot back. Mrs. Devereaux was more stung by the words than she thought she would be. "It's Mike's hour of need and we abandoned him. I can guarantee he would not have done that to anyone of us, including you, Mrs. Devereaux. I consider him my brother and I walked away." Erin hugged him tightly but he gently pushed her away. He felt disgusted with himself.

"It's too late to turn around now Paul," Alex said practically.

"Survival is a powerful motivator," Joann told the group.

"Yes, but did we increase or decrease our odds when we left?" Paul asked.

The group drove on another fifteen minutes in utter silence before Alex started to gently apply the brakes.

Paul saw a white panel van up ahead on the side of the road. Alex pulled up alongside it. Paul hopped down from the truck and quickly realized his mistake. The van was still running. Paul put one foot on the running board, prepared to regain the safety of the cab if things went wrong.

"Stop right there, mister!" a voice shouted from the tree line.

Paul could almost feel the steel sights of a rifle press against the small of his back. Paul turned back around with his hands in the air.

"Put your arms down. I didn't say this was a stick up. Don't go reaching for anything though, this thing's liable to go off."

"What's going on?" April asked, unrolling the window.

A whistle of approval issued once again from the tree line. "Whoowee, you're traveling in some fine company," the disembodied voice shouted. The truck window immediately rolled up. "I haven't seen a live woman in weeks! Although some of the dead ones have been alright, bad manners though, always wanting to eat before dinner." A loud laugh ensued. "What are you doing in these parts? You weren't planning on taking my ride where you, because rudeness can get you killed."

Alex came around the front of the truck, rifle in hand.

"Not sure who invited you to the party," came the voice. "You're completely overdressed. Now put down the party favor before someone gets hurt."

"I'd rather not," Alex answered back shakily.

"Now I understand your hesitation, I really do, especially in these times. Nary a person you can trust, least of all some crazy bastard hiding in the woods. Seeing as I have a fully automatic machine pistol in my possession and that looks like a bolt action 30-30, I figure I can get off a good hundred or so rounds before you can do two. You don't really know where I am and you two are as clear as cable TV, so what say we start over?"

Alex laid his rifle on the ground and proceeded to put his hands over his head.

The laughing ensued. "Now like I told your friend. This isn't a stick up. I just want to make sure nobody gets hurt, 'specially me, if you get my meaning. Now first things first, is that girl you have with you of a legal age?"

"What?" Alex asked confused.

"The one that looked out the window, is she of an age to be legally wooed?"

"What?" Alex again. "What the hell is wooed?"

"Do I have to spell it out to you man! Some considered me a very dapper chap until of course they tried to eat all my vitals."

"This guy is nuts," Paul whispered to Alex.

"Yeah, and he has a directional microphone," came the voice from the woods.

"Wonderful," Paul sighed.

"I know, isn't it? Now seeing as it appears that you two wanted to pilfer my ride and that I am basically the law unto myself, I have two options."

There was a long pause.

"Umm, this is where you two are supposed to ask what the options are."

"Okay, I'll play," Paul said. "What are these options?"

"I can kill you where you stand." Paul and Alex tensed. "Damn near made you both piss your pants didn't I?" he cackled again.

"Fucking hilarious!" Paul yelled hoping that the increased volume hurt their captor's ears.

"Or you can let me come with you."

"Well, let's see." Alex said. "You kill us or we let you come with us. Hmm, let me think."

"Ah, not really funny Alex," Paul said, putting his hands back up in the air.

"Who are you?" Alex asked.

"Answer me first."

"Fine, you can come with us," Alex said.

"Great, I was starting to get a little lonely." It was tough to describe the man that walked out of the woods being that he was fully clothed in a gilly suit. (A specially designed camouflage for elite snipers.) "They call me Mad Jack. Well actually I call myself Mad Jack. I was going to go with Mad Max but that Mel fellow already used it and I wanted something unique."

"Is that a toy?" Paul asked, pointing at the red tipped 'machine pistol' Mad Jack was holding.

"It is most certainly not a toy!" Mad Jack said indignantly. "It shoots air soft pellets at 325 feet per second at the cyclical rate of 125 rounds per minute. It can cause quite the stinger if it hits a vital area."

