by Mark Tufo
“What would that be?” I asked, never looking up.
“I would be in charge,” Tomas told me solemnly.
“You’re much more powerful, aren’t you Tommy,” I asked, but it was more of a statement.
“Yes.”
“Is there anything of Tommy left in you?” I asked as a solitary tear was migrating down my cheek.
“No.”
Eliza appeared to have missed the entire conversation; her complete attention was focused on the golden locket lying on the tarred roof. Durgan dizzily made his way onto the crowding roof as zombies began to pour through the opening. Eliza or Tomas still controlled them as they did not attack but made a ring around us, the stranded humans.
Eliza snapped out of her trance. “Do not be so confident, Tomas,” she said to her brother. “Now Michael, I believe you have what is rightfully mine.”
“I do, but I have decided on another set of terms,” I told her.
“I grow weary of this,” Eliza said. A cheetah would have been amazed at her speed as she grabbed the locket and was back in her original spot just as I blew a hole in the surface of the roof, damn near taking my foot off.
“I was expecting that. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.”
“Kill them,” Eliza said before she looked the piece of jewelry over.
The zombies began to close the circle up, hunger intensifying their movements. April fainted outright. It was Mrs. Deneaux that was the first to fire. The front line of zombies dropped quickly as the rest of the group took to arms. Rifle fire crackled, smoke rose into the air, human shaped monsters dropped by the dozens. Missed shots from fifteen feet were a rare occurrence, and then the zombies were eighteen feet away and then twenty. I held up my hand for a cease fire. It wasn’t that the zombies were retreating, they just weren’t advancing anymore.
“Clever Michael,” Eliza said coolly.
“I watched Interview with a Vampire,” I told her. “You vamps move pretty fast.”
“Where is my locket?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I can still kill all of you now and then sort out the pieces later,” she told me ominously.
“Do you really want to look through zombie offal for something you obviously value so much?” I asked her. Can a vampire be a germ-a-phobe? I mean I doubt it, they suck the blood out of people. Who’s to say where that neck has been, or what disease is running rampant through that person’s veins. “And it might not even be on us,” I threw in for good measure.
“You lie, I can smell it on you,” Eliza said.
“The lie or the locket?” I asked.
“Both. But you are right, I would rather you hand me the locket on your knees rather than search among these diseased vermin.”
“Well at least we agree about the vermin part,” I told her. “Let’s make a straight up trade, all of us leave here and you get your locket.”
“Where is the fun in that?” Eliza asked me.
“I think it sounds like a lot of fun,” Mad Jack piped up.
“Me too actually,” BT added.
Gary raised his hand in acknowledgement also.
“Enough!” Eliza said forcibly. “That is not an acceptable bargain. Someone must die here today.”
“There’s always you,” Justin said a little louder than he intended.
“Oh my pet,” Eliza said turning her head to face him. “You do not know what you have thrown asunder. I could have brought you on an incredible journey. You could have danced across the graves of everyone who has ever wronged you.” Justin pulled his gaze from Eliza. She laughed. “Silly boy, it is a shame you will never see the dawn of a new day.”
“I will fight Durgan,” I said.
“No Talbot,” Tracy said obstinately.
“Hush,” I said, putting my finger to her lips and hoping she wouldn’t bite it off. “I will fight Durgan but when I kill that asshole, we ALL leave unharmed and unpursued.” (Now that I said and wrote that word I’m not sure if it’s actually a Webster’s Dictionary approved word. Oh well, it’s not like anyone besides me will ever see this.)
“Those were not our original terms,” Eliza said.
“It’s called leverage Eliza. I have a little bit and I plan on using it.”
“If anyone on your side should step in and alter the outcome, our agreement will be null,” Eliza said, speaking directly to BT.
“No one will,” I said turning to face my friend.
“What? I haven’t even done anything,” BT said guiltily.
“And you won’t, right?” I asked him.
“But what if he’s beating the crap out of you, can’t I at least kill him before they get us?” BT asked. I gave him the sternest look I could muster, but it didn’t do much considering it was aimed at his sternum. “Alright, I won’t do anything even if your spindly ass is getting spanked and or demolished,” he grudgingly conceded.
“Thanks man,” I said sarcastically. “Eliza, do you agree to this?”
“I will let everyone including yourself leave here unharmed, IF you kill him.”
“What about not pursuing us?”
“That will be my leverage Michael. You can all leave here and I will let you go, but not forever.”
“Don’t take the deal, Dad,” Travis entreated.
“I welcome the opportunity to put a spike through your chest, Eliza,” I told her. Eliza sneered. “Swear it, Eliza.”
“I swear it on the Blood Locket, Michael.”
