The End Has Come and Gone

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE – Tracy and BT

BT was looking at the grass causeway as Tracy hurtled down I-95. He barely registered the spike strips as they passed by his field of vision.

"Zombies,” Tracy said flatly a few minutes later.

BT pulled his field of vision in and looked straight ahead. Thirty or so zombies were running full tilt down the highway in the same direction. They nearly took up the entire width of the roadway. Tracy slowed the car down.

"Whatcha doing, Auntie?" Meredith asked.

"Was thinking of going over the grass and just avoiding them,” Tracy responded.

"Do you think they're following Mike? We could be pretty close,” BT said.

"We could roll on up on them and ask,” Meredith grinned.

"I hate Talbots,” BT murmured under his breath.

"There's no reason to fight them, right?" Tracy asked.

"Besides ridding the world of them, no, not right now anyway,” BT answered her.

Tracy drove over the grass in the median, the car bouncing around on the rough ground.

"I like where God put my kidneys, woman,” BT said, bracing himself with one hand on the roof and one on the door.

"He really is kind of a big baby, isn’t he Auntie?" Meredith asked, needling BT.

Tracy laughed as she got to the edge of the roadway and looked both ways for traffic before she pulled out.

"Don’t say it BT,” Tracy said pointing her finger at him, “It's a habit!"

“How many times have you crossed a highway median?” BT asked.

The zombies turned as one when they heard Tracy's car coming down the roadway. Without hesitation they began to run directly at her.

"Good thing they don’t have the concept of cutting us off or this would be close,” BT said, once again bracing himself.

The zombies were running to where the car was, not where it was going to be. They had to keep readjusting their trajectory as Tracy pressed even harder down on the accelerator, the zombies were losing crucial fragments of time during each repositioning. Tracy blew past them somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 mph. The zombies fell back in line, full on sprinting after their retreating prey.

"I hate zombies Tracy, I really do, but you know what scares me more?" BT asked a leading question.

Tracy turned to look, full seconds elapsing as she waited for a response. Icy beads of sweat fell from BT's forehead.

"You driving at high speed, dammit , look at the road!" BT yelled as he kept pumping on brakes that he did not have access to.

Tracy turned back to the roadway, and then looked at her instrument panel. “ Wow , I had no idea I was going that fast.” "We did, Auntie,” Meredith said, clutching on to the seatbelt.

"I'm not that bad of a driver,” Tracy said grumpily, looking into the rear view mirror.

"Please, I'm so young,” Meredith pleaded. “I've always wanted to have a family of my own.” "Oh for goodness sakes,” Tracy said as she eased up on the accelerator. “Bunch of babies. I'm going to get back onto the other side unless there are some complaints from the peanut gallery.” "No, we're good now,” BT croaked as they approached a more respectable 70 miles per hour.

Once Tracy had crossed back over she crept the car back up to close to 80 miles per hour. She knew she was close to Mike; she could damn near smell the sanitizer.

"I think I saw a glint,” BT said pointing straight ahead.

Tracy flooded the engine with gas.

"This doesn't mean you need to speed up,” BT said in all seriousness, “We don’t know what we're heading into.” "Oh come on BT, I can almost smell rubbing alcohol and bleach. It has to be Mike,” Tracy said, her heart thumping wildly in her chest.

"I think I smell it too,” Meredith sniffed as she stuck her head out the window.

BT shook his head. “Listen, you're already gaining on them… him.” He changed the word when Tracy looked over at him glaringly. “Let's just make sure we don’t plow into him, that's all I'm saying. You're not listening to a word I say, are you?"

"You still talking?" Tracy asked.

"You weren't born a Talbot, what happened to you?" BT asked her.

"It must be infectious.”

"Great, when can I expect the conversion?"

"Oh, it's already deep into your bones by now, big man, won’t be long at all,” Tracy told him cheerfully.

BT absently scratched his arms. “Feels like I've got spiders crawling on me.”

"In, not on,” Meredith added helpfully.

"There are people in the truck bed,” Tracy said as she shielded her eyes.

BT grabbed his rifle.

"Is that Dad's truck?" Meredith asked, peering over the front seat.

Tracy took a moment to respond. "It's the same color, that's all I can really tell from here.” "Mike's not really one for picking up passengers,” BT said, really only as a pronouncement and not a query.

"We still don’t know if that's the right truck yet, so let's try not to adopt Mike's philosophy of riddle with bullets first and then solve the puzzle.”

Brian tapped on the window. “We've got company.”

"Yeah, I saw them a few seconds ago,” I told him.

"You want us to light them up!" Cindy asked excitedly.

"Don’t they have medication for that condition?" I asked. Thankfully the buffeting wind knocked my response clear from her ears.

"Did he say 'Yes?’" Cindy asked Brian as she started to check her magazine.

Perla popped her head up. “What's going on?"

Cindy pointed to the approaching car, rapidly gaining on the truck.

"Well it looks like we've been noticed,” BT grimaced.

"They're pointing weapons at us,” Tracy said as she eased up on the gas.

"No shooting!" I yelled.

"No offense Mike,” Brian said, "but I'm feeling mighty exposed sitting here in the back of a truck.” "This doesn't feel right, Mike,” Gary said. “We can’t just go blasting folks because we have a 'funny feeling.'"

"Agreed, big brother.” I began to slow the truck down.

"What's the plan?" Brian asked poking his head in.

"I'm going to pull over. You guys jump out and use the truck body as cover, no firing until we are fired upon. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough,” Brian agreed.

"Tracy, I see brake lights. You should slow down, they’ll be able to hammer the hell out of us if we drive by them,” BT said with a little alarm, remembering the last time they had gotten into a broadside attack with a truck full of errant rednecks. His leg twinged in sympathy.

Tracy mirrored the truck in front of her, as it slowed so did she. When it came to a stop she was moments away from stopping herself. “Now what BT?" Tracy glanced over at him.

"Foh!" Cindy yelled. “That is the biggest man I have ever seen in my life!"

I was busy checking my magazines when Cindy's exclamation sank in. “What color?" I asked sharply, bringing my head up. “And what the hell does ‘foh’ mean?” Cindy swiveled her head to look at me like I had asked her if she wanted fries with that. “It’s Shakespearean.” “Oh, okay that explains everything.” I answered.

"Mike,” Jack said, "He's big, black, and he's walking this way. Looks like he’s carrying a Browning Fully Automatic but it looks like a matchstick in his arms. He opens up on us with that thing and we're in trouble.” "Where did BT get a Browning?" Gary asked .

“Ron held out on us.” I wanted to cuss heatedly.

"BT?" I threw my gun back in the cab and started to jog towards the small car stopped behind us. I could see the big man grin as I approached.

I heard Perla ask Jack why they had hooked up with a crazy man. I laughed and picked up my pace. I almost tripped and fell to my knees when Tracy came out of the driver's seat. BT was an unimaginable surprise, but when my beloved showed too it was almost more than I could bear. Now I know it had only been a span of a couple of days since I had last seen Tracy, but you've got to remember I truly believed in the depths of my heart I had said my final goodbye to the woman I shared the deepest connection with on this world. I faltered before once again gaining momentum.

I looked over at BT with a huge grin as I ran past and swept my wife up into my arms. I spun her around once, still too caught up in the moment to give her any crap about following us. I put her down and kissed her once. Then I turned to embrace BT in a hug and I was met with a fist roughly the size of a half ham. I crashed to the deck before my body could even begin to register the oncoming rush of pain.

BT was standing over my prone body, finger roughly the size of a Johnsonville Sausage pointing in my face. “You ever leave me with your crazy ass family again and it will be hours before you're able to get your ass up off the ground.” "BT!" Tracy yelled.

I put my hand up, “It's all right, I deserved that.” BT grabbed my hand and hoisted me up.

"Good to see you man,” BT said grabbing me tight.

There was something comforting about being embraced in steel cabling.

"Mike, everything all right?" Brian asked breathlessly as he and Perla came running up with weapons at the ready.

"Who are these fools?" BT asked, letting me go.

"Replacement friends,” I told him. He looked down on me with a frown. “They don’t punch me.” "Come on, I barely touched you,” BT groused.

"And yet I found myself on the ground,” I told him.

"Not my damn fault you didn’t like your greens when you were growing up.”

"You know not everyone had their collard greens infused with Human Growth Hormones.”

"What can I say? My momma loved me.”

Brian pulled up a little short when he got closer. I think that was the only way he could get all of BT in his field of vision. “Mike?" he asked cautiously.

I rubbed my jaw. Eating anything with more chew to it than peas for the next few days was going to be a chore. “BT, this is Brian Wamsley, another military man.” "Oh for the love of God, where do they all come from, do they breed them with rabbits?” BT said.

"Nice to meet you too,” Brian said.

"Oh it's nothing against you personally, it's just that recently I have found Marines to be the least likely to think before they act and that always leads to trouble. This shi tbird here has been trying to get me killed for the last four months. And when he couldn’t succeed, he left me with his clinically insane family to see if they could push me over the edge to do myself in,” "I wasn’t in the military,” Perla said smiling. "So I should be okay,” as she came up to shake BT's hand.

"Yeah, but you’re hanging out with them so it's crazy by proxy,” BT told her.

"Don’t listen to him, he's this friendly with everyone,” Tracy told Perla and Brian.

"Hey, Uncle Mike,” Meredith said diffidently; she had been standing behind BT and I had missed her completely.

"Oh no, there is no way your dad knew you were coming. I am so screwed!"

"Glad to see you too!" she cried back.

"No, no, that's not what I meant.”

"See, this is what I'm talking about, typical Marine. Screw up first and then try to correct later,” BT threw into the mix. I pointed a mean looking finger at BT. “Get that straw outta my face, what are you gonna do, make me a milkshake?"

"Meredith no, it’s awesome to see you. It's just that this isn’t like a family reunion-type setting, it's pretty crappy out here.” She didn’t seem appeased. “I think I have a pretty good idea of how bad it is out here, we were all almost killed a couple of times,” she blurted out.

Tracy was holding up her hands trying to hold back the flood of words as Meredith graphically and in rich detail laid out all the events of the last few days. I thought Perla was going to collapse.

Unfortunately it seemed an all too standard relating of unfolding events to me. That it happened to my wife, niece and closest friend while I was not there to help almost made my rail-running heartbeat slide off the tracks. I was about to lay into Tracy about why she had put herself and everyone else in danger by coming back when she stopped me dead in my tracks with her next words.

"I wasn't ready to say goodbye.”

What do you say to that? What can you possibly say that doesn’t make you sound like a big asshole?

"I, uh, yeah, we should probably get going, looks like a storm is brewing.”

"One more thing Mike,” Tracy said as she opened her door. My fat bottomed fawn colored Henry came padding out from her side of the car. His huge tongue was lolling as he ran to me, oversized jowls flapping in the wind like the useless wings on a dodo bird.

"No way!" I said as I nearly cried, dropping to my knees. Henry bowled me over like I was a lone bowling pin and he was going for a spare. Drool coated me from goatee to my forehead, and I loved every gross part of it!

As Tracy got into the car and they got rolling again, BT looked over at her and laughed. “Wow, you hit harder than I do.” "Damn Aunt Tracy, I will never underestimate you, you rock!" Meredith told her.

"How hard did you hit him?" Tracy asked with her own smile.

"Oh, I smacked the hell out of him,” BT laughed.

They drove up to where the pick-up was parked so that brief introductions could be made and Tracy could give and get hugs from her boys. Mike still seemed to be reeling, whether from the physical blow or the psychological one, she didn’t know.

Perla and Cindy got into Tracy's car. Our next stop was going to be the very next exit where we would find some sort of transportation for Brian, Jack and the women. First off so they could get out of the rain that was about to hit, and second it would be yet another opportunity for them to go their own way. I had my doubts they would do so, but it would ease my conscience. I had yet to disclose everything so they were not making a completely informed decision.

We had no sooner pulled off the highway and there were a couple of fast food joints. Oh for some onion rings. And a boot outlet store with ten or so cars and trucks in the lot. Brian motioned for me to go in there.

When I pulled in I got out of the truck. Tracy pulled in behind, my heart still tripping at the sight of her. “You know how to hot wire a car?" I asked Brian.

"No, but Jack's got an idea,” he told me vaguely.

Jack walked up to the doors of the boot store and when they didn’t open he gave them a .223 caliber reason to do so. The shattering glass rivaled the percussions of the bullets.