"Crazy Jack might have been a better name," Alex said, grabbing his rifle off the ground.

"What are you doing out here Cra…I mean Mad Jack?" Paul asked.

"Had to take a piss, been drinking since the sun came up."

"With a directional microphone?" Alex asked.

"Oh yeah, let me get that." Mad Jack turned back around and went into the woods.

"He's friggen crazy, Paul. We should just get out of here."

"Still have my ear piece on!" Mad Jack yelled back from the woods.

"Just kidding," Alex replied.

Mad Jack came out of the woods with an impressive array of equipment. "I was a techie nerd. Worked for the State Department before the biters came. Been ransacking Radio Shacks ever since."

Now that the threat was over, Paul walked over to look in the van to see what wares Mad Jack might possess. "Holy shit!" Paul exclaimed.

Mad Jack looked down at the ground. "Yeah, I really like Schlitz."

"Must be twenty or thirty cases of the stuff."

"Thirty-two." Mad Jack answered.

"I'll ride with MJ," Paul said happily.

Alex walked up to Mad Jack just as he pulled off his headgear. He looked to be somewhere in his late twenties and as far as men go would be considered on the plus side of the good looking column. Not Brad Pitt but definitely better than Quasimodo. The relief in MJ's eyes was evident. He had been alone for a long time. They shook hands.

"What brings you out this way, Mad Jack?" Alex asked.

"Had an apartment in Kansas City before the city burned to the ground. Been on the road ever since. Seen some things that I can't unsee," he answered vacantly.

"That's the way of the world now," Paul answered, coming up to the duo. "Is that the only weapon you've been using?" Paul asked, pointing to the pellet gun.

"This thing is bad assed," Mad Jack said, plowing some rounds into the side of the tractor trailer. They bounced off hollowly. "See!" he said proudly.

"How?" Paul asked, shaking his head, meaning how had MJ survived so long.

After a few moments when the occupants of the truck realized that there was no immediate threat, they took the opportunity to stretch their legs and to meet the stranger.

Mad Jack could not keep his eyes off of April. She didn't seem to mind all that much but she remained guarded all the same.

"Oh, get a room." Mrs. Devereaux said, lighting a cigarette.

Mad Jack blushed.

"We really should get going," Marta said to Alex. Alex was inclined to agree. Standing in the open was an invitation for trouble.

"I'm glad you're letting me come with you," Mad Jack blurted out.

"Yeah, it's a good thing we said yes," Paul stated sarcastically. "It would have been a bitch treating all those red welts if you had opened fire."

"Which direction you headed?" Joann asked.

"Whichever way you are. I've only been wandering since I left home," MJ told her.

"Oh great, another mouth to feed for nothing," Mrs. Devereaux said.

"As opposed to all you bring to the table," April said sharply.

Paul would argue that they were both dead weight but he was not going to get in the middle of a catfight.

Mad Jack spoke up before things got really heated. "I know how to stop the zombies."

"That settles that. Let's get going," Alex said.

THE END…FOR NOW

BEFORE THE AFTERWORD - MIKE AND RON -

It was a typical fall night in New England, mid-40's and cool. Mike was enjoying the start of his sophomore year at the University of Massachusetts, which typically involved entirely too much partying and entirely too little studying. His roommate and best friend Paul was at a social function for his girlfriend Amy's Sorority house. Mike's girlfriend at the time, Jamie, had gone back home to North Attleboro for the weekend. As was typical, Mike's dorm room door was open and The Who was singing loudly about Joining the Band over the stereo.

"Mike! Mike! Turn that down."

Mike's face was buried in a Sports Illustrated and had not heard Peter Cables from the room two doors down. Pete actually had to grab Mike's shoulder before he realized that someone else was in the room.

"Hey Pete!" Mike yelled.

"You mind?" Pete asked heading to the stereo.

"No, go ahead," Mike said putting his magazine down.

With the volume down to a dull roar, a somewhat normal conversational tone could be taken. "Hey Mike what you got going on tonight?" Pete asked.

"Whole bunch of nothing. Paul's at some dance and my girl's gone home."