“Tomas?” I asked.
“She is bound,” Tomas said.
I pulled the locket from the barrel of the shotgun where I had stowed it once the zombies stopped approaching. Eliza gasped.
“It would have been the first thing destroyed,” I told her.
Eliza walked purposefully over to me and took the locket from my extended arm, making certain that her ice cold touch came in contact with my hand.
“We could still have some fun,” Eliza told me as she kept her hand wrapped around my wrist.
“I’ve already dated enough cold heartless bitches in my lifetime, thank you very much,” I said, trying to control the fear that was threatening to run away with my nerve.
“Very well. It is a beautiful day to die,” she said as she released her grip.
“I’d actually prefer a good rainstorm, maybe some hail and a crap load of lightning. It’s that whole flair for the dramatic,” I told her.
“Even at the end, you jest. You are a unique individual, Michael. I will almost miss you.”
“My mother told me that once.” It was the first thing I could think of.
“Dude?” Paul said.
“Too far?” I asked him.
“A little bit.”
“You will surrender your weapons now,” Eliza said as she stepped back next to Tomas.
“Whoa, that wasn’t part of the agreement,” I told her.
“Yes, as a matter of fact it was. When you die, the rest of your group will surrender to me. With their weapons they will not be so willing to follow through.”
“I say we just go out fighting now Mike,” Brian said.
A few others thought the same.
“We voted on this already, either we’re all in or we’re all out. I’m prepared to fight to the end by myself or with all of you by my side.”
More zombies began to funnel through the breech point in response to Brian’s call to arms.
“We’ve voted,” Alex said. “With Mike we have a chance. I’ve said my piece and I am at peace with the decision. I am prepared to meet my Maker.”
“I’m not sure if I should be honored or not with that comment Alex.”
Alex shrugged his shoulders.
“Well at least you clarified that, buddy,” I told him.
The small pile of rifles and pistols we produced could have kept a guerilla unit in Southern Peru stocked for a few years. I honestly don’t know how we could have carried all this armament and still move effectively. No
w I know why the ladder bowed so much under BT. Sure, a good part of it was his bulk, the rest had to do with the two rifles and three pistols he contributed to the pile, plus the five hundred or so rounds he had stashed on him at various locations on his body.
“Got anything else on you?” I asked him softly, pretty much just kidding.
When he smiled at me diffidently, I didn’t even want to know where that one might be hidden, best not to think of things like that.
“I will give you some time to say your prayers to your false God,” Eliza said as she strode back through the roof door, her entourage of zombies on her heels.
“That’s not like her,” BT mused, coming up beside me.
“I agree but there’s no sense in trying to figure it out. A normal woman’s motives would be impossible to figure out.”
“And she’s not normal,” BT concluded.
“Let’s start working on some contingency plans while we have a chance,” I said, getting the group into a circle, except for April who had not yet decided to stop napping.
“What if Durgan beats you?” Perla asked.
“He won’t,” Tracy said.
“Okay, but what if he does?” Perla asked again, “We can’t just leave our fates up to her.”
“Personally, I’d rather let the zombies eat me,” Cindy said.
That’s how you know Eliza is one mean mother, when people would rather get eaten alive than spend any time with her.
“Could we survive a jump off the roof?” Joann asked, “I mean, we’d land on all those zombies below us.”
“And then what?” BT asked peering over the edge. “Even if you didn’t so much as bruise a muscle from the forty foot drop you’d still have to make it through close to a hundred feet of zombies.”
“Plus I’ve got a feeling that we won’t be anywhere near the edge,” Mad Jack said, “Eliza’ll have us surrounded.”
“Okay, who’s got what?” I asked the group as I pulled out a Glock 26 from a concealed holster.
BT hoisted out a seven inch barrel .357 Magnum. Erin had a stubby .22. Travis had a small .32 revolver, and Justin produced a sling shot. Hey it was a weapon, not a great one, but just ask Goliath how effective they could be.
“Sorry man,” Brian said. “All I had was that rifle. We won’t be able to put up much of a fight with these anyway,” he said, getting depressed at the notion.
Mrs. Deneaux came into the center of the circle, a small Derringer in her hand. “It’s not for them, sweetie,” she said, placing the barrel up against April’s head and her still prone body.
“That’s even worse,” Cindy said.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Mad Jack said.
“What will God think if we take our own lives? That is a mortal sin!” Perla was nearly crying again.
“The sin would be to allow Eliza to possess us,” Marta said resignedly.
“Agreed,” Paul said.
“You’d better beat him,” Marta told me.
I’d bested him twice, but once was with a rifle and the other was while he was recovering from the first injury, not exactly a hand on hand combat situation. Sure, I had trained for this in the Corps but that was a LONG time ago. My philosophy was and still is that carrying more ammunition is your best bet.
