by Mark Tufo
“I don’t know how you do it. Most here are frightened about the uncertainty of the next few days and yet you are more concerned about your…umm, delicate constitution,” she said.
“I always was more about the here and now. If it’s not right in front of me it sort of only exists in the abstract. Stop looking at me that way. Yeah I know, it’s not the optimal way to approach the world, the non-planning thing and all, but it’s the way I work. Those are the bridges I will cross when I get to them, so to speak. Right now, my ass hurts.”
“You do realize with only a modicum of planning that these bridges you speak of could be smaller and much more easily manageable right?”
“What fun would that be? Always planning for the future and shit. Sounds so boring.”
“Get over here.” She was still smiling. It was good to see that.
We talked banalities for a while, which was surprisingly refreshing. It got a little weird when we talked about television shows we enjoyed growing up and I told her the Dukes of Hazzard was among my favorites. She asked what it was about. I just had to remind myself that when you’re both well over a hundred years old the age difference really doesn’t matter that much, until it comes to prime time TV. Sure, when I was fifteen, smoking joints and getting intimately acquainted with the detention hall, she was wearing diapers. Nothing weird about that. In terms of maturity, though, she was worlds ahead of me now. Shit, knowing the little asshole that I was she probably could have beat me back then as well.
“Now, I don’t want you to take this wrong...”
“But?” she prodded.
“Where’s Lana?”
“Why ever would you think I might misunderstand why you are looking for my potential rival?”
“I am concerned for her. She is still an eighteen-year-old girl who thinks she runs the world, and I feel partially responsible for her well-being. After all, if not for me she most likely would not be out here.”
“I think you underestimate the whole ‘damsel in distress’ persona she puts on.”
“There is no part of me that fears she’s in any sort of trouble. I’ve watched her in battle; she has a singular deadliness about her that completely goes against her outward appearance. I think if you had a mind to and you did a little of your voodoo on her, you’d find an attached demon or something.”
“First off, I don’t ‘do voodoo.’ And I checked, there is no demon.”
“Now, I realize you didn’t grow up on the East Coast, so it’s impossible for me to know when you’re being sarcastic.”
“And that’s the way it should be. Let’s get some sleep. Lana is fine.”
I hadn’t held out much hope of getting any rest, so intent was I on finding Mathieu, but you’d be amazed how much a sore butt can tire you out.
Chapter 14
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 8
THE NEXT DAY melded into the next day and so on. If not for the horse, I could have believed this was just an extension of the great zombie marathon of 2153. Each day, instead of getting used to the saddle, it got worse. I had three blankets stuffed under me as we rode. Nothing helped. Might as well have been sandpaper mixed in with some glass shards. Even Oggie, who loved his naps and slept most of the day, was getting close to having had enough with the constant rocking motion of his basket. About midday of each day I would ask Bailey for an update. On the third day she stopped the column, dismounted, and checked and rechecked the trail. She looked up at me with concern, her lips pursed.
“They have pulled even farther ahead.”
I wanted to scream, maybe even punch my ride in the head. Scratch that last part, he would have tossed me like a flea and then kicked me. Instead I gently scratched his mane. “Just kidding.”
He craned his neck. I swear if he could respond he would have said something like it was no great shakes having me on his back, either.
“How much ahead?” Azile asked.
“Day and a half, maybe two,” she answered.
I couldn’t help it, I lost it. “How in the fuck in three days could they possibly gain that kind of distance on us!? Who is helping them? They are mortal fucking creatures, right? They die, they tire, they have to sleep and eat...that’s not even including the poor bastards they’re herding! Are we fucking moving backwards?”
On the flip side, we’d had three injuries just from exhausted riders falling off their mounts. Two were minor, the third had cracked a rib on a rock. She’d decided to keep riding with us but, once the festivities started I wasn’t sure how well she was going to be able to defend herself.
“There’s more.”
“Can’t wait,” I said sourly.
“They are attempting to hide their tracks. Right now that’s fine but if they get another couple of days on us or a good rain like the other night, I won’t be able to track them at all.”
“Just fucking peachy.” I’d grabbed an old term my wife was fond of when things weren’t going particularly well.