"Me, Brian and Dean are going to get an ounce of 'shrooms;' you want to go in on it?"

"I'm in!" Mike got up, closed up his room and went on over to Pete's room.

"Hey Mike," Dean said. "Want a beer?" he asked, opening up a mini fridge stuffed to the gills with Budweiser.

At that time, Mike wasn't nearly the beer snob then that he would grow up to be. "Sure, thanks."

After a few minutes, Pete returned with a baggie half full of mushrooms.

"Threw in a few for free." Pete said proudly.

"Sweet." Brian said.

Pete divided the piles into four somewhat even, lumpy approximations of each other. "Bon appétit," he said, grabbing his pile and shoving the whole mass into his mouth.

The grimace he made as he chewed them down attested to the fact of why people generally cook these in brownies. Considering they were living in a dorm and didn't have access to an oven, this would have to do.

Mike grabbed his pile and took a more manageable amount, chewing and swigging beer as he tried to wash the foul taste from his mouth. A little card playing and a beer or two later and the full effects of the psychedelics began to kick in. Mike began to feel that surreal detachment from reality. A ring of light pressure formed around his eyes. This was Mike's tell-tale sign he had crossed over into the realm of transcendentalism. The images on the playing cards began to take on mystic proportions and had no meaning whatsoever in the world of the sane.

"What game are we playing?" Mike asked Brian, who had completely broken out into riotous laughter.

"He doesn't even know what game we're playing," Brian said, grabbing his gut, tears streaking down his face. "Oh no!" Brian said alarmed. "Neither do I!" That got the whole room in stitches. Breathing was becoming difficult due to the excessive laughing.

For the next two hours Mike fluctuated between great introspection into the workings of the mind to pre-pubescent humor revolving around flatulence. Now that Mike contemplated the whole process, he thought tripping should actually be called 'skipping,' because that is what you did, you skipped from thought to thought.

Pete, in addition to being the person you should go to whenever you needed to get 'hooked up' drug wise, was also a fairly responsible young adult. He was one of three people on the entire floor who had not had his phone turned off yet. Thus, the knock on his door was not unexpected. Pete was a businessman and visitors were frequent. What was the surprise was who was at the door: Jenny Murphy. She was fodder for just about every wet dream in the building. That she lived on this floor was just bonus points. She was easily on every guy's short list for most attractive girl on campus. Sure, there were other beauties but she ranked high among them. At 5'7", jet black hair and riveting deep blue eyes, she was a vision.

The room which had been near raucous a moment before was now as silent as a convent at midnight.

"Hi Pete, can I use your phone?"

"Sure, come on in," the ever affable Pete told her.

She scanned the room looking at all of the occupants. As her gaze swept past Mike, he hoped that she couldn't read his mind full of all the lascivious fantasies that he had ever thought regarding her. The more he dwelled on it, the more convinced he was that she could do just that. Like his head was an open porno magazine and she was the centerfold looking out at him.

Jenny sat down on the couch next to Mike, the phone on the table next to her. Four guys tried their best to pretend not only that they weren't four and a half sheets to the wind but also that they weren't looking at her. It did not go very well.

Jenny got on the phone with her mother. "Hi Mom, yeah, everything is fine. I went down to WBCK today. Yeah, of course I applied for the internship." Jenny was now becoming self conscious that there was no other conversation going on in the room.

Mike, meanwhile, not having an outlet for his tripping mind, began to dive deeper and deeper into the hidden recesses of his mind, much like Alice down the rabbit hole. It was so dark and lonely in there. This was the point at which Mike realized that he had taken too strong a dose. That was the problem with mushrooms. There was no viable way to tell just how much one had taken. Sometimes one mushroom could send someone half way into orbit; at other times it could take half a bag for the same results. This seemed to be more of the former. Mike was concentrating so hard on not making an ass of himself in front of this goddess, he slipped. Holding his racing mind in check was like trying to hold a charging buffalo back with thread.

Jenny looked over at Mike. A look of horror and disgust appeared on her face as she spoke into the handset. "Mom, I've got to go," she said, hanging the phone up abruptly and quickly thanking Pete before she exited the room.