The door to the roof opened slowly. All of our weapons raised. We tipped our hand; did this make the deal a no go? It was Tomas. I dropped my weapon down to my side but no one else followed suit.
“Mr. T, there is no time for this. Tell them to put their weapons down so that I may approach,” Tomas said.
“Tommy?” I asked, hoping beyond hope.
“No,” he shook his head. “I thought it would be easier for you to accept me if I reverted back to how he sounded.”
“Put your guns down,” I told them.
Tomas approached. “Eliza is enhancing Durgan. You will not be able to defeat him with his new powers.”
“Enhancing how?” I asked. The question wasn’t fully out of my mouth before I stumbled upon the answer myself. “She’s turning him into one of her, into one of you.”
“Not quite, that would take too long and she doesn’t want him to share her blood.”
“Then how?” Gary asked.
“The same way she accelerated his healing and the same way I survived all these years, a half-bite.”
“Like a nibble,” Eddy said.
Tomas nearly smiled. I don’t think that Tommy was as far gone as Tomas believed him to be.
“What does this do for Durgan?” Tracy asked.
“He’ll be faster, stronger.”
“Great, like he didn’t already have that going for him,” BT said.
“BT, I’m right here man,” I said.
“Sorry man, I’m just saying. It’s not like you didn’t already know that.”
“Yeah, I guess I just didn’t need it vocalized from my own camp.”
“My mom used to say the truth hurts,” Eddy said.
I laughed. “Great, out of the mouths of babes.”
“Why are you here Tomm… Tomas?” Tracy asked, “Is it just to tell us this?”
“I’ve come to give Michael the same opportunity that Durgan is receiving.”
“Wait, you want to turn me into a half-vamp? I can’t,” I was panicking on the inside.
“It’s the only way,” Tomas said.
“Hear him out,” Mad Jack said.
“And then after today? Then what? I watch as my family and my friends die. I watch as my children catch up to me in age and eventually die? I won’t, I can’t watch that, I can’t be a part of that.”
“Stop being a pansy,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “Today is the only day that any of us has guaranteed. If it becomes too much of a burden then you can always fall on your sword. Of course it would have to be made of wood,” she cackled.
“I thought you were relatively cool when you pulled that gun out. Now we’re back to square one and I can’t stand you.”
She cackled louder.
“Every second we waste in discussion will be that much more time you will have to stay alive waiting for your own powers to increase,” Tomas said.
“How much of a head start does Durgan have?” Justin asked. I was still pretty lost in my own thoughts to make any coherent cognitive thoughts.
“Five minutes,” Tomas answered his old friend.
“Why bother at all,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “He couldn’t survive five minutes against the old Durgan, now with the new and improved model? Pah, we should have kept more guns.”
“You should see if that gun has any rounds in it and hold it up to your eye. I’ll pull the trigger for you,” Alex said.
She “pahed” again.
“What of my soul?” I asked Tomas.
He shook his head in negation.
“I can never go to Heaven?”
“Only to the gates.”
“I’ve been there,” I said, burying my head in my hands. “It’s a beautiful place, lonely but beautiful.”
“Oh Mike,” Tracy said, draping her body across mine like a shield against the worst of what the world had to offer.
“I’m not strong enough for this,” I said as my body heaved.
“Our lives are not worth eternity,” BT said as he wrapped Tracy and myself up in his own embrace.
“Eliza will discard all of your souls before she is done,” Tomas said.
“Why are you doing this?” Meredith asked, “You play on the other team now, what do you care what happens to us?”
“I have my reasons,” Tomas said evenly.
I looked around at the faces surrounding me, searching for an answer that only I could produce. It was Travis and Justin that solved my dilemma. Watching them die today was infinitely worse than watching them die at some mythical point in the future.
“Do it.”
“Talbot! NO!” Tracy yelled.
“You sure man?” BT asked in disbelief.
“Do I look s
ure?” I asked him, my eyes red-rimmed.
“I don’t think so,” Gary said. “What? He asked!” Gary replied when BT looked at him sideways.
“Damn, I thought the whole Captain Obvious was my strong point,” Justin said. “It must run deeper in the family than we thought.”
Tomas came up beside me, “You will want to lie down.”
“Is this going to hurt him?” Meredith asked.
“Extremely.”
“Wicked pissah,” I said.
Tracy walked away, her arms folded across her chest. I couldn’t be sure from my position, but it looked like her shoulders were shaking with sobs.
I lay down, saying the Lord’s Prayer in one last vain attempt to possibly keep a dialog open with the Big Guy.