"Army men!" BT said exasperatedly. “Do they remove the brain stem BEFORE or AFTER boot camp?” "During,” Brian replied.

Jack's boots crunched over the smashed glass. “Hostiles!" he yelled. He motioned with his free hand first five and then another three.

Within seconds Travis, Justin, myself, BT, Brian, Cindy and Perla had him completely flanked. He backed up to be within our firing line as opposed to being in front. We stayed about fifteen feet from the front of the store and then they came, a worse looking lot of zombies we would have had a difficult time finding. Flesh was sloughing off their faces; the putrid smell of feces and decomposition wafted from the store. Perla took a moment to put her stomach into check, but everyone else stood firm.

The first zombie out was a girl maybe in her early twenties. Her green tinged skin made age identification an impossibly difficult feat, it had more to do with her clothing. She had on a sun dress, a leather jacket and boots. I think it was Cindy who took the first shot, drilled her right in the head, most likely more for the fashion infringement than for being a zombie.

Two or three employees came out next. This was easy to tell from their Smacker's Boots and Belts smocks. Two cowboys came out, big brass belt buckles and all, how the hell they still had their ten gallon hats on amazed me. Listen, I know I have issues and if the world is ever once again dominated by humans I promise I will be the first to get in line to get checked. But all I could think when those two came through the door was Brokeback Mountain and how damn disgusting would it be for two zombies to be getting it on. Would maggots make good lubrication? Would the friction cause the skin to peel off? Would 'love bites' take on a whole new meaning? Would the other zombies frown on a male on male relationship? I know brains are just a mixture of chemicals and connections, but apparently I'm missing a synapses or two.

"What are you smiling at?" Cindy asked me as she placed another magazine into her Israeli made Uzi.

"It would be best if I kept it to myself,” I told her, never easing up on my grin.

"Cease fire,” Brian said, holding up his fist.

Would be easy enough for me, I don’t think I ever fired a shot.

Jack walked over and started checking the bodies for keys. Eight dead bodies and five sets of keys, pretty good plan I thought.

The blue Mini-Cooper would have been my first choice in a perfect world. A 78ish Datsun that looked like it was barely able to hold off the effects of gravity was also dismissed. The best out of the lot available was a late year Chevy, it wasn't pretty but it ran, had close to a full tank and would fit them all comfortably enough.

"Alright, this looks like the one,” Jack decided.

"Ready to saddle up Mike?" Brian asked me.

"Alright, so now you've got your own wheels and you're not in as much dire straits that you need to forcibly take my traveling direction . I think we need to take a minute so I can fill in a few holes to the story I told you. Then you can make an informed decision about whether you want to join us or head as far away in the opposite direction as possible.” "Lay it on us,” Brian said, truly not believing that I could offer anything too far off the beaten path as to dissuade them from their present course of action.

I went back to Day One and our first introduction to Tommy, who even then seemed more than he portrayed. To our first encounter with Eliza in the field and to my biggest mistake for not letting Justin blow her demented skull clear from her tainted body.

'It's all right Dad,' he interjected.

I gave them a recap of everything we had been through. It still wasn't the in-depth exposé they deserved, but the clouds that had been threatening all day finally began to release their loads and I still had a sneaking suspicion that Paul and Alex needed our help and soon.

"Wait,” Perla asked. “So you’re saying that not only are there zombies, there is a Vampire Princess who rules them all?” "I'm pretty sure I never said the word ‘princess’ but yeah, she holds sway over them. I don’t know if it's every zombie or if she has to be within a certain proximity, but that she can control some of them is without doubt.” "So I'm confused,” Cindy started. “The kid from the Wal-Mart roof was, I mean 'is' her brother, and now he's with her? Couldn't you tell?"

"It's not like he hung a sign on his neck that said he was a 500-year-old half vampire,” I told her.

"I'm having a real hard time believing this,” Jack said.

"Yup, you nailed me, the zombie invasion wasn't a big enough challenge for me and my family. We figured we'd drum up a few more nightmares and see if that could hold our interest.” "That's not what I meant,” Jack said placating me. “I'm wondering if you're trying to get rid of us.” "Truth is, guys, I would never turn away any help, least of all experienced ones, but you need to know what you’re getting into.” "Cindy?" Brian asked, she nodded. “Cindy and I are in.”

Perla nodded without any prompt. “So are we,” Jack said.

"Well see, this is where you guys, not thinking before you act actually worked out in our favor,” BT said.

Three exits later and we were pulling off the highway again. I had no sooner hit the off ramp when I brought the truck to a skittering halt. Tracy, her usually attentive driving self, almost slammed into us.

"You didn’t tell me you were going to stop!" she shouted irately as she got out of the car.

"Hon, those red shiny things in the back let you know what I'm doing,” I told her calmly.

"Mike, any chance I could ride with you?" an ashy faced BT asked.

"Traitor!" Tracy yelled at him.

"There is nothing wrong with being a self-preservationist,” he said loftily.

Brian came to a stop and our small caravan idled by the side of the road. “What gives?" he asked.

I walked over to the guardrail. Because of our elevation from the outlying areas it afforded us a decent view of the shops below, one of which was a furniture store.

"Oh my God!" Perla gasped, placing her hand over her mouth.

"That would obviously be where we need to go?" Jack asked me.

I nodded once. The warehouse parking lot was entombed by the living dead. I hadn’t seen this great an assembly since the fall of Little Turtle.

"What the hell Mike?" Tracy asked in disbelief.

"They're already dead,” Brian said absently.

"Alex risked his entire world to save my family, I owe him the same chance. He did no such thing for you. You don’t know him and you barely know me, you’re not under an y obligation to stay here.” "Relax friend,” Brian said. “I wasn't saying it as an out. It just was kind of a voiced thought.” “Oh,” I nodded. “I could relate to those.”

I blasted off a couple of rounds, not sure if the sound would break through the distance or the dampening effects of the rain, but maybe it would give them a small measure of hope that help, no matter how little of it there was, had arrived.

"Alright, it's almost dark and it's raining like hell. Why don’t we find some shelter and see if we can come up with some sort of plan,” Gary said, momentarily taking charge. I appreciated it because the scene laid out before me looked like something from Dante's circles of hell and I had yet to assimilate it all.

Paul was exhausted after what seemed like his fiftieth time up and down the stairs. They had brought mattresses and chairs. Anything that resembled a tarp, all the contents of the vending machine and anything that could help them wait out an extended stay on an exposed roof top. It was on one of the last trips up the stairs that Paul began to ponder this last strategic weak point.

The stairs weren't going anywhere; they were constructed of a giant poured block of concrete. The railing, however, was only attached with hex head bolts. Removing the railing wouldn’t necessarily keep the zombies from making it up the stairs but it could keep a great many of them from staying there . The more zombies that tried to crowd on the stairwell, the more that would keep getting pushed off the edge. If they could never get a big enough thrust to work on the door leading out to the roof, the survivors would have a much better chance of waiting it out and potentially receiving some help.

Finding tools was easy enough, the loading bay was full of tool boxes where some furniture had to be assembled before making its way onto the show room floor. Paul and Alex started the removal process. MJ came to help when they got down to the final two bolts. The railing was in two sections of about 20 feet long, with the second top piece having an 'L' bend to accommodate the landing. The lower piece came off without much of a hitch. As the last screw came undone, it was then gently eased to the floor. The second piece was a little more difficult, Alex and MJ held it in place while Paul unscrewed the last bolt down by the bottom, his arm hanging through the railing as he sat on the stair trying to get more leverage. MJ did not fully realize the weight of the railing he was supporting from the top landing. When the bolt came free below, he nearly went head over heels off the landing. With only the concrete floor to stop his fall, his injuries most likely would have been severe. Just as he neared the breaking point which would decide whether he could continue to hang on a little longer or topple over, MJ let loose of the railing. The force pulled the slick metal from Alex' hands and the resulting crushing force of the railing as it came down almost broke Paul's arm in half. The ear splitting sound of two hundred pounds of metal slamming into concrete was immensely louder than rifle shots.

Joann and Erin came running in. MJ had a mild look of shock on his face, while Alex was checking on Paul who was clutching his arm to his side.

"Paul, are you all right?" Erin screamed from the bottom of the stairs just as the sound finally stopped its incessant echoing from concrete wall to concrete wall.

"Whew, that was close,” Paul said to Alex's questioning stare.

"I'm so sorry,” MJ said, coming down to the middle of the staircase. “I guess I didn't realize how heavy it was going to be. You alright?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I think I'm fine. I could feel the railing, it just about caught my arm and then I pulled it in real quick, tweaked it a bit but nothing serious. Scared me more than anything,” Paul said as he flexed his arm out.

Alex grabbed his elbow and gave a squeeze, “Does that hurt?"

"I'm good, just a little hyper-extended. Could you have set it if it was broken?" Paul asked, concerned now because he had not thought of it before. Could any of them survive what was once considered a basic injury?

"Be thankful it wasn't,” was Alex's reply.

Erin came up the stairs to hug her husband.

"Everything's fine honey, just a close call,” he reassured her.

Eddy took this opportune time to come screaming into the loading bay where the staircase was located. “Mean lady says the zombies are almost in!" he screamed.

Alex was gone like a shot, going to grab Marta and his kids. MJ was right behind him going to grab his tools and box. To each his own.

"Hey Erin, why don’t you and Joann see if there is anything else in this general area you think should go up. I'm going to go lay down some covering fire with Mrs. Deneaux.” "Don’t wait too long,” she told him and gave him a kiss.

"Just long enough for Alex and MJ to get back and up.” Paul hugged her fiercely then let her go and bounded down the stairs.

Shots rang out from the front of the store and, unlike Joann's wild shots a few hours earlier, Paul was under the impression that these were finding targets. He ran to the front of the store. Mrs. Deneaux was furiously puffing on a cigarette while reloading her revolver. Furniture had been pushed back into the store a good fifteen feet. Five zombies lay in a pool of brackish goo.

"Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” Mrs. Deneaux mouthed the words around the cigarette. It looked like something she had been practicing for many a year. “Six shots five kills, not bad.” Paul hadn’t actually had enough time to access the situation, but now that she brought it up, yeah, that was pretty friggen’ good.

"Well, you’re wrong, because the sixth one is behind the big purple love seat, you just can't see him.” And then she cackled.

'That is pretty good,’ Paul thought. He just couldn't bring himself to verbalize it. He began to open fire with his rifle. Zombies as a whole had not yet completely figured out how to run through the maze, but they were beginning to leak through like blood through splayed fingers covering a wound. The flood was being held at bay but this was now a game with a timer attached.

"Start heading back!" Paul shouted to Mrs. Deneaux. MJ had already grabbed his stuff and was almost halfway to the back of the building.

"One more revolver full!" she shouted gleefully. “It's been a long time since I've done anything so fun!"

Paul shook his head. Blowing holes in zombie heads was not supposed to be anyone's idea of a good time.

Mrs. Deneaux’ facial muscles screamed in protest as she forced them into a pose they had not mustered in decades.

'That is one hideous smile,’ Paul thought, ‘but the bitch sure can shoot.’

"Six shots, six kills, huh!" she yelled, “Okay, I'm out of here!"

She wasn't particularly sprightly as she headed away but there was a definite hop to her step as she retreated down the hallway.

Paul waited for three more zombies to appear, dispatching them easily from this distance before hurrying to catch up with Mrs. Deneaux. They had just reached the far wall when the mountain of furniture avalanched down. Zombies streamed through, nothing short of two Gatlin Guns was going to keep them out now.

"Where you at Mike?" Paul asked aloud as he took one final glance back as the enemy poured in. ‘Although I don’t know what the hell even he's gonna be able to do,’ he thought glumly.

The nine of them sat on the rooftop as the rain began to splatter down, the fat droplets incredibly loud under the banner that read 'Sale .' Whether consciously or not, they were as far away from the access door as possible. Alex had set the lock from the inside and there was no access to the mechanism from the roof side. He then propped up some boards to add as a heavy set door stop. It would stop the zombies for now, but it was a temporary fix at best. They now had no egress to the ground. Zombies surrounded the store and a large number were also inside. Life would be measured in moments.

It came as no surprise but it still startled the hell out of each and every one of them when the first resounding thud came from the roof door.

"Our dinner guests have arrived,” Paul said sourly.

"That was horrible,” Joann answered, fairly close to crying.

