The End Has Come and Gone

The Group

The congratulations and celebrations were brief, mostly out of necessity but partly because I didn’t much feel like it. I had just crushed a man’s skull with my boot. I had trained for it a hundred times in the Marine Corps but had never actually done it. I don’t think I’d ever get over that sensation of the initial impact as my leg shimmied ever so slightly as my heel came in contact with his bone. The impact as his body first resisted and then accepted, from hard outer shell to soft meat. I can say it was Durgan for the rest of my life, but it was still one of the most singular disgusting things I had ever done. Why am I still feeling guilt? I don’t have a soul to stain.

If I thought Marta didn’t like me before, now it was personal. She was yelling at Alex just because he wanted to come over and talk to me. I really couldn’t blame her. I didn’t really want to be with myself just now.

“So what now?” Brian asked me.

“I’m going home,” I told him as I walked away.

“He wants to know if there’s room,” Cindy clarified.

“Cindy, I don’t know if that’s what I want to do,” Perla said. “I mean, if we had never come across them, Jack would still be alive.” She started to cry again.

“Mike, I cannot thank you enough for what you sacrificed and what you have done,” Alex said as he finally broke free from Marta.

“I did what I had to do,” I told him.

“No Mike, you went above and beyond what you had to do. I will never forget this, my friend,” Alex said, his eyes watering.

“I can’t see man tears right now Alex. Please tell me you just sat on your keys or something.”

Alex quickly wiped any evidence away, but the red-rimmed eyes told a different story.

“Mike, we’re not coming with you,” Alex said sadly.

I didn’t need psychic powers to see that coming. Marta was about twenty feet away going ballistic that he was even in my presence. I really wanted to look in a mirror to see if I had sprouted horns or something, maybe my skin was beginning to look brick oven red. I don’t think my feet were becoming cloven, but I couldn’t really see them and I wasn’t touching my right boot any time soon, gray-black matter still clung to them in wet clumps. I was trailing pieces of Durgan’s memories behind me.

Mrs. Deneaux came up and handed me another cigarette which I gratefully took. “I think maybe I’ll ride the rest of this out with you,” she said in her smoke ravaged voice.

My luck was getting better and better!

BT grabbed my shoulders and steered me away from the crowd. “How you doing my man?” he asked, truly concerned

“How does ‘stepped on crap’ sound?” I asked him.

“A lot like Durgan,” he said with a small laugh.

“Man, I didn’t even mean it like that. I guess I walked into that.”

“Literally.”

“This is supposed to be a serious talk, isn’t it.”

“I’m sorry, I’m still pretty hopped up,” he said looking down at me. “So, the original question still stands.”

“Pretty scared, big man. Everything I did I always weighed against how it would fly when I finally got to the Gates. Now I don’t have to answer to anyone. Nobody should have that kind of power, least of all me.”

BT was nodding his head. “Mike, you have the hardest person of all to answer to,” he paused. “Yourself. I’ve never come across another person who tried so hard (and mostly succeeded) to do the right thing in every situation. Don’t worry about what the future may or may not hold, you did what you needed to do right now.”

“Thanks man,” I told him.

“You’re going to be all right, Mike,” he assured me.

I had my doubts, but I nodded at the appropriate time.

“Whenever you’re ready to roll, we’ll get going,” BT said.

“Do you believe in the eternal soul?” Mad Jack asked me curiously.

Where the hell he came from I wasn’t sure.

“I believe,” I told him, not sure if this was the conversation I wanted to have right now.

“Because if you don’t, then nothing could have been taken from you. I wish we had weighed you before and after Tomas bit you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked him testily.

“Well, I’ve read studies that the human soul has a tangibility to it. It can be measured and weighed on a scale.”

“Would that have confirmed anything for you?” I asked.

“Well, there could be a myriad of other factors. Loss of blood, passage of gas, a bug alighting from your body, wind pushing down.”

“So you wouldn’t have believed even with evidence,” I told him.

“I’m just saying it would have been interesting to say the least, and would have required more study.”

“Listen, I don’t really know you and I don’t want to have to test out just how hard I can hit right now.” He flinched. “So I’m going to be very specific. I’ve been there, twice as a matter of fact. It’s more real to me than this thing we call reality, and I would trade this life a thousand times to just stand in those fields once more.”

“Did you travel through a tunnel?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Studies have shown…”

“Get away from me,” I told him, which he thankfully did.

“Mike, I can’t tell you how bad I feel that we ever left you in the first place,” Paul said. Erin was nodding behind him.

All I wanted to do was go see my family. This was like running the gauntlet.

“Buddy, you just wanted to see your family. I completely understand that. And that’s exactly what I want to do,” as I pointed over towards mine.

He nodded.

I walked over to where Tracy and the kids were (including Henry). Henry looked up at me funny. He knew something was different, but at least he didn’t run away. I would have lost it if he had done that.

“You look like hell, Talbot,” Tracy said as she stroked my cheek. I bowed my face down lower, the human contact felt so warm.

Justin came over to give me a hug. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

He had had a taste of what I was in for and felt deeply for it. Like I needed any more reasons to love my kids.

“How’s it feel Dad?” Travis asked.

“Empty, son, empty.’

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO – Talbot Journal Entry 17