A foot long thread of drool hung from Mike's mouth and was pooling in his lap. The laughter from Pete, Brian and Dean as she left was good-natured, but it was way too late for Mike. His trip had soured. He made some excuse about going to the bathroom and never looked back. Mike was in a panic and he didn't know where to turn. He thought about going back to his room but was fearful that Pete would find him there. Mike hit the elevator button, praying to a God he didn't believe in to please make sure nobody else was in there. Having to share that tiny confined space with another human could send him over the precarious edge he was already barely holding onto.

For not being real, God really came through, the twenty-one story ride was externally completely uneventful. That all changed of course when you entered into the hyper-active over-imaginative super speed neuron firing brain of Michael Talbot. Sounds began to echo. Every time Mike moved his head, tracers formed in his vision. His sneakers sounded like tap shoes on the hard slate tiled lobby floor of his dorm.

"Outside, outside," he whispered to himself. Two co-eds walked past him giggling. Mike knew they knew he was messed up. It was easy to tell when someone was tripping. Their pupils were generally the size of small saucers. The laughs bounced around the edges of his mind. As he stepped outside the bracing breeze helped to reel his awareness in, but only temporarily. The tree-lined street he was on usually gave him comfort, reminding him of his boyhood home, but now the trees loomed ominously, their branches seeking to snatch and tear at the unsuspecting. The hallucinatory doubling of all imagery only added to the illusion.

Mike was damn near in a panic by the time he got to the massive student parking lot off of the south fields. Even in this state, Mike knew that he had had entirely too much to drink (and eat for that matter) to drive but the comfort of getting to his car could be just what he needed to turn this bad ride around. His 1976 Plymouth Fury looked like heaven, all in white resplendent with a red roof and red trim. He almost kissed the seat as he got in. Mike, however, was fearful to put the key in the ignition in case some extremely bad timing brought the campus police out to this deserted location. Mike would get a DUI for merely sitting there with the ignition on. If he went to jail in this state he'd never get his mind back.

"So much for putting music on," Mike said with a shiver.

For a minute all was well within, but like a mouse that burrows a hole through the sidewall of a house, stray thoughts began to first leak out and then chip through the wall Mike had erected. Structural damage ensued. Mike's meager defenses crashed in around him, and just as fast as he got in he got out. Mike took long breaths, believing that he had not been able to get enough air inside the car.

Mike found himself in a huge parking lot surrounded by cars, any one of which could be hiding a 7-foot clown with white face paint and a machete. The gravel he walked on was so loud he could barely think. He didn't realize, that was a good thing. Mike's heart was racing as he kept his head down, fearful to look at the trees. They were moving but it had more to do with the wind than Mike's bad perception. That mattered little at this point.

Back onto the slate tile of the lobby, thank God for muscle memory. He pulled his student ID out of his pocket and showed it to the security guard who took a cursory glance. Security was composed of students who would much rather be having a good time than any type of officiating, but money is money.

Mike got to the elevators where three other students waited. "Can't do it," he muttered, and immediately went into the stairwell. He soon realized the error of his ways as the echoes his psychosis was producing in that enclosed cement area now had their own echoes. Twenty-one flights up he went. The smell of sweaty fear pervaded his entire being. He poked his head out the door hoping nobody would be in the hallway. He rushed to his door and fumbled with the keys, happy to be back in his room without getting caught.

"Okay, its midnight now, when will Paul be back, he can get me down." The reality was that Paul wouldn't be coming home tonight, he was already in bed with his girlfriend and wouldn't be leaving those confines until sometime around lunch the next day.

Mike waited three minutes, almost an eternity when your brain was racing forty-two times its normal pace. "Okay, so how mad would Jamie's parents get if I called right now?" Mike had met Jamie's parents a few times already. They were alright, maybe a little stuck up but for the most part decent. The reality was they couldn't stand Mike. They were of the Blue Blood variety, old New England money, and could not see what their daughter saw in this working class man, a common laborer at that. Mike would have called Jamie's home but he didn't think he could handle the 20-second conversation with her parents it would take to get her on the phone.