Eddy was the only one that seemed somewhat immune from the depressing void that surrounded the rest of their band. He wasn't old enough to verbalize it, but it was the reason he left the relative dryness of the banner to stand by the wall facing the highway. The soaking from the depression weighed much more heavily than rain. Eddy watched the muzzle flashes as a series of gunshots went off not too far in the distance.

"Did you guys see that?" he asked enthusiastically. He should have known the answer just by the way they were all sitting in a huddled circle with their heads bowed. They would have missed a fireworks show like that.

"What did you see, little man?" Alex was able to ask with an almost decent rendition of a smile.

"Gunshots!" Eddy answered happily.

"You saw gunshots?" MJ asked analytically.

"Well, I didn’t SEE the bullets, I'm not Superman,” Eddy answered as if MJ were the biggest dolt on the planet. And who knows, the human population was so low at the moment it very well could be the case. “I saw the bright flashes!" he clarified.

"You saw the muzzle flashes of guns?" Paul asked, now perking up a bit.

"Yeah, over by the roadway there was like five of them and they were pointing up in the air.” "Like a signal?" Alex asked Paul.

"It's gotta be Mike,” Paul said with a relieved grin.

"Oh, not that insufferable one,” Mrs. Deneaux said, but no one paid her much attention.

"Who else would signal their whereabouts with a legion of zombies around?" Paul asked rhetorically.

"Yes, that does sound like Mike,” Mrs. Deneaux said, but not in a complementary way.

"And you’re sure the guns were pointed in the air?" Paul asked Eddy.

Eddy looked at Paul the same way he had at MJ only seconds earlier.

"Alright, alright, I get it,” Paul said, a true smile now creasing his features.

Alex grabbed Paul's arm and pulled him out in to the burgeoning rain storm. “Listen, hope is a powerful thing and right now even mine is surging, but what is Mike going to be able to do if it really is him?” "Don’t know,” Paul said still smiling, “but he isn’t going to let us rot up here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX – Talbot Journal Entry 12

We drove a few more miles away from the furniture store than we probably had to, can you blame me? We came across a few zombies that were still making their approach to the siege. Some were so completely damaged, the fight no matter which way it went would be long over before they ever made it. Jack and Brian shot a few of the Johnny and Susie come-latelies, I didn’t have the stomach for it. I've been over and over this. I know they're not humans and never will be again, but they were once. I f they aren't bothering me, then I'll return the favor. Although wouldn’t that be pretty crappy if I went out and got bit by an ankle biter? That's irony right? And why am I asking my journal? Which is basically like asking myself. Which actually is something I do regularly. But enough of this internal musing.

The old apartment building was a four floor, low-rent-looking tenement but it looked weather proof. Some bullet holes dotted the lower level, as if a small battle had been played out here, but maybe if we were lucky it involved something more mundane like a drive by shooting. No lights shone in the windows, either candle or lantern. We'd have to take our chances that any occupants still in the building would not feel the need to bother us in whichever hovel we borrowed for the evening.

Perla started heading right for the front door like she owned the place.

"Uh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I told her.

"Why?" she asked, looking a little perturbed.

Screw this, I can get into trouble with my own woman quick enough, I didn't need to go looking for it. Jack was busy grabbing some gear out of the back of the truck when I walked up on him. “Jack,” I said. “I would consider this an urban combat environment, wouldn’t you?"

He nodded his head, “Yeah, so?"

"So would you send one of your team in alone and not even locked and loaded?"

"Perla? Again? The woman isn’t happy enough with our present threat level, she always feels the need to up it.” He hastened away from the truck to a defiant Perla who was now opening up the front door. “STOP!" he yelled.

"Oh stop Jack, you're always thinking the worst,” Perla shouted over her shoulder.

"Do not move! I can see the trip wire from here!" Jack yelled.

“Everyone away from the door!" I shouted.

"Jack, I heard a click,” Perla cried. “What do I do?"

I could see her shaking and I was fifteen feet away behind the truck. Tracy, the boys and BT were by my side.

"You ever do demolitions?" BT asked me.

"Hell no,” I told him, not taking my eyes from the doorway. “I like to blow things up, not the other way around.” "What the hell is the other way around?" BT asked me. “Unblowing? Is that a word?"

"Perla, what exactly do you see?" Brian asked.

“There’s… there’s a silver wire leading to a little box and the… the box has a red light on it,” she stammered out.

“Claymore mine?” Cindy asked Brian.

“Not with a light on it,” he answered her.

“Did she say there’s a light on it?” I asked from the relative safety of the truck.

Brian was about mid-way from us to the door way. “Yeah, you know what it is?”

“No, but I’ve got an idea,” I told him.

“Talbot?” BT and Tracy said in startled unison.

“It’s all good,” I said, walking over to Brian and then past him.

“What are you doing?” Jack asked with alarm. And who could blame him? His girlfriend was a motion away from potentially becoming wet dust.

“I got this,” I said, putting up a hand.

“I hate when he does this,” Tracy said.

“I heard that,” I told her.

“You blow yourself up Talbot, and I’m never going to see if you can crap out gold pieces,” BT yelled, and then clarified that it was an ‘inside joke’ when Jack, Brian, Cindy and even Perla looked over at him.

I placed my hand on the door right above Perla’s, making sure to match her pressure before I spoke. “Run,” I said calmly.

“Are you sure?” she asked, so wanting to bolt but not willing to trade my life for hers.

“Do you see any reason why the two of us should make final arrangements tonight?”

She took off, and within two seconds was in the arms of her boyfriend. She was sobbing uncontrollably. “He… he sacrificed himself for me,” she cried.

“Mike, what are you doing?” Tracy asked with concern. She was pretty sure I knew what I was doing, but not entirely convinced. I winked at her reassuringly and she folded her arms grimly. There would be hell to pay later, her eyes promised me.

I was much more sure of myself when I had been walking towards the door than I was now that I was potentially holding a bomb at bay.

“I… I don’t know how to thank you,” Jack was fairly crying now.

“You could find me a beer,” I told him as I looked over all of the workings of this trap.

“You got it man,” Jack said, wiping salty droplets from his face. “I’ll always dedicate a beer to you.” “No, that’s not what I meant,” I said as I pushed the door all the way open. I watched everyone go into duck and cover mode. The ‘trip wire ’ which was actually an antenna was attached to an old school boom box.

“How did you know?” Cindy asked.

“Never came across a bomb yet that announced itself,” I told her.

“That’s it?” my wife yelled. “You bet everything on a little red light! How many bombs have you come across in your life?” Man she was pissed, see how easy I can get into trouble?

“No time, Tracy. This thing still has juice so somebody was here recently and they know they have company, and just because this wasn’t a bomb doesn’t mean they don’t have something much more real.” All I had done was delay the inevitable. She would remember this long after the mountains had crumbled to the sea. “Just keep piling them up, don’t you Talbot,” I said under my breath. Hey, I was a good 54% sure that thing wasn’t a real bomb.

“Why did I feel the need to leave Maine and follow your crazy cracker ass again?” BT asked irately as I came back to the truck.

“Apparently you felt that I was a little more sane than the Talbot collective,” I told him as I patted him on the shoulder and grabbed a few more ammo magazines.

“I was going to go to King Soopers that day,” BT said wistfully.

“Huh?” I asked him.

“That day when you came into the Safeway store. I had planned on going to King Soopers the night before. In fact, I had gone but they were all out of buttermilk.” “Buttermilk?”

“Yeah, I like buttermilk pancakes in the morning and I make them from scratch.”

“Well aren’t you just the Galloping Gourmet,” I told him as I stuffed my cargo pockets with more gear.

“Just one carton, one stupid little carton of buttermilk, that’s all they had to have and I’d be waiting this whole thing out in my penthouse apartment off of Leetsdale.” I stopped what I was doing. “Wait, you lived in a penthouse suite?”

“Yup, private entrance and everything,” He said with regret.

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything? We would have been way better off there,” I said looking right at him.

“I didn’t want you guys messing my crib up. I heard about what you did to your own place. And anyway I checked it out the day you went to the armory, that buttermilk saved my life twice. The building was in ruins, most of it was burnt and zombies were wandering around everywhere. I think I could have gotten to my suite but I’m not sure if I would have made it out. And it wasn’t like I had told anyone where I was going. Even you wouldn’t have come and tried to rescue me.” “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I told him, heading back to the door way.

“Well, you don’t have to be so cavalier about it,” he yelled to my retreating back.

“You know I love you man. Travis, Justin come on, let’s find a suitable room. I’m exhausted.” Brian came up to me just as I got the entrance. “Do we sweep the whole building?”

“I don’t think so, that sounds too much like Russian Roulette. Eventually we’re going to come across an apartment with a loaded gun.” He nodded but I could tell he didn’t like my reasoning. “I know man, it doesn’t make for a secure perimeter, but I’m really hoping that if we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone.” “I think that’s asking a lot,” Perla said as she came up to our small meeting. “I mean, this is their home and all.” “Would you rather get in a fire fight?” I asked her crossly.

“Maybe we should just find someplace else,” Cindy said.

“This one is empty!” Jack yelled about three doors down the corridor.

“Good enough, let’s park the cars right up against the doors and get the supplies in. Let’s take a breather and then we’ll sit down and see if we can get a game plan for tomorrow,” I told the group.

Within a few trips all the ammo and food were in our temporary abode. I was going back to the truck for one final look to make sure I didn’t miss anything when I heard Cindy talking to someone.

“What’s with all the sani wipes? There has to be about twenty containers of them,” she asked curiously.

I was coming up to the building exit when I heard BT’s laughter. “Oh that’s rich,” he said. “That’s Mike’s secret stash, the Lean Green Fighting Machine is afraid of germs. Can’t stand the thought of touching other people. I still haven’t figured out yet how he conceived children, either it was a standin or Immaculate Conception.” I walked through the exit with a scowl laced on my face, hoping to put an end to this conversation. My presence sparked a hint of embarrassment on Cindy’s face. She dropped the container she was holding as if it was about to burst into flame. BT thought my timing impeccable.

“I was just talking about you,” he guffawed.

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Want a drink of water?” he asked, placing his bottle damn near on my lips.

It was all I could do to not push the thing away, thus confirming his accusations to Cindy.

“You’re a pain in the ass BT,” I told him; he smiled and pulled the bottle back.

“And it’s not even because I’m black,” BT told a shocked Cindy as he took a long swig of the water.

“That’s good I guess,” she said hesitantly as she retreated to be back with people she understood.

“I think we should post a guard in the hallway,” Jack said as we all sat around the apartment. The light from a half dozen emergency candles made it almost light enough to read by.

“Too exposed,” I said.

“I don’t like being canned up like this,” he replied.

“I’ve got an idea, help me find some paper and something to write on,” I told him. Ten minutes later I was taping a note to our door: “To whom it may concern, We mean no one any harm we plan on being here for a day or two at the most. We are well armed with meager supplies, nothing here is worth dieing for, if you feel like talking just knock. PS Zombies not welcome.” “I think you need an editor,” Cindy said as she read the note.

“I’ll get one as soon as I can,” I told her.

“Is the last part really needed?” Perla asked.

“I’m not putting anything past them at this point,” I told her. “And if that dissuades just one of those smelly bastards from coming here then it was worth it.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Can’t hurt.”

We went back in and I turned the deadbolt. I sat down heavily on a musty but comfortable futon couch. The only other occupant was BT and still I barely had enough room.

“Any ideas for tomorrow?” I asked the room.

“Do you think the furniture store is completely surrounded?” Tracy asked. “Maybe there’s a weak point.” “Encircling seems to be their primary means of attack,” I said. “But they’re not always consistent with how many are at any given point.” “Assault the thinnest area then?” Brian asked.

“Yeah, but as soon as we start shooting we become the center of attention,” Travis filled in with his own experience.

“A diversion then? Some start shooting, wait to pull the zombies away, and then another group goes in,” Justin suggested.

“I’m not sure we’d be able to pull enough away,” I told him. He deflated slightly. “It’s a good thought,” I said, trying to pump him back up. “It’s just that we never tried something like that with this many. I don’t know that enough of them would even get the message that something was going on.” “I’ve got an idea,” Brian said. “But I need to scope it out a little better tomorrow when we can see the layout.” We were all looking at him expectantly.