That night we felt the first rumblings signifying perhaps we should turn around. We were already well past any charted territory. Near as Azile and I could tell we’d already crossed into Canada. I could only hope that the banishment I’d received from this fair country had lapsed. Wouldn’t want to start an international incident. I could not fault our people their misgivings. Something else was in play here. We rode all day every day, sunshine, rain, fog, whatever, and still the Lycan moved as if on their own magic carpet. Whoever was pushing the pawn pieces around at the moment gave an advantage to Xavier. The game wasn’t over by a long shot, but we were in an untenable position. He was drawing us farther and farther from home, security, and resources. Perhaps that had been his plan all along. Lure us as far away as possible, wait for the moon to change, turn, and wipe us out.
It was a particularly dreary day when we arose. I’d like to say “awoke,” but that wasn’t the case. Hadn’t slept more than five minutes the previous night. Spent most of the night wandering our perimeter, knowing full well we were not going to be attacked, yet I could not shake the feeling that was exactly what was going to happen. It was not a great spread of feelings to have. The sun arose, after it got its solid eight, and I won’t lie, I was a little jealous. A thick dew glistened on the tall grass we’d bedded down in. Leaves hung heavy in the extra moisture afforded them. A low-level fog swept through our camp. We were on the move again. It was not hard to see the shift in morale. When we’d first started out we’d had a purpose, a goal. But now it wasn’t so clear. The person—my friend—whom we were on our way to save, was most likely dead by now, and the Lycan appeared to be leaving us in their wake. Maybe not for good, but they were definitely heading out. All we were doing now by following endlessly was keeping these people away from their loved ones and starting the rebuilding process.
A Journey Into the Past
I GOT BACK on my horse and unwillingly began to drift into my own past as we moved on. My thoughts soured to the point where I began to relive a previous life, rethinking questionable actions and events, estimating alternate outcomes. After my beloved Tracy had died, I was as near to inconsolable as one can be. My grief so heavy I am convinced my mind snapped under the weight of it. My kids and grandkids, who by this time had gone and done some incredible things, had begged me to leave with them. To get away from Ron’s house where so much death and destruction had occurred. I told them I couldn’t. I nearly sobbed aloud as I thought on this. I had told them then that I could never leave, for if their mother haunted any place, it would be there, and I would not leave her alone.
They’d stayed for two weeks after that. I’d put on as brave a face as I could. I wanted them to leave so I could sob unhindered. The pain...it was so great it was all encompassing. I believe having one’s insides slowly pulled out, or maybe an eyeball pierced repeatedly with a dull needle would have been far less crippling than the anguish I was going through. It was not just that she had died, but also knowing that we would never again be reunited. Perhaps th
ere are those that will someday read this journal that do not believe in an afterlife, certainly your prerogative; I would never force my beliefs on another. But do not fault me for my faith, for holding out hope of something more than this pathetic existence. If for even a flicker of a moment I thought that death was the end, the great black abyss in which there is nothing and nobody, I would have killed myself half a heartbeat after she passed in my arms.
These are my journals, and as thus, they are colored by my actions and writings. I, personally, am not ashamed of my past behavior, nor indeed of the choices I make in the present. But there will always be those that read these words that will not understand, thus I am hesitant to continue, lest I am judged harshly. I cannot imagine there will be many, save Azile, that will find any reason to peruse these pages after I’m gone. I hope you think no less of me for my confessions. I know that in previous journals I wrote about waiting patiently for Tommy to bring me my sacrificial cow, and for the most part that holds true. I did, in general, sit like a king on his crumbling throne. But there were times I did not. For ten years after Tracy’s death, I waited. I mourned, I wailed at the heavens, I savagely cursed all of existence. I screamed at the demigod that had put me in this position to come down and face me. She’d flatly refused. I’d like to think it was fear, but my guess was indifference.
After a decade of crying and screaming I wanted to see my family again, it was time. The problem now was where had they gone? They told me they’d wait in the ruins of Belfast, the next town over, until I came to my senses. I safely assumed that gesture didn’t span a decade. Still, Belfast was the first place I went. Perhaps they’d settled there, would that make me happier or sadder? Had I let them live so close to me but had done nothing to see them? That issue was resolved as I walked by the remnants of the firehouse, the roof had long ago caved in, as had most of the other structures in the area. The harsh Maine winters with their heavy snows had seen to the destruction of nearly all the buildings. Still I walked around, seeing the ghosts of the things we’d done here in previous days. I looked up to the roofline of the post office swearing I could see a much younger version of Travis looking down at me, he was holding a shotgun and smiling.