Mike huddled up in the corner of his bed, arms wrapped around his legs, one dim light on. "I don't know how long I can do this," he told himself as he rocked back and forth.

THE PAST

Put quite simply because Mike's mother had told him so, he was a mistake. Mike had three older brothers and an older sister. His brother Ron, who was fifteen years his senior, was almost a generation past Mike. Not too many teenage boys want anything at all to do with a gurgling smelly infant, and with a sister as a buffer, Ron never found himself in the position of babysitter. The years went past, and Mike's early remembrances of his brother were few. He was basically some guy that stopped by to do his laundry while he attended college. Now there was no physical distance in the relationship, just the distance caused by the difference in age. They loved each other as brothers do, but there also was no closeness, no bond, beyond the normal family ties. That gap only seemed to widen as Mike came into his formative teenage years, and Ron was already married and fast tracking in the corporate world. They were brothers and nothing more. That would all change in Mike's sophomore year.

BACK TO THE PRESENT

Mike was quickly running out of options and sanity. He picked up his phone, hopeful that no one was on the other line, more specifically the girl that lived in the dorm below him. Mike and Paul were not part of the trio of responsible students on that floor that had paid their phone bill. Mike knew just enough to be dangerous; he had unscrewed the phone jack and spliced into another set of phone wires until he had found a pair that worked. It wasn't the optimum scenario and they had nearly gotten busted a couple of times, but they always informed whoever they were calling that they might need to hang up abruptly and to not talk to the 'crazy chick' that got on the other line. Mike's parents were a little dubious but they let it go. Ma Bell would catch on eventually but tonight they still had service.

"Hello." A groggy, just woken up voice responded.

"Uh…uh…hi, Nancy, is Ron there?"

"He's sleeping Mike, it's late."

"So he's there?" Mike asked desperately. The lifeline had been thrown overboard, now he had to hope someone grabbed it or he might be adrift for a long time. Mike heard some fumbling with the phone being handed over and then someone, probably Nancy, getting out of bed.

"Mike?" Ron started it as a question. The last time Mike had called Ron, scratch that, Mike never called Ron. They just weren't on each other's life radar except around the holidays and Christmas was still two months away.

Mike was going to start with some chitchat but he didn't think he could pull it off, not this incapacitated. "Ron, I'm in some trouble."

Mike could hear Ron sit up, his cobwebs of sleep quickly dusted away. "I'm listening," Ron said.

For the next forty-five minutes Mike proceeded to tell him everything that had happened that night, from the mushrooms to the hot girl, to the drool, to the evil trees and the walk up the stairwell, finishing up with his now hiding out in his room. Ron patiently listened to his baby brother rattle off a tale of a bad trip, offering words of encouragement along the way. "Just stay in your room, Mike. It will be over in a few hours."

"Will I be the same? Will I be sane?"

Ron laughed. Mike instantly felt at ease. "You'll be fine and even a little wiser for the wear."

"Ron, thank you," Mike was nearly in tears. "I didn't think I was going to make it there for a while."

"You weren't planning on doing anything stupid, were you?" Ron asked with concern.

"No, nothing like that, I just, I've just never felt this way. I am completely fucked up."

"Good night, Mike."

"Good night Ron, thank you."

"Any time."

'Any time' ended up being twenty-eight and a half minutes later. "Hello," came Nancy's voice again. To her credit there was not a hint of menace.

"Uh hi, Nancy, is Ron there?"

"Ron..." Nancy said, handing the phone to him.

"Hey Mike," Ron said. "What's up?"

"Still fucked up," Mike told him.

This time it only took a half hour to get Mike away from the abyss of despair.

"You alright this time?"

"Yeah, I think I'm over the hard part."

"You call me if you need anything, you understand?"

"I'm okay now, I think."

"Alright then, good night again Mike."

"Good night, Ron." Mike did feel better. It only took one more call before Mike was back onto fairly even ground. He would not sleep at all that night and when Paul showed up the next afternoon he found Mike sitting on the mattress, his back up against the wall.

"Holy crap, roomie, you look like shit!' Paul exclaimed.

"Yeah, but I feel much better than I look."