“It’s just a thought,” he started back up. “In the southeast corner of the parking lot there was a fast food restaurant. It was on a grade about six feet higher than the furniture store parking lot.” “Wasn’t there a fence?” I asked, trying to picture what he was talking about.

“There should be, or a retaining wall, something, or otherwise people would go rolling down the hill. I’m thinking we could set up a ladder.” “It has to be at least a hundred fifty feet from that parking lot to the roof. I’m assuming that’s what you mean?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m talking about, but as for the ladder I’m thinking on a grander scale.”

“A fire truck!” BT blurted out.

“How far do those extend?” Tracy asked.

“A hundred feet?” I threw out there.

“I think some of the bigger ladder trucks can get to about a hundred twenty feet,” Jack said. “I used to work in the motor pool and I’ve done some maintenance on emergency vehicles.” “That’s still a hell of a gap,” I said, “Let’s hope my math is off.”

Our impromptu meeting adjourned, we chose sticks for the order of guard duty. I got the fourth shortest which put me at just about the worst spot. Late enough that I’d be well into my REM sleep when I got interrupted, then I’d do my duty and not have enough time left over before we got going in the morning to make going back to sleep worthwhile. Great, I got to look forward to an entire day of having heavy lidded eyes. My head had just hit my couch cushion when I was shaken awake. Jack’s face was unfamiliar and the darkness from the room made my heart skip a beat; I instinctively reached for my sidearm.

“Friendly, Mike, friendly!” Jack said, putting his hands up. “It’s your turn for watch.”

The shading of his face gave him the appearance of a wraith. I stared long and hard before the image of a floating skull dissipated and I was once again able to reconcile the parts of his face into a known entity. “Scared me,” I told him, releasing the grip on my pistol.

“Yeah well, you did a number on me too. You Marines always so jumpy?”

I dragged my hand across my eyes. “Get some sleep,” I said as I sat up. I shivered as Jack retreated into the shadows of the far corner of the room. I could not shake the feeling I had just seen a dead man.

I was in the midst of a very uneventful guard watch when I first heard the shuffling noise. It was so faint I thought I might be imagining it. It could have been a rat or even one of our party with a particularly nasty itch. That was, of course, until I saw a shadow play under the door to the apartment. Something was out there. Now the true question, was it alive or dead? There was no peep hole through which to look, and if somehow Sir Licks A Lot had made the journey I might have finally slipped over the edge I was holding onto so precariously.

I was standing no further than a foot from the door, stuck in a thought loop. Open the door, confront our guest whether friend or foe, or sit and wait and see if they tried to enter. Whoever it was had stones the size of Mount Rushmore and they weren’t zombies. I watched as they turned the door knob which spun freely, but when they pushed up against the door the dead bolt held fast. I gripped my rifle tight, wondering if I should just pop a few rounds through the door. There was no way I was missing from this range.

“Michael,” came a voice through the door. It was low and throaty and downright terrifying. Cold sweat broke out across my entire body. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

This wasn’t happening, Jack hadn’t really yet awakened me for my shift. “I’m dreaming,” I said aloud. But I wasn’t, I remember what I had been dreaming. Travis and I had been playing the Wii, Mariokart to be specific, and I had been winning so I had KNOWN that it was a dream.

“Michael, I know you’re there. I can hear you.” The voice, definitely female, came through the door and drilled me in the heart.

“I’m not here,” I mouthed.

“Open the door, invite me in.”

My hand was working on its own volition. I slowly brought it up and it was now resting gently on the dead bolt. I turned the lock, the resounding click disengaging the mechanism.

“Dad?” Justin asked as he came up behind me. “What are you doing?”

As I was about to turn to look at my son, the shadow under the door vanished. “Am I sleeping?” I asked him in all seriousness.

“Well if you are, so am I,” he said smiling. “Dad,” he noted with concern. “It can’t be more than 50 degrees in here and you’re covered in sweat. You getting sick?” “I think I might be,” I told him as I walked away from the door.

Justin passed by me to reengage the lock, a quizzical look on his face.

“What are you doing up?” I asked him at the end of the short entryway.

“Woke up a couple of minutes ago. I was having a bad dream that Eliza found us. She wanted me to invite her in. You alright? You’re looking a little pale.” “It was just a dream,” I told him with absolutely no conviction, and he saw it for the falsehood that it was, just empty words.

“Who was at the door?” he asked uneasily.

“Avon, I think.” I just spit it out; it was my way of diffusing the terror. “Sorry,” I said when I saw his frustration. “I’m not sure if anyone was there,” I told him in all truth.

“But there might have been?” he questioned further.

“Maybe,” I said, licking my lips.

“Was it…?” he asked the unimaginable.

“You should go back to sleep,” I told him. Of course I didn’t sleep another minute the rest of the night, wondering if I had just come that close to the end of my mortality.

The morning brought a bustle of activity as we planned our strategy. Everything came to a halt when Jack opened the door.

“Someone is messing with us,” he scowled as he held my note up. Someone had scrawled “Death Awaits” in a suspiciously red-colored medium, with the added effects of drips and all. “Anybody hear anything?” he asked the room.

Justin and I gave each other a quick knowing glance which fortunately went wholly unnoticed. What was I going to say? “Yeah, this vampire chick who wants to kill me and everyone I know was at the door last night and wanted in. Funny thing is I almost let her.” That probably wouldn’t go over so well.

“Well that’s a cluster,” Brian said, looking through his binoculars at the furniture store from the same vantage point as the evening before.

“I think I can smell them,” Travis said disgustedly.

“Definitely looks like your friends set up camp on the roof,” Brian said as he surveyed the area.

I walked over to the truck. “You tell Ron about this and you’ll be walking home,” I told Gary .

“About what?” he asked suspiciously.

I pushed the passenger side view mirror back and forth until it snapped off.

“He is going to be pissed,” Gary said shaking his head.

“Do you do this stuff on purpose?” BT questioned me.

“I’ve got my reasons.” I lined up the mirror with the early morning sun, trying to see if I could get some reflection to the people on the roof to let them know we were here.

“Do you know Morse code?” Jack asked me.

“Just S.O.S,” I told him truthfully.

“I know a little,” Perla said sheepishly. The entire group turned to look at her. “When I was 15 my boyfriend and I learned it so that we could message to each other when it was safe to either sneak out or sneak in.” She gave Jack a weak smile.

“You never cease to surprise me,” he said as he kissed her forehead.

“Doesn’t matter though, I’m pretty sure nobody over there would know how to read what you signal,” I told her.

“So you basically just ripped the mirror off for nothing?” Tracy asked with one raised eyebrow.

“Et tu Brutus?” I asked.

“I knew it was a mistake when they took you off the Lithium,” Tracy laughed.

“She’s kidding, right?” Cindy asked with a frown.

“Mostly,” I told her.

Travis had grabbed the binoculars from Brian, “Dad, they see us I think. They’re waving their hands.” I grabbed the binoculars, “Do you think they know it’s us?” he asked me.

“I don’t know how. I can barely see their faces with the binoculars and it doesn’t look like they have a pair up there.”

“Wish we had a telescope or something,” Paul said. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s them but I’m not a hundred percent sure.” “Well, they’re signaling something,” Alex said as he shaded his eyes. “Long, short, short, short, break, long, long. Is that Morse code?” “Hell if I know,” Paul replied. “I’ve known Mike a long time, he’s never said anything about knowing it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t. But he’s got to know that I don’t know it.” “Maybe he’s hoping someone up here does,” Erin said.

“Wait, let’s reason this out,” MJ said coming up to the edge of the roof. “You’re pretty sure he doesn’t know Morse code and he would be fairly confident that you don’t either. Now considering that it is a pretty archaic form of communication, we’ve got to think that he doesn’t believe anybody up here would know it. But yet he keeps repeating the same signal.” “Well, what is it brain boy?” Mrs. Deneaux sniffed disdainfully, sitting in her chaise lounge chair as if it were a throne, smoking another cigarette. Joann looked like she wanted to throttle the old lady if only to get a hold of one of those coffin nails.

“What if the long dash equates to a five and the short dashes equal a one,” MJ said, basically talking out loud as he tried to figure the logic puzzle out.

“Eight and ten?” Joann asked, “What the hell does that mean?”

“What if they represent letters in the alphabet?” Alex asked.

Erin started counting the letters off her fingers. “H and J? Still doesn’t make much sense.” “More like old school Risk board game pieces,” Paul added, completely from left field.

“Any chance you could elaborate?” MJ asked.

“The long is a ten and the short is a one,” Paul said excitedly.

“Thirteen and twenty, so what?” Joann asked.

“M and T,” MJ said.

“Mike motherfucking Talbot!” Alex said, high-fiving Paul.

“I think your message got through, Dad,” Justin said. “Paul and Alex are both fist pumping the air.” “‘Bout time, let’s go find a ladder truck,” I said to everyone, motioning that we should get going.

“They’re leaving!” Joann said with dejection.

“They just wanted to let us know they are here. Now we wait to see what kind of plan they’ve come up with,” Paul said.

“Well, I do hope they hurry up. I’m down to my last five or six packs,” Mrs. Deneaux said loudly, making sure Joann would catch it.

“I’d throw you over the edge, you old crow, if I thought the zombies would actually eat you. They’d probably just think that you were already one of them,” Joann said as she stalked off.

Mrs. Deneaux cackled wildly.

Eliza and Tomas - Interlude

“I told you they would come, Sister,” Tomas said from the doorway of the furniture store.

Eliza said nothing as she watched the ‘rescue party’ depart.

“Mistress please, allow me to go now and finish him off,” Durgan said from Eliza’s left.

“I do not believe that you possess what is necessary to defeat him,” Eliza replied, never turning to address Durgan personally.

Durgan’s body shook with rage and impotence. “Yes Mistress,” he said mildly, nearly choking on his hatred of Talbot. Tomas turned and smiled at him which enraged him more. He knew Tomas was kin to Eliza but his allegiance was in question. He would keep an eye on the demon, but the power the boy exuded rivaled that of his sister and therefore he needed to proceed with caution.

“Please, at least allow me to go onto the roof and dispatch of them. They mean nothing to you,” Durgan pleaded “Do not presume to know what is and what is not of consequence to me,” Eliza said coldly.

“Yes, Mistress,” Durgan, said bowing his head.

“Although it could be an entertaining distraction,” Eliza mused coquettishly.

Durgan’s head shot up, a glimmer of anticipation on his face, partly because he might get to kill someone but mostly because he loved to please his master. Durgan had always been a leader but he found himself relishing the role of follower, although slave was closer to his title. To be this near to her and her power was intoxicating. Why she wasted so much time and energy on the pissant Talbot he could not begin to fathom. In this world she was without limits, she had command of vast armies, countries would bow to her and he would be by her side. Now that Tommy’s blood had cured her she was once again immortal. Talbot would fall eventually, if only to the greatest enemy of mankind: Time. ‘FUCK HIM!’ he screamed in his head, his missing leg still aching.

“There is the chance, Sister, that Michael will not come to the rescue if no one is left alive,” Tomas counseled her.

‘I’m going to kill you the first chance I get,’ Durgan thought to himself. He froze when Tomas looked directly at him as if in response to his thought.

“You wouldn’t be trying to protect your friends now, would you Brother?” Eliza asked as she caressed his face.

“I have no friends,” he answered in an even tone.

“And what of me, Brother?” Eliza asked smiling.

“Least of all you, Sister.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN – Talbot Journal Entry 13

It was Perla who came up with the idea to break into a Best Buy and grab a Garmin. Within a few minutes it had located a satellite and after a query for Fire Stations we soon had five pulled up within a twenty mile radius. The closest was devoid of all equipment, they had definitely been out on a call when their fate befell them.

“I think we’re going to have problems,” Brian said dejectedly as he kicked a helmet across the empty fire station floor.

“First responders were doing what they were supposed to be doing,” I said.

“Hey!” BT yelled from the truck. “This shows which stations are volunteer based.”

“So what?” Jack said a little perturbed, this roadblock souring his mood.

“Real bright,” I said as an aside to Jack. “You’ve seen how big he is right? You always go around poking bears, dumb ass?” “I’ll ‘so what’ right upside your head you dumb cracker,” BT said, struggling to get his bulk out of the truck.

“He knows not what he says my friend,” I said coming over to keep BT from ripping Jack in half. “Although this is kind of cool. It’s much better that he’s the object of your hostility as opposed to me.” BT barely even heard me as he kept trying to get by me. I danced around him, trying to block his path, “Talbot, I swear if you get in my way again, I will beat him to death with your body!” he thundered at me.