I almost waved at the mirage. Just maybe though, maybe he was actually there; if that was the case, that meant Tracy was in the basement! With Justin, Nicole, and Wesley. I ran through the caved-in door, fully expecting to see them all. Dust, almost thick enough to be impenetrable, swirled around my wake as I made my way across the floor. I went behind the teller’s station, I could see the door to the basement broken open.
“Tracy,” I’d said, barely loud enough to push the churning mass before me. There was the tiniest of scrapes. I was certain I had heard something. A shiver went up my spine as I imagined a skeletal finger dragging against the wooden railing. A vengeful specter come to claim its due—the ghosts of all those I’d laid prematurely to rest come to tow me to the depths. Or worse. I could hear footfalls ever so quiet upon the treads of those stairs. My mouth was as arid as a camel’s balls. Whatever the fuck that means. Fear had punched me square in the throat. My mouth hung agape as I dared not attempt to swallow. Another scratching, another step, something was indeed climbing those stairs. My pulse pounded in my temples, my heart was collapsing in on itself. My legs had become leaden.
A hiss like the last gasp of the dying poured forth from the black opening in the wall. Whatever was there was close to the door. Would I be able to gaze upon it without going insane? Better yet, did I dare to? What if it was the face of my beloved ten years in the grave? Could I ever recover from that sight? A hollow tinkling struck, I imagined her wedding ring falling, slipping off her bony appendage, striking the metal railing and falling to the cement floor.
“Please stop,” I begged. A distant crow cawed in mocking laughter. Another echo of foot against tread, the long, low sigh of one not used to moving.
“I’m sorry. I can’t.” I put my hands up in surrender before turning away. I left quickly, unsure if everything that had just happened was imagined or real or some bizarre combination of both. And honestly, it didn’t matter.
The specter, for that is what it was, called down to me from above. “Dad, when will you be back?” Belfast had indeed become a ghost town, replete with its own phantoms. My children would not have stayed there long. Now what? I was torn between the horror that I would never find them and relieved this was the case. I was my own form of shade, throwing a shadow around all of those I loved, preventing them and myself from seeing the light. Nobody deserved that. I’d more than half convinced myself this was for the best, as I walked to the only home I ever expected to have again. I was so lost in the internal I tripped over the external. In this case, an errantly placed cinder block. For the life of me I could not figure out how it had found its way to the center of what used to be the laundromat’s parking lot. When I looked up, I noticed there were dozens, maybe even a couple hundred of them evenly strewn around, entirely too neatly to be done by time’s haphazardness. No, this had the finger of man upon it.
I laughed so hard, I cried. My knees buckled and I sat down hard upon the very stone that had halted my homeward progress. It was a message etched in stone, or in this case, outlined in it: Headed North Dad, Trav. North was a pretty vague direction to go on. Although, this was Maine, so there really was only a couple ways to go. And since the road I was on, Route 1, was one of them, I figured this very vein would be a fair enough assumption to go on. It was a few more miles before I could shake off the post office visit. Once that most unwelcome encounter finally subsided, it was replaced by an equally unsettling thought. What if my kids wanted nothing to do with me?
“Why the stone message then, Talbot?” I’d said trying to assuage my fears.
“Yeah, well, that was written a fucking decade ago, a lot of things can change in three thousand and sixty hundred and fifty days.” And for some reason saying it like that reminded me of just how long I’d been away from them. It meant little-to-nothing in terms of my life, but it was a significant portion for those I’d loved, and I’d squandered it. Something I could never get back. I stopped more than a dozen times those first few days, wondering if what I was doing was right. What if I got there and they did not want to see me? Twice I’d actually turned around. I think in the end, it was Tracy that urged me on. To be able to see some small piece of her in my children’s features. The delicate nose in my daughter. The trusting eyes of my youngest son, the quick smile of my eldest son. She lived on through them, not in Ron’s house, and certainly not at the Belfast post office.
Every ten miles or so I would find another boulder strewn message. Lord knows rocks weren’t in short supply in Maine. Probably the easiest crop you could grow out there was a field of stone. People that traveled the state for tourism season always thought those fucking walls were oh-so-quaint. Yeah, they’re not. They represent hours upon hours of back breaking work. They are by no means decorative, either. Moving them around is a much needed necessity if one would like to yield an edible crop from the short growing season. And no matter how long or high you built that wall, the following year, frost heaves would push more of the sons of bitches to the surface. I’d spent way more of my time “growing” those walls than I ever did raising something to eat. The messages became single letters, but they conveyed all the information I needed. “N” for north, simple enough.
I didn’t know the reason for this particular direction. