'Til Death Do Us Part

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Mike Journal Entry 13

According to the mile markers, we had walked ten miles and where getting pretty close to the 495 and 95 interchange. Our traveling was getting slower and slower; Azile was having great difficulty walking under such a heavy load. Every time she lagged behind, I would take more equipment from her even as she protested that she needed to do her part. By the time we hit ten miles, the only thing left to carry would have been her.

“Someone’s coming,” Azile said as she stood back up. She had been sitting by the side of the road with her shoes off tenderly rubbing around her sore spots. “Hide?” she asked me when she realized I wasn’t moving.

Normally that would have been standard operating procedure, but we hadn’t encountered so much as a scooter. We were traveling at a whopping ten miles per half day, and at this rate, we’d get to Maine and it’d be winter and I had no desire to revisit sled travel. “Hold still, but get ready to move.”

“That’s your plan?”

“Better than most,” I told her. My heart thudded a little heavier when I saw that big rig crest over the top of a small rise.

“It’s a truck, Mike,” Azile said, looking over towards the trees.

“Hold steady,” I told her, the trucker had already seen us. He flashed his lights, if we bolted now it would look mighty suspicious, although ‘suspected’ is better than dead. Now I was looking over at the tree line.

The truck was slowing as it approached. It stopped about twenty feet away. “That rig back there yours?” he shouted, sticking his head out from the window.

“Hers!” I pointed to Azile. She did not look pleased that I had singled her out.

“Run into a bit of trouble?” the trucker asked.

“Flat tire,” I told him.

“Is that right?” he asked back.

“We’re running late for an appointment, is there any chance you could help us out?” Azile asked.

The driver switched his gaze from me to Azile, but keeping me in his periphery due to all the weaponry I was carrying. “That’s funny ‘cause I’m a little late, too…had some truck trouble and had to stop and get a quick fix on.”

What were the odds? I thought. I was going to give it a shot. “Listen, we need to get to a particular thing in Maine, or we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

I watched as recognition lit the man’s face up. “Well fancy that, I have an engagement in Maine also. I just need to make sure we’re playing for the same team, you can never be too careful.”

“Never too careful,” I reiterated when I saw the barrel of his rifle resting on his dashboard.

“We had a shipment of guns and food,” Azile said. “Kong gave us directions to a place in Maine where we were supposed to deliver them. If I don’t at least show up and tell him what happened he’ll think I stole the stuff.”

The man’s face softened when he heard Kong’s name. “Kong isn’t the most forgiving man, are you sure you don’t want to just start walking the other way?” The driver asked.

“I’m his niece,” Azile said, “he might be mad but he’ll understand.”

“What about him?” the driver asked.

“He’s my porter.”

“Funny,” I said under my breath.

“Come on, you both can tell me what happened when you get up here,” the driver said as he reached over and opened his passenger door.

A large orange tabby was staring me straight in the face as I went to climb into the rig.

“Oh, don’t mind him, I picked him up back in North Carolina. He was just wandering around. He climbed up into the truck and now he’s convinced he owns the place,” the driver said, smiling as he reached under and picked the cat up.

The cat hissed violently as he did so, but it was looking squarely at me. The cat remembered me. Good, I thought, he’ll know why I’m cutting off its air flow when I get the chance.

“Take a little longer,” Azile said as she brushed past.

“Can we put some of the rifles in the back?” I asked the driver.

He looked at me strangely. “You may have been carrying food and weapons, not me.”

Then I realized it, his trailer was jammed full of zombies. “Yeah, I’ll just hold on to them,” I told him as I handed the weapons up to Azile, truly hoping that one would accidently discharge and take out the damn cat.

“My name is Jake Fitzgerald, most folks just call me Fritz,” he said, extending his hand.

I nearly froze, remembering the last person I’d known with the same moniker. I recovered smoothly enough, I hoped. I wasn’t an actor. “Mike, Mike Tal...isman.” I was figuratively fist-palming my forehead. I had nearly given the man my true name.

I could see Azile’s slight head shake as she realized what I had nearly done. Fritz hadn’t seemed to catch my error as he was getting the truck rolling. “Nice to meet you, Mike, it’ll be great to have some company. What happened to your rig?” Fritz asked, looking into the back where the sleeper was.

“Someone was shooting at us, must have hit a fuel line. They took off once we started returning fire,” Azile replied, trying to be as least descriptive as possible.

“Man, looks more like a bomb went off,” Fritzy laughed.

“You’d think,” I half laughed, keeping an eye on him to see if he was fishing or not. He didn’t seem to be.

“Have you tried this little vial thing out yet?” he asked as he pulled a small bottle wrapped in an ornate piece of silver jewelry out to show us.

I clutched my shirt as if I had one underneath. “Not yet. Not sure I want to, either,” I told him.

“I get you, I mean the only way you could, would entail being face-to-face with a zombie and I don’t want to do that. Already been close enough a few times, no desire to do it anymore and willingly. Besides, Kong said he tested it and it worked, his word is good enough for me. And if it does work it’s worth what we’re going to do.”

“Do you even know?” I asked him.

“Well I know that Eliza woman has a personal vendetta to settle, that’s about it.”

“So you signed up with her not caring the consequences?” I asked.

“Why should I?” he shot back. “As long as I gain from it, that’s all that really matters.”

“Fuck everyone else?” I asked.

“Basically. I don’t know why you’re getting all judgmental on me, you signed up for the same damn mission,” Fritzy said indignantly. “You know, I’ve known Kong a good many years now.”

Shit. Alarms started going off in my mind’s early warning detection system.

It must have for Azile, too, she pressed the barrel of an as yet unseen weapon—at least to me—up to Fritzy’s head.

“Yup I figured, he never once did say anything about a niece. I’m getting hijacked by my own pistol,” he said, looking over slightly at the revolver. “Well isn’t that wonderful.”

“Is it the name?” I asked aloud, but to no one in particularly.

“Huh?” Azile and Fritzy asked.

“I haven’t had much luck with people named Fritzy or similar sounding anyway,” I told them. “Stop the truck.”

“Pretty please,” Azile said as she pulled the hammer of the pistol back.

“You gonna shoot me now?” he asked nervously as the big rig came to a halt.

“No, something much better,” I told him.

By the time Azile was putting the truck in gear, Fritzy, his vial and that stupid fucking cat were neatly tucked away in the trailer with a few hundred zombies.

“Should have just shot him,” Azile said. “It would have been more humane.”

“He was going to wipe out my family just because. Fuck humane.”

We could hear him screaming for mercy occasionally, then some heavy duty sobbing. A few times I thought I heard some serious hissings from a cat, but that just may have been wishful thinking on my part.