I wisely stepped aside. “On your own, Jack.”

“Wait, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Jack said, putting his hands up.

“That’s kind of the same pose you use with BT,” Tracy said as she came up beside me.

“Am I that pathetic?” I asked as I watched the drama.

“Oh even worse I think,” she smiled.

“I used to have dignity,” I told her.

She put her hand up and rocked it back and forth. “Debatable.”

“BT, could you please not kill him, he knows how to operate the ladder truck,” I asked BT’s back.

BT had Jack backed all the way up against a wall, “Listen, you little twit!” BT said, pressing his finger on the top of Jack’s head. “A volunteer fire department means that they weren’t necessarily at the station when the end went down and more than likely never had the chance to get there.” “I get it!” Jack said. Although I think he would have said that even if BT was teaching him quantum physics and he didn’t have a clue.

“You wouldn’t have thought God would have been able to squeeze a brain in around all that muscle,” I said with a smirk.

“Holy shit Dad! He’s going to kill you!” Travis said.

“No swearing!” Tracy and I echoed each other.

“Did he hear me?” I asked Travis softly.

“I heard you Talbot!” BT shouted from across the room. “So many crackers, so little time,” BT said to the heavens.

The Cherryfield Station Fire House was a disaster. I don’t know what happened but the LEAST unsettling thing was the Dalmatian pinned to the wall with a hatchet. What could have possibly necessitated that? Perla waited outside after her third volley of puke left her virtually empty. Dried blood coated the floor. It was at least a quarter inch thick, we kept cracking through the top hardened layer into the thicker still wet and sticky portion. I pretended it was the top surface of frozen snow. The illusion was difficult to hold onto because it was close to fifty out and this snow was a red, black hybrid, oh yeah, that and the metallic smell that human blood tends to give off.

If you’ve only ever given yourself a paper cut then you most likely have never experienced this phenomenon. I learned of the smell in a much more difficult manner. My unit was on a two hour alert, which basically meant that we could not be anywhere further than two hours away from base should we need to muster. I was boogie boarding on a private Marine Corps beach at the Marine Corps Air Station in Kaneohe Bay , Hawaii when the base siren went off.

I was a lance corporal, pretty wet behind the ears and had no real clue what the hell the siren meant. I saw a few Marines on the beach waving at everybody to come ashore. Now I was concerned, sharks were always a present danger in the warm tropical waters. I grabbed my gear and hightailed it. The idea of being food scared the hell out of me. Who knew that was going to be the state of the world in a few more years?

“Sharks?” I asked the Sergeant as I turned to look at the few remaining folks in the water making their way ashore.

“Have you always been a dumb ass, Marine?” the sergeant asked me.

“Nope, saved it especially for you, Sergeant,” I told him.

Two hundred and twenty five push-ups later he kindly informed me that the siren was the muster call. The North Koreans were threatening our allies to the South and we were heading there as a show of force and solidarity.

It was well known in the Corps that the Koreans were fierce determined warriors that might be a suit or two shy of a full deck. I did not look forward to the deployment. Two and a half hours later, I and ninety other Marines were flying across the Pacific Ocean in a C-130 Hercules. It was a quiet flight. No one spoke, more so because it was damn near impossible to hear anything else over the noise in the uninsulated body of the aircraft.

The monster plane landed some five or six hours later. I’m not sure, I slept the majority of the ride, there wasn’t a whole bunch else to do. We waited on the tarmac as at least another twenty to twenty-five planes touched down, and there were already a bunch of jarheads on the ground when we arrived. A convoy of troop trucks, ‘deuces’ we called them, picked us up. We were shoved in like cattle. I felt like I had paid my 500 pesos and was now trying to sneak across the border with the other forty slobs I was packed in with. It was so tight we couldn’t even sit. Where were the cops when you really needed them?

We were generally doing what all Marines do, grousing and complaining. That was, of course, until we began to hear the chatter of small arms fire. The heavy staccato bursts of the AK’s were unmistakable. This was no drill, the North Koreans were firing. The trucks came to an abrupt halt and the tail gate was slammed down by the corporal that was at the rear of the truck.

“OUT!” came the cry from Sergeant who had moments before been in the shotgun seat. “Keep your heads down or I’ll write your mothers and tell them you died a coward!” “Nice guy,” the Marine behind me said.

I laughed if only to still the screaming terrified kid in my head.

The exodus was semi-organized right up until rounds began to ping off the front of the truck, then it became a free-for-all. I almost met my demise as I was pushed from behind just as I approached the exit, almost landing on my head. The only thing that saved my ass was the Marine that had spoken up earlier.

“Thanks man,” I told him in earnest.

“You’d do the same.” Those were the last words Corporal Meera said as his chest puffed out. The high velocity 7.62 round broke through his back and out his sternum, passing between my arm and my chest. I was able to catch and break his fall as I twisted out of the truck, landing on the soft dirt below.

“Medic!” I shouted as a blossom of blood spread and soaked his entire torso. Blood spewed from his mouth as his ruptured lungs drowned in the viscous fluid. A haunted look came over his eyes as he looked at me. He tried to say something, but between the lack of air in his lungs and the blood in his throat, it wasn’t going to happen. It was the smell that stuck with me all these years. It was a rich earthy smell, the iron of his blood burned into my olfactory senses. I will forever associate that smell with death, the wounded do not bleed like that. The medic came just as Meera took his final tortured breath. Thankfully he closed those eyes that I thought might have held a hint of an accusatory stare. Was my stumble enough to delay him? I would dwell upon it at times, but I have come to learn that there is no great manifest destiny, there is no universal order. Chaos will always reign supreme. There is no more order to the world than the falling of a leaf in a stiff fall breeze. That it will fall eventually is a truth, but which route it will take and where it will fall are the great mysteries that evade us all.

This almost forgotten buried memory broke free from the shackled recess it had hidden in for many a years as the earthy smell once again assailed my nostrils.

“You alright Talbot? You’re looking a little frothy,” BT asked, coming up beside me.

“Old memory my friend that I really wish had stayed where it was hidden.”

“There’s nothing here to worry about Mike. Why don’t you go see how Perla is doing?” he said, placing his hand on my back.

I found Perla in the back seat of Tracy’s car. She had Henry on her lap and tears were streaming down her face.

“Who would do that?” she asked me. Well actually she never did look up at me as I approached. She could have just as easily been asking Henry.

“Hey Perla,” I said.

She looked up and stared for a moment. “I think you look as bad as I do,” she smiled softly.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m pretty sure I look way worse,” I told her.

She smiled again, “Thank you for that,” as she buried her face again in Henry’s neck. “You know, this just might be the best dog ever,” she said as she squeezed him tight. Henry turned and licked her forearm.

“You’re probably right,” I told her as I stroked Henry’s huge head. We all turned as the large diesel engine of the ladder truck roared to life. The front of the truck poked its head from the fire station, splatters of a much darker red staining the majority of the vehicle. My mind was working furiously to find an alternate reason to explain away the blotches and was failing miserably.

Brian was driving the truck and Jack was sitting up on the ladder apparatus smiling like a kid who had just received his favorite toy for Christmas. “All aboard!” he shouted.

With a grim determination I walked back into the station. I just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the dog pinned up against the wall. I had no sooner walked in when Meredith came sliding down the brass fire pole. I was happy that she could at least find a moment’s relief and enjoy the short thrill ride down, but the look on her face did not speak of any joy.

“Nest…” she barely eked out. I didn’t actually hear the words spoken, the blare of the ladder truck’s horn almost deafened my already battered ears.

“NEST!” she screamed just as the echoed reverberations of the blast were finished.

Zombies began to fall through the hole just as Meredith vacated the area, more followed down the stairs at the far corner.

Travis’ sixth sense was in high gear that day. He came around the corner, the Mossberg in his arms jumping as twelve gauge deer slugs ripped through the barrel. Zombies were launched off their feet; most would never regain a vertical position. Justin was next, quick to drop the cigarette he was smoking and chamber a round in his rifle. The three of us stood abreast, the rapid rate of fire tearing through our enemy but still we were losing ground.

Jack turned from his lofty perch, the smile literally running from his face. “Too many!” he screamed. “Coming around the other side!” Perla had moved Henry aside and was running towards us. I could hear the blasts of her rifle and was none too pleased. I never did much like having someone shoot past me from the rear. Way too many chances for an errant shot. And Lord knows I’d pissed off enough people in my life that ‘friendly fire’ was always a personal concern of mine. I turned to look and possibly shout a few choice expletives at her, but she wouldn’t have seen me. She was shooting over to our left. I followed her line of sight. Zombies were coming at us at full tilt.

“Back!” I shouted, putting my forearm on Justin’s chest.

Brian was honking the horn on the truck and waving frenetically at us to get on. Cindy had climbed up by Jack and they were both concentrating their fire at the targets Perla was shooting at. My firing line was still oblivious to the danger on our side. Travis was jamming rounds into the Mossberg’s port with a speed I could barely register. I tapped him on the shoulder just as he shouldered his weapon. His eyes grew twice as wide as he looked over my shoulder at the approaching nightmare. His rifle swung over as he began to acquire new targets.

I shook my head in the negative, “Let’s go!” Meredith dropped the magazine she was loading into her rifle as I almost lifted her and Justin off their feet to get them in motion. Perla swung over to cover our retreat. I was now infinitely grateful that she was shooting over our heads. Funny how that change happened, I guess it’s just a matter of perspective. The zombies were close. I was waiting for the drag of a nail down my shirt, or a bite in my back, the green slimed teeth sinking deep into my flesh, or the black encrusted broken jagged nails scraping through the fragile layers of my skin. Always knew I should have used more moisturizer as I was growing older. It would have given my skin more elasticity and less chance of splitting when a zombie tried to scrape the life out of me. Yup, random thought as I fled for my life. At least it didn’t involve sex, maybe I was finally maturing. And then I began to think of the other uses that lotion could be used for and realized that maybe I was not as far along as I had originally thought.

I had a moment of panic as I looked at Henry in the front seat staring back at me. If he had inadvertently locked the door, which he was prone to do, I was a dead man. I couldn’t even count the number of times I had let him in on the passenger side only to have him come and greet me on the driver’s side and push the lock button down. Then he would just sit there with his huge panting grin wondering why I wasn’t joining him inside. I wouldn’t swear on it but I think he did it on purpose. I had taken him on dozens of car rides and never once had there been a problem. The day I had to take him to the vet for some shots he locked me out of the car. Two hours and a missed vet appointment later, the lock smith came and opened the car door.

“Hey buddy, you really should make a spare,” he told me as I wrote him a check for a hundred and ten dollars.

I told him to blow me, he laughed.

Five days and four uneventful car rides later, I was able to secure another appointment at the vets. This time I made sure that as soon as I put Henry in the car I ran around to the other side to get in. I slipped a little in the gravel by the front end and by the time I recovered and was able to get a hand on the door handle, I heard the telltale ‘click’ of the lock being engaged. There was no denying it this time. Henry was full on smiling at me. It was no damn pant. I was cursing loudly as I headed into the house.

“Talbot, did that dog get the best of you again?” Tracy asked, smiling almost as widely as Henry.

I was beyond pissed as I made sure to pick a different locksmith lest I get the same smart ass as before. I paid the extra twenty to have him make a key on the spot. This guy was an hour and a half quicker than his competition and so I was still able to make it to the vet. Henry was not a happy camper and let me know by leaving an extra heavy puddle of drool on my seat. The twenty minutes it took to drive home was excruciating as the thick saliva soaked through my jeans and onto my left butt cheek.

There was no way he could have known, right? In the hundreds of car rides we had taken together he had locked me out four times. Two were for the vet, once when I wanted to get his picture taken with Santa. The last time had been the summer before. It had been an unbelievably hot day, for some reason I thought it might be cooler at the dog park. Henry had been hesitant to leave our air conditioned home. I had to pick him up off his doggie hammock and physically put him in the car. I had no sooner placed him in the passenger seat when he stood up. He crossed the bridge between the two seats, lifted his left front leg and pushed the lock down with his paw. I watched in amazement. He wasn’t running around crazy and just happened to hit the lock, it had been a deliberate action. He had told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to go. I reached up under the frame of my jeep, grabbed the key I had hidden with the magnetic box, opened the door and let Henry find his way back to his hammock where he stayed the majority of the day. He occasionally got up to drink and eat, but for the most part he and the hammock were a fused entity.