And that was it. It was that act of kindness alone that pushed Ron from distant brother to trusted friend. The bond had only intensified as the years went past. Mike could think of no place he would rather be when the walls of Little Turtle fell than at his brother's side.

AFTERWORD (OR AFTERTHOUGHT) - JOURNAL ENTRY 31 -

Almost decided not to put this in my journal but once I figured I was going to I had no room so I put it here at the end.

So when I was sitting in the hospital at Camp Custer (obviously before Eliza came a calling) doing my best to not go insane, strapped to a bed because apparently I'm a bad patient, this assh…, I mean guy comes up to me, says he found my first journal. I almost shit myself, which given the circumstances wouldn't have been a memory worthy incident. I'll relate how the encounter went.

Just so you know, I was almost asleep at the time when the guy grabbed my foot.

"Hey are you Mitchell Tulbert?"

"What?" I asked coming out of a drug induced stupor.

"Mitchell Tulbert, are you him?"

Now normally I won't give my name to anyone who didn't know me, it's that whole paranoia thing. But I was pretty heavily morphined up and I didn't have all my faculties. "I'm Michael Talbot."

"Yeah that's what I meant. I've been looking for you."

Now it's never good news when someone you don't know is looking for you, it usually revolves around a warrant.

"Are you from the IRS? Fast Tax said that I could claim any kids under the age of 18 living in my household and Henry is as much one of my kids as any of them. I mean he never talks back, hardly ever complains. Sure, he smells like wet garbage sometimes but that's sort of his appeal."

Assh… I mean Guy says, "No, I'm not from the IRS. You have a kid that smells like wet garbage?"

"Long story," I told him and would have waved an arm to disperse my words if I wasn't restrained.

"No, I was foraging for some food out in Colorado, in a place called Little Turtle. Not much left except one row of housing and the sign to the complex."

My heart at this point is thudding in my chest.

"Gotta admit man, coming across your place saved my life. We were running out of everything, food, clothes you name it. So I'm rummaging around in what I guess was your office."

Why do I feel violated?

"Sure did have a lot of Red Sox stuff, was a Philly fan myself."

"Of course you were," I said, urging him to keep talking.

He looked at me sideways and then kept going. "Man, you had more MRE's than we could carry. Sat there for a week fattening up on them. I looked over your books too. You had a lot of zombie fiction, wasn't really in the mood to read any more about them."

Couldn't blame him there at all.

"Then I come across your journal. That was some informative stuff. You sure did have a lot of grammatical errors and what not."

"You do realize it was a journal right?" I asked him, and he nodded in reply.

"Yeah but it even looked like you made up some words."

"I'm sorry Ass… I mean Guy. I was struggling to survive at the time. I was just trying to get a point across anyway I could. Didn't really have access to a dictionary or a thesaurus."

"Yeah, but couldn't you have cleaned it up a bit?"

"Dude, what are you, an English professor? Don't read it if it upsets your delicate constitution. Just give me the damn thing will you!"

He looked down at his feet. "Sorry, I can't."

I was boring holes through his head with my eyes.

"We used it for kindling somewhere outside of Kansas."

"So how the hell did you track me down and for what fucking reason? To let me know I might have used 'there' instead of 'their' or I used one too many commas? Do you see a tweed sweater with leather patches on my elbows?" I was pretty much screaming at this point.

BT moved his privacy curtain over and eyed the man. "Talbot, you want me to kick his ass?" he said menacingly.

Douche…, I mean Assh ..., I mean Guy backed up, having got a full look at BT.

"No, he's fine. As soon as he clarifies a couple of things he's leaving on his own."

Guy again looked over nervously at BT. Even in traction the big dude could impose fear in a badger.

"Well…well, um your journal said you would be going back east and when I ran into this place (meaning the base) I thought that maybe you might also be here, so I started asking around."

"Wow, now isn't that just my luck. Tracked down by a critic," I said, and BT laughed.

"He's giving you shit about what you wrote in a private journal? What an ass," BT echoed.

"You'd think I was charging him," I said. BT and I both started laughing like loons. The guy left in a huff sometime during our outburst.

If you find this journal could you please not use it for kindling I would greatly appreciate it.