I now had to hope, with my life on the line, that Henry’s actions had ALWAYS been that of a fully cognizant being and not those of an over exuberant puppy/dog. Henry jumped into the back seat just as I got to the door. Travis and Justin who were quicker than me had already gained entry. I pretended for pride’s sake that I was covering Meredith’s retreat, which technically I was, but she was also quicker than I. This was a blow to my ego. I could smell the gunpowder of the expended rounds as they came dangerously close to my back. The zombies were within striking distance. If they could breathe, I would have felt their exhalations on my neck.

Meredith, Justin and Travis had made it in. Henry had not locked us out after all, but that still did not quiet my hammering heart as my hand wrapped around the cool metal of the handle. If I lifted up and it did not disengage the locking mechanism, there would not be enough time for anyone inside to help me out. I know Henry didn’t lock me out now I had to hope that good old Detroit engineering didn’t pick this most inopportune of times to fail. The handle pulled up with that satisfactory tug and the door swung outward just as my head jerked backwards. A zombie had grabbed a handful of the hair on the back of my head and was pulling for all it was worth.

“Zombie’s got you Dad!” Justin shouted, pointing.

I wanted to shout ‘Really?’ but there is a time and a place for sarcasm and I certainly didn’t have the time for it. I had a variety of none too pleasant sensations all happen quicker than the blink of an eye. The first being the razor sharp burn of pain as a bullet scraped against the side of my head, the second was the separating of a fair portion of hair and skin from my scalp as the zombie behind me suffered a fatal head shot; his hand spasmed closed even tighter, and as he fell he took a part of me with him. The third was my shoulder getting slammed by the car door as BT used our other ride as a battering ram. Zombies shot out at odd angles as the ton and a half projectile slammed into them. I could see Tracy holding on for dear life in the passenger seat. Gary was in the back seat and he spared me a side-long glance as they passed by. BT had bought me a few precious seconds and I would not squander them. My head initially dragged even further backward from the clutch of the zombie and then shot upright as my scalp finally let go of its prize. I didn’t even bring up my right hand to see how deep the wound was from the bullet. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to do anything about it right now and I was too scared to check anyway.

“Oh my God!” Meredith screamed, “You’re bleeding from your head!”

“You’ve been hanging out with Justin too long,” I told her as I shoved the car in gear and screeched the tires out of the parking lot. BT and the fire truck were not far behind. Neither were the zombies for that matter.

Blood was accumulating in my lap at an alarming rate. “How bad is it?” I asked Meredith. If I was to solely base her answer on the expression she was wearing, it was safe to assume my brains were exposed and were leaking down the side of my face.

Justin pulled himself up from the back seat and gingerly probed his fingers around the wound.

“What are you doing? It feels like you’ve got arsenic on your fingers,” I fairly yelped at him.

“Well, to quote Monty Python, Dad, ‘it’s only a flesh wound.’” Justin said still messing around with a flap of skin attached to an exposed nerve bundle secured tightly at the base of my spine.

“Yeah, but if I remember right, the ‘flesh wound’ in that movie equated to a missing arm,” I told him.

“I’m not sure it will even leave a scar,” Travis threw his two cents into the mix.

“You guys aren’t just saying this like they do in the movies are you? ‘Oh Murphy, it’ll be alright,’ meanwhile the guy’s guts are blown all over the beach.” “Wow, Mom did say you were a little dramatic,” Travis laughed, “but I didn’t really believe her, at least until now.” “You get shot in the head, smart ass, and then tell me who is being dramatic,” I said as I finally mustered the courage to put a finger up by the grazing. The wound was shallow and about the width of the tip of my pinkie finger. I had once again cheated death. This hadn’t been my closest call but it was in the top five. The black robed one would have to wait yet a while more. Could Death alter destiny to serve his needs? Or was he (it) merely one more cog in the vast machinations of fate? No more able to alter his course than a blade of grass in a swift running stream. Were any of our ends foretold, the time and date written on head stones, or were they fluid? Did Death wait for an ‘expected’ demise or was his arrival contingent on our passing?

I preferred to think that he was snapping his fingers in the familiar ‘Damn, he got away’ gesture rather than sitting back with a slated schedule and saying, ‘Not yet, but SOON.’ Giving Death the finger seemed WAY cooler.

After a couple of miles when I was fairly certain we had lost our dinner guests, I pulled over to the side of the road. The wound may have been shallow, but it would not stop bleeding and I might be entirely too thickheaded to know when to die but I’d passed out before and I did not want to suffer that indignity again. Perla jumped down from the fire truck with a white first aid kit.

“I’m so sorry Mike,” she said as she came towards me.

I staggered out of the car, some was from blood loss, some for dramatic effect. Hey, it’s not every day you get shot in the head, might as well milk it for something.

“Mike?” Tracy asked approaching hesitantly. Concern, care, and worry were all wrapped up in the one word question.

“I’m fine,” I said leaning against the car heavily.

“It barely touched him,” Travis said as he got out of the car to check the approach from our rear.

“Yeah, it’s bleeding much worse than it actually is,” Justin added as he reloaded a magazine.

Perla placed a hydrogen peroxide soaked cloth to my head pinkish foam oozed from my wound. The resulting sizzle sounded much like the Pop Rocks candy I had enjoyed in my youth. Who am I kidd ing, I had eaten a bag of the sugary goodness not a week before the zombies had come. I found them in a dollar store and bought the whole box. I had hidden them out in the garage, not willing to share nor divulge my secret stash.

I was trying to pull my head away from Perla’s ministrations; she wasn’t having any of it. She quickly placed some disinfectant on the wound and then wrapped my head in gauze. My head began to throb like I had spent the last three nights partying, but without the resulting fond memories of crazy actions performed.

“Good thing you jarheads have thick skulls,” Brian said as he came over. “Left my damn rifle at the fire station .” “Doesn’t surprise me,” I told him. “I wouldn’t think as an army dog you’d know how to shoot it anyway .” Brian looked at me sternly. I thought I might have crossed an imaginary boundary with him before he smiled. “You alright?” he asked seriously.

“Yeah, just feels like someone is tapping on my skull with a ball peen hammer.”

“We still on then?” Jack asked from the ladder, watching the conversation from above.

“Your head is still bleeding, Uncle,” Meredith said as the cloth around my head began to soak red throughout.

Gary came over to give me a quick once over. When he was confident I wasn’t going to expire, he popped the hood. Chunks of gore ran towards the windshield as he raised it up. Tracy ’s car looked like it was in imminently more danger of going to the great beyond. The front end was caved in and the smell of caustic anti-freeze filled the air.

“Radiator is shot and the fan has cut through some electrical lines,” Gary said mournfully as he stood back up, popping his back as he did so.

“Well, let’s transfer the stuff out of there, we have plenty of room with the fire truck now,” Tracy told him.

Fifteen minutes later we were back at the original overpass that overlooked the furniture store.

“This really looked better on paper,” Jack said as we surveyed the throng of zombies.

“No it didn’t,” I told him frankly.

“Yeah you’re probably right,” he answered back.

“But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to try. Isn’t that right Mike?” BT asked. I nodded in reply. “See, do I know my crazy friend or what?” he said triumphantly.

“I think Eliza is here, I can feel her almost like an echo,” I said almost imperceptibly.

“You can feel her?” Justin asked.

What was awesome was Justin couldn’t. Did Easter’s incantations really work?

“Eliza is here?” Tracy asked with alarm. “Then we should be anywhere but here!” she emphasized.

“If Eliza is here, so is Tommy, Mom,” Travis said, linking all the pieces of the puzzle together.

“This sucks,” I said. “This is just about a text book trap,”

“Brian?” Cindy asked.

I know what that implied; life right now was already difficult enough to hold onto without charging into a trap to rescue people they didn’t even know.

“Guys, you owe us nothing,” I told the group.

“What would you do, Mike? Honestly, if you were us what would you do in this situation?” Brian asked me.

“I’d leave,” I told him.

“Bullshit,” BT said. “You’d be the first in,”

“That’s what I thought,” Brian said, “Then we stay,”

“Ass,” I turned to address BT.

“Anytime,” he smiled.

“We should get moving then,” Gary said. “Zombies are zombies, but zombies in the dark are a lot scarier.” “Agreed,” I agreed.

The beeping from the fire truck as Brian backed it into the Wendy’s parking lot was nerve racking. The zombies didn’t even seem to pay it any attention. Brian backed the truck up as far as he could go; the rear tires were resting on the retaining wall. I was no expert on fire trucks and ladders, but I didn’t see any way that the ladder was going to extend to that furniture store roof.

“Good to see you Mike!” Paul shouted from the far roof, his voice traveling considerably well over the thousands of quiet zombies below, and without any roadway traffic there was really only the sound of birds and insects to contend with.

“You too Paul, although I really wish we could have met in a bar with a pitcher of beer instead,” I told him.

Even from this distance I could see him nod. Alex waved enthusiastically. I returned the gesture with an arm that felt more filled with Jell-o than muscle. Have I yet discussed my fear of heights?

“That going to reach?” Paul asked the question that was on everyone’s mind.

“Find out in a minute,” Jack shouted back.

The entire group, even the pain in the ass Deneaux, watched as Jack extended the ladder. Woefully short would have been an adequate description. There was a good twenty feet between the tip of the ladder and the lip of the roof. An Olympic jumper could not bridge that gap. I smirked a bit as I thought of Deneaux trying. She could have probably made it if she had her broom.

Jack came down from the ladder control box and walked around the ladder truck until he found what he considered a suitable portable ladder.

I looked at Jack as he grabbed the ladder and then looked to the furthest point of the extended ladder which was swaying in the light breeze. “No way,” I breathed.

“Jack I don’t think so,” I said, voicing my concern.

Eliza and Tomas - Interlude

“Interesting,” Eliza said as she watched the rescue attempt.

“No way,” Durgan said as he watched the sway of the ladder. “They came up short. I say we take them out now!” “We will do as We wish,” Eliza said, nodding to Tomas. “What do you think we should do, dear Brother?” Eliza asked as she stroked his cheek.

“Michael Talbot will find a way on to that roof, Sister. And then we will have them all in one place,” Tomas answered as he looked through the window in the former store manager’s office. Grief was etched on his features, but it was belied by the eagerness in his eyes.

“All you have to do is send your zombies up to that fire engine, Mistress, and this whole exercise will be over,” Durgan said with a tone of exasperation.

Eliza grabbed a handful of Durgan’s shirt and lifted the man who weighed nearly three times her body weight and thrust him against the far wall. A small picture and a framed award shattered to the floor as a dazed Durgan tried to regain his footing.

“Do not trouble me with what you want!” she shouted. “Do not presume to think that I care at all what petty thoughts run through that pathetic human brain! You will do as I command, WHEN I command it!” Durgan was finally able to stand. He was certain that he had just suffered a mild concussion, but Eliza’s words rang loud and clear through the accumulating fog in his brain. “Yes Mistress,” he said meekly as he placed his hand up to a small wound on the back of his head. Tomas never turned around throughout the entire episode and that enflamed Durgan more than that little shit-eating grin the kid generally displayed around him.

“What are you doing, Brother?” Eliza asked as she joined Tomas back at the window. Durgan for the moment was completely forgotten.

‘So, this is the joy of being in the company of immortals,’ Durgan thought as he pulled up a chair, his head throbbing uncontrollably, his vision slightly blurred.

“I am sending zombies to the truck,” Tomas answered matter-of-factly.

“When did you discover that you could control them?” Eliza asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Just now,” Tomas answered, deep in concentration.

“I do not think that I like this new development, Brother.”

“I would not think so,” he told her, never wavering in his concentration.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT – Talbot Journal Entry 14

“Zombies have spotted us,” Cindy said as she looked down from her perch on the fire engine’s hood.

Perla began to question the wisdom of what Jack was trying to pull off.

“Jack, I think we should just get out of here. Those people on the roof, we don’t even know them,” Perla said, embarrassed when she realized that I was within earshot.

Jack looked over towards me and shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘She doesn’t speak for me.’

“I’ve said it from the beginning,” I told them. “You don’t owe us anything,”

“We might not know you well now,” Jack began. “But we will eventually, and I for one wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if we didn’t do everything in our power to rescue them,” he finished more to Perla than for me.

“You be careful,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder.

“I made it through a tour in Afghanistan and one in Iraq . What’s a little high wire act above a few thousand zombies in comparison?” he asked her with bravado.

“Not funny,” she said as she mock punched his arm. The words did have the desired effect though, as she walked away from him with a slight smile.

“Jack, I think we should get out of here before the zombies make their way up to us and rethink this,” I told him.

Gary was at my side, nodding as he looked at the outstretched ladder swaying gently in the breeze. “I wouldn’t trust a monkey on that.” A rifle shot exploded through the relative stillness of the day. “Nice shot, Meredith!” Justin yelled.

“Fifty feet, Dad!” Travis yelled.

Now came the dilemma. If we tried this insane plan we were stuck here. It was an all or nothing proposal and to what end. Within seconds, we would all have to be on the fire truck or in our own vehicles getting the hell out of Dodge. The plus side had completely diminished as far as I could tell. The absolute best we could hope to accomplish at this point was to be stuck up on the roof with Paul and Alex, the worst would be being stuck in the fire truck. I didn’t think it would be capable of pushing through a wall of zombies. Well scratch that, the absolute worst would be getting eaten. Yeah, that would take the cake.

“Twenty-five feet!” came the update.

“Let’s get out of here!” I yelled. I’d made up my mind, there was no upside anymore.

“I can do this,” Jack said as he began to climb the extended ladder with the mobile ladder.

“What’s going on Mike?” BT asked.

“Zombies will be here in a few seconds,” I told him.

“And then we’re stuck,” Tracy added, filling in the blanks.

Perla seemed relieved that her fiancé would not be making the attempt.

“Just let me try it once Mike?” Jack asked, never really stopping his ascent.

“Brian, he’s not going to listen to me. You need to get him down so we can get out of here,” I said. Gunshots from Meredith, Travis and Justin seemed to reiterate my point.

“Jack, he’s right!” Brian yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here while the getting is good.” “Get the girls and get the hell out of here!” Jack said as he reached the end of the ladder.

“Can we just drive away with him on the ladder?” Perla asked, nervousness putting a tremor in her voice.

“He’s having a hard enough time staying on as it is, we hit a bump…” I let my frank answer trail off.

“We stay. Travis! I’ll help you, let’s grab the ammo cans, everyone else on the fire truck,” I said with dejection. This was not how I had envisioned this moment.

I had no sooner handed up the last ammo can when the zombies came around the back of the truck. I scrambled up the truck quicker than I thought my bone-weary body could move.

Meredith started firing into the rapidly growing crowd around us. I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Save the ammo for when we’re going to need it,” I told her.

“That isn’t now?” she asked me incredulously.

I just shook my head in negation.

I turned to watch Jack’s progress. It was at this exact moment that I wished I had been forced to watch a 72 hour Glee marathon, anything but what I was about to witness. Jack had propped up the smaller ladder by jamming it through a couple of the much bigger ladder ’s rungs. Now he was trying to secure it with some cabling. But before he could do that, the swaying from the wind, the jostling of the truck from our movements, and the zombies bumping into the body of the truck began to jar the ladder loose. I saw the small aluminum ladder begin to slowly fall as Newton ’s law began to take effect. My first instinct was to tell him to let it go. I had always taught my kids that it was not worth injuring yourself to save ANY piece of equipment, get out of its way and let it fall where it may.

Jack did not adhere to those rules. He reached out and grabbed it with one hand. There was a moment where it appeared that he might be able to muscle the wayward steps back into place, but the centrifugal force of Mother Earth was just a bit stronger than him that day. Jack began to lift off the ladder as the levering action began to outweigh him.

I swear it seemed to happen in super slow motion, but before I could form the words ‘Let it go!’ he was already past the point of no return. Perla turned just in time to watch as he pitched head first into the throng of zombies below. The sound as his head crashed into a zombie’s was sickening. Why had I told Meredith to stop shooting? At least it would have masked that cracking noise.

I ran up the ladder halfway. What I was expecting to see that would be any different from the reality of the event, who knows? It just seemed like the right thing to do. But it wasn’t, Jack was lying prostrate on the pavement, blood pouring from a fissure in his skull. A zombie was lying next to him, at least he had taken one out with him. As I write that thought down, I can’t decide if it’s a crappy thought or a realist thought. A small circle of empty space formed around Jack and the zombie. There was more going on here than met the eye, but that always seemed to be the friggen’ case.

“He’s alive!” I yelled as I watched Jack’s hand twitch. Although I was thinking that I should have maybe kept that thought to myself. It could have just been the spasms of death throes and even if he was alive, he was basically the last bottle of beer in a dry county.

“Jack!” Perla screamed from the base of the ladder.

Cindy was next to her with her arms around her shoulders.

“We’re going to get you out of there!” Brian yelled.

‘We are?’ I thought. Hey, I was all for a rescue, but short of a helicopter, this was going to be a bit tricky.

BT was looking over Brian’s head at me.

‘No clue.’ I mouthed.

Jack slowly turned over, his mouth full of blood. “Bufsted a few teef,” he said as he gingerly pulled himself to a sitting position.

“No biggie, buddy,” Brian said. “Don’t need them to drink beer.”

Jack gave him the thumbs up, but his head was hanging down.

From my elevated perch I watched as a path began to form from the front of the store right to Jack. I lifted my rifle. Something wicked this way came and I was going to blow it back to the corner of hell it had been let out of.

“Hi asshole!” Durgan yelled as he approached. “And put the damn gun down, you shoot me and Eliza sends zombies onto the roof, and you know what happens then. Friends get eaten, blood spurts everywhere, it’s a mess!” he shouted gleefully. “Oh, what’s the matter? You look like someone just dropped a big smelly log i n your Cheerios! Bet you didn’t know my Mistress was here, did you?” I still hadn’t said anything.

“Shoot him! If you don’t, I will!” Paul yelled from the roof. “We’ll take care of ourselves!” Durgan hesitated, he hadn’t been expecting that.

I loved Paul for that, but I’d been shooting with him before. If the target wasn’t the size of an elephant and stationary, he would have a difficult time putting a bullet in it.

“Don’t you dare!” Durgan shouted at me. I pulled the muzzle up just to see the asshole sweat a little.

“O mi dios!” I heard Marta scream.

“Zombies are banging on the door,” Alex explained.

Durgan smiled. I lowered my gun, not willing to let the bluff get out of hand.

“Oh, and shithead, Eliza says if you try to leave on that fancy truck of yours, she will let me bust down that door and kill your friends.” That was of course if I even thought the truck could roll over this many deaders.

Paul picked up his rifle and started to pepper Durgan’s general location. Zombies fell as bellies erupted and heads splintered. Zombies closed around Durgan like a shield, I could see the small bubble of protection as it weaved its way back to the safety of the store.

“Not a great idea!” I yelled to Paul.

“Screw him. Do you think they’re really just going to let us go? I could have at least had the satisfaction of watching him die!” Paul yelled angrily back.

“I guess you’ve got a point there.”

“How’s he doing?” Paul asked of Jack.

“My heaf if killing me,” Jack said as he shakily got to his feet.

I started firing into the zombies that began to tighten their circle back around Jack. His time on earth had come to an unmerciful end. Perla started running up the ladder which began to swing from the effort.

“I love you Perla!” Jack yelled just as the first of the zombies tore into his flesh. It came out more as ‘I wove woo’ but the man was about to die and I let him have his dignity back at least in this journal.

I kept firing into them long after his screams had died down. What was once Jack O’Donnell would now fit snugly in a lunch box with room for a thermos. Perla nearly pitched in after him, wrapped up in her grief as she was. Brian wasn’t much better.

I slowly descended, bringing Perla with me so that Cindy could try and console her. The guilt that dropped onto my frame would weigh heavily for a long time.

BT met me at the controls to the ladder as I handed Perla off.

“You still going to try this?” he asked me.

“Got nothing better going on,” I told him.

“Mike, come on man, its suicide,” BT said seriously.

“It’s only suicide if I take my own life, not if they do it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, I just think I’d rather die up there than down here.”

“Why don’t we just run the squishy turds over and get out of here?” “Eliza is not one for idle threats, we leave, they’re dead.” I said pointing up towards the roof.

“Mike, we stay, they’re dead AND we’re dead.”

“Man, I know it, you know it, they know it,” I said pointing to the front of the store.

“But you’re still going to try, aren’t you,” BT stated in amazement.

“It’s what I do man, I’m a helper.”

“Durgan was right, you are an asswipe,” “That hurts man, now help me get another ladder.”

Tracy watched BT cover me as I reached down to unfasten another ladder. “What are you doing, Mike?” she asked, although she already knew. “You are not going to try that again,” she said, pointing her finger to Jack’s last perch.

I stood back up with the prize in my hands. The zombies watched me with a predatory gaze but they never made a move for me. I had been within reach as I bent down to retrieve the ladder but they had remained fairly civil.

“Mighty decent of them,” BT said echoing my thoughts.

“I thought so. Maybe we could take a few of them out for drinks when this is all over,” I told him.

“Don’t you dare say it!” Tracy snapped.

“What?” BT asked in bewilderment.

“Fine, tell him,” she said, turning towards me.

“We could get Zombies!” I said with a small smile.

BT still looked confused.

“Oh, you’re ruining it, man. A Zombie is a drink we used to get at Chinese food restaurants,” I explained.

“That’s not a good joke, Mike,” BT said seriously.

“It sounded way better in my head.”

“What color are they?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“The drinks, what color are they?”

“Green,” I told him.

“Man, they don’t even sound good,”

“Well, they’re not really. They’re just really strong, supposed to make you feel like a zombie.” “Maybe we should just move on to the whole ladder thing,” BT said, grabbing it from my hands.

“Mike, no,” Tracy entreated me.

“Need some help?” Gary asked.

“Are all you Talbots insane?” Tracy asked.

“I’m not a Talbot,” BT said indignantly.

“Oh, that makes it all better then!” Tracy yelled at him.

BT shrugged his shoulders and went back to his climb. I followed close behind.

Gary stayed down as the ladder began to dip under the added weight of BT and myself. In fairness, the downward slant of the ladder had more to do with BT’s bulk than my own, although I’d never tell him that.

“What’s the plan?” BT asked once we reached the top.

“You know how I feel about plans.”

“Okay, what’s your idea then?”

“Well, let’s extend this bad boy as far as it will go, straight up, and then we’ll try to do a controlled fall so that it hits the roof.” “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then make sure you let it go before it falls into the crowd.”

“Seems sane enough.”

“Yeah, most of my ideas start off with great expectations, only to decay rapidly into…”

“Devastation,” BT concluded.

“Well, I wasn’t going to go that far, but whatever. Let’s do this.”

By the time we had the ladder fully extended, it looked about as sturdy as a pipe cleaner. The swaying of the main ladder and the resultant swinging of the one we were holding had my confidence ebbing faster than Superman’s libido after putting on a kryptonite condom, that is providing of course that such a thing can be made. But IF it could be, it would be disastrous for him, and I guess Lois too.

“This seems safe,” BT said as he tried to keep his footing while also steadying the ladder.

“You guys ready?” I yelled to Paul.

“What the hell do you want us to do?” Mrs. Deneaux shouted.

“Catch it!” I yelled back.

“Yeah, preferably with your face,” BT muttered for my ears only.

“Good one, let’s let it go.”

It fell faster than I was expecting. The good news though was that we had about a foot and a half to spare as it slammed onto the roof. Our end kicked up a good foot from the shock of the contact. It missed me completely but caught BT squarely on the shin. It wasn’t an injurious hit, but it had enough force to make him lose his balance. BT began to pinwheel his arms. I could hear the horrified cries from above and below as I reached out and grabbed the waist line of his pants. There was a shockingly long second where I thought we were both going over. BT wasn’t a piece of equipment and I was not going to let him go.

We were frozen between absolute death and relative safety. A butterfly landing on BT’s shoulder would have been enough to tip the scales. As it was, there was a slight breeze to my face that I think God issued just for us. The death détente was shattered by minutiae; the forces I applied pulled us back from the literal edge.

“Whew,” BT said as he sat down, placing a tight grip on the ladder he sat on. “That was close.” I didn’t say anything. I probably would have just vomited anyway. And that really would have just killed the heroic moment I was hoping to bask in for another minute or two while I got my heart rate under control.

“Mike, I can’t…”

“Don’t,” I said putting my hand up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

BT remained seated while he secured the ladder with some tie downs and a few bungee cords. “I don’t think this would stand up to a regulatory inspection.” The whole assembly was bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans high on cocaine.

I eyed the climb as I psyched myself up.

“What are you doing?” BT said ominously, placing massive arm across my chest.

“Getting an ice cream cone. What the hell does it look like I’m doing?” I asked him.

“I’ll go first,” he said.

“BT, come on man, this won’t hold you.”

“So was that how you planned on getting rid of me? You all go up there and then I’m stuck down here by myself.” “I hadn’t really planned it out,” I told him honestly.

“Listen, this makes the most sense, IF this holds me then there’s no doubt it will hold everybody else.” I started to protest.

“Shut up Mike, I know you’re the Type A personality with control issues and a hero complex, but I’m doing this. It makes the most sense and now once afriggen -gain, I owe you,” “We’re not keeping score, BT.”

“Maybe you aren’t, but I am. Just make sure your end doesn’t come undone,”

“Fine, your funeral…oh man, I didn’t mean that… that was a poor choice of words,”

“Actually it wasn’t, just poor timing. Stop looking like you just swallowed a mouse, it’s alright my friend.” He fist bumped me and started up.

Paul and Alex each grabbed their respective ends of the ladder to keep it from shifting around too much, which was not an easy task with BT’s weight. The real problem began to arise as BT was halfway through his climb, the bow in the ladder began to pull precious inches of aluminum from its perch on the roof. The eighteen inches he had started with had rapidly been reduced to less than two .

BT had not raised his head during the entire expedition, wise move. I don’t think I would have either. He just stayed focused on the task at hand, hand to rung, foot to rung.

“Stop, BT,” Paul said.

“I’d rather not.” Although he did.

I had been so intent on watching BT, I did not realize the drama happening up above. I looked up to Paul and instantly saw the issue.

“Foh!” I said.

“What, Mike?” BT asked without looking.

“I said that out loud? Apparently it’s Shakespearean.” “Mike!” BT roared.

“Sorry man, your weight is pulling the skids of the ladder off the roof.”

“How much more of a climb do I have?”

“Fifteen feet,” I gauged.

“How much of the ladder is still on the roof?”

I looked up to Paul, he held up two fingers.

“Two inches,” I told him, my heart sinking.

“Am I over halfway?”

“I’d say you’re just about dead center,”

“What is it with you and bad word choices?” he asked.

“Huh? Oh man, I’m sorry,” I said again.

“In for a dime, in for a dollar,” as he reengaged his movements.

A third person who I had not seen previously came to the aid of Paul and Alex by getting in between them and reaching down to grab the top rung. I think that may have been what saved BT’s ass. Looks like he was going to owe someone else big time. He was soooo not going to be happy about this.

“Ten feet BT!” I shouted.

“How much?” he asked in return.

I once again looked to Paul. He let go his hold with one hand to raise all his fingers.

“Five inches! That’s awesome!” I said with jubilation.

“Maybe where you come from,” BT said.

“Did he just make a dick joke?” Alex asked.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” I heard clearly from Mrs. Deneaux.

“Just get your ass on that roof,” I told him. “Five feet, and no, I’m not telling you how many inches so that you can tell me ‘That’s more like it,’” I said, trying to do a reasonable facsimile of BT’s deep voice.

“Don’t quit your day job,” BT growled as the new guy grabbed a fair amount of BT’s shirt and pulled.

Considering that my day job consisted primarily of killing zombies, I didn’t think that was going to be a problem.

I rested heavily once BT got his ass up and over the wall. I knew BT far outweighed everybody still on this side, but how in the hell was I going to be able to sit here and watch eight more people cross this suicidal bridge?

Travis was already clambering up to meet me. “I’ll go next,” he said with just a little too much excitement.

“Be careful,” I said needlessly.

“No way, I’m going to do it standing up.”

“Just be careful, smart ass.” The minute it took him to make the climb was among the longest clock ticks I had ever known as a parent. If he slipped and fell, I would have dove in as if he had fallen into a swimming pool. There would have been no thought, no hesitation. My death to mirror his would have been much more preferable to soldiering on without him.

The new guy had found a rope and secured the top rung to something on his side. The ladder had barely bowed at all during Travis’ climb.

“Alright here’s the deal.” I told those on the truck. “I’m heading up, Eliza will definitely kill them if I leave, but if any of you think that you can get this truck out of here safely than I strongly suggest you take that route.” Brian looked at the growing crowd of zombies surrounding the truck. “What do you figure the odds this thing could plow through them?” He asked me.

“Fifty fifty.” I replied.

“Kind of optimistic, don’t you think?” He asked gazing out among the throng. “We’ll come with you.” I nodded, I was happy, we’d need as much fire power as possible.

Meredith climbed up the ladder next. She took a solid five minutes to make the climb, but besides that, nothing out of the ordinary took place. Justin went next; his trip was not as smooth. He had one foot slip and dangle dangerously over the precipice.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly when he got to the top. “I was trying to beat Trav’s time.”

“Yeah, that seems worth it,” I said sarcastically.

It was pretty much Perla’s turn, but she was having none of it. “I can’t!” she cried into Cindy’s shoulder. “He’s gone!” “He is, Perla,” Cindy said consolingly. “But his memory isn’t. He would want you to go on, Perla. You let me read the letters he sent you when he was in the thick of the war. He loved you more than anything. He was always telling you to not let your life go by unlived if anything should happen to him.” “Wait, you read his letters?” Brian asked, “Did she read mine?” he asked, pointing to Perla.

“What do you think?” Cindy answered, pulling Perla in closer.

“That was some pretty personal stuff,” Brian said with some embarrassment.

“Don’t worry, you’re no poet,” Cindy said.

“But there was a lot of love in them,” Perla said, sobbing into her friend’s shoulder.

“Please,” Cindy said. “It was the only comfort we could give to each other while you were off fighting your wars.” “Fine, but I don’t like it,” Brian said as he turned away. I could only imagine that he was trying to desperately remember all that he had said and how many of his deepest secrets had been exposed.

I remember some of the letters I had written to Tracy when I was traipsing around the world in some of the least unsavory places on the planet. When you are under the belief that the day in which you are living is going to be your last, you tend to spill everything within you. Sometimes I had gushed such heartfelt sentiment that I had actually become embarrassed when I reflected back on it from a safer vantage point. If Tracy ever thought that perhaps I was becoming a girly-man, she never once brought it up or held it against me.

Perla did go next; she never once took her eyes off the spot where her fiancé dropped. I personally think it was the anger that spurred her on and not the fear. A pissed-off woman was always a good ally.

Brian grabbed a coil of rope that was housed at the bottom of the lift controls and brought it up. “Never know if we’ll need it,” he said.

By the time the rest of the troop had made it up the ladder I figure I had aged a good five years. It is a sucky feeling to feel so powerless (I would like to banish the word but impotent rings closer to the truth). It is the effect of being a man but unable to do the manly thing. No, I’m not talking sex; it was the inability to completely protect my family. I couldn’t spot them on the ground if they should happen to slip and fall. I couldn’t go up with them and hold them secure. I just had to wait and hope that a higher power was not calling any one I loved to be by His side just now.

Of course that is assuming that I believe in Someone or Something. I have wrestled seemingly my entire life with my belief system. A lot of time in my youth I believed only when it served me. As I have grown older (you’ll note I did not say wiser) and I have spawned my legacy, I sometimes see Him and His Power shining through their eyes. But I waver as I look at the cruel black eyes of those that oppose us and wonder how an omnipotent being could ever find justice in the cruelty that the world afforded so eagerly. And I’m talking even before the zombies came, but if you really start to put all the pieces together, than perhaps it does fit. I’m not saying I like the picture that the puzzle is portraying, but who am I to say what is art? I can’t stand Picasso either. But let’s just say for the sake of argument that He gave us all free will to do as we pleased in His garden. And let’s say that as the spoiled, greedy, egotistical, uncaring, brattish life forms that we are, we took a big shit on his prized Azaleas and maybe His way of disciplining his wayward children is this plague, this plague upon humanity. I have yet to see so much as ONE zombified lady bug, or dolphin, or even an ape who shares somewhere in the neighborhood of 98% of our genes. So there you have it, Beginner’s Theology, Course 101.

So I’ve been stalling my inevitable climb up the ladder. I am no fan of heights. I was so wrapped up in everybody else’s go at it, I guess I never figured my turn would come.

“Henry, it’s just me and you. You ready for this?” I asked him. He didn’t respond, he was too busy looking down at the zombies.

“Talbot, get your ass up here!” BT yelled.

“What about the truck?” I asked him needlessly.

“What about it?” Tracy asked in response.

“He’s afraid of heights,” Gary said, looking over the lip of the wall.

“Talbot? I watched him charge into machine gun fire,” BT said disbelievingly.

“Our brother Glenn,” Gary said, bowing his head and doing the Holy Trinity upon his chest (Catholicism dies hard), “once took him hiking to a place called Blue Hills when he was young,” “Gary, you really don’t need to tell that story right now!” I shouted from the truck.

“If you come up here I’ll stop,” Gary said with a wicked smile.

“That’s kind of messed up,” Meredith piped in.

“I agree with her!” I shouted. Just then the fire truck began to shake as zombies began to slam into the body. I almost pitched over the side long before I had a chance to go up that ladder.

“Continue,” BT said.

“Mike never told me this story,” Tracy said.

“He told me once,” Paul said, “but we were pretty drunk.”

“This sucks,” I said.

Gary turned from me and began up his narrative, “So Glenn,” (Gary stopped for the Trinity again) “took him all the way up this Hill. How old were you Mike, ten, eleven?” “Seven,” I answered back.

“Wow, that young? Damn, no wonder you’re so screwed up,” Gary reflected.

“Just finish it up, will you!” I yelled at him.

“So on the top of this hill is a Ranger’s station, looks a lot like a castle come to think of it. But anyway Glenn (yes the Trinity came again), one of his friends, and Mike go to the top of it. The stations were unmanned and unsupervised back then, I think that’s probably changed since then. Do you know, Mike?” Gary asked.

“Never been back Gary, thank you very much. Please continue!” I told him.

“Well, Glenn,” Gary started again with the cross upon his chest.

“God gets it!” I shouted at him.

“What? What are you talking about?” Gary asked.

He was completely oblivious about what he had been doing. Catholics were used to doing things by rote. If you have never been to a Mass, it consists of a lot of sitting, kneeling, bending and the damn shaking of strangers’ hands. It’s not the people that I can’t stand nearly as much as the germs that they have on them. I’m concerned about where MY hands have been and I KNOW. Only God knows where Joe Schmoe’s hands have been. Who knows, maybe he has an incurable case of pubic lice and he’s been feverishly scratching his nether regions moments before he grasps your hand in mock friendship. I don’t know, but that’s what I’m thinking. I once saw a video on YouTube where a lady on a public train once shoved her hand down the crack of her ass and then pulled it out to give it a good licking. Yeah, you read my entry right, I wrote LICKING. Sniffing would be bad enough, but LICKING? Are you kidding me? I almost upchucked on my monitor. What if that bitch is sitting next to me in church! Still stalling about the climb up the ladder in case you hadn’t noticed.

Gary had started back up while I was having my inner dialog. “… they’re up on the top of this castle slash ranger station and Glenn (Sign of the Trinity – I sighed heavily) asks Mike if he wants a better view.” “This doesn’t sound like it worked out well for you Mike!” BT shouted.

I flipped BT off. It had absolutely no effect on the big man as he laughed it off.

“So Glenn (SotT – guess what it stands for. I have to write this journal out with a pencil and I’m sick of repeating the same thing over and over) hoists Mike up.” My breathing started to accelerate just thinking about what was to come.

“Immediately flips him over and hangs him upside down by his ankles outside the window.”

“Oh my God!” Tracy exclaimed.

“Glenn (SotT) was a wild man,” Gary said with his head bowed.

“Damn Mike, I’m sorry I was messing with you. That would be a head fest for any one, especially a seven-year-old,” BT said. “Now get your ass up here.” “Is that your version of tough love?” I asked him.

“There are zombies getting on the truck,” the guy I hadn’t met yet shouted.

Henry started barking, something he only does under extreme duress, and zombies closing in was apparently on his sliding scale of bark-worthy events, that and doggie ice cream treats, but I hadn’t heard the ice cream man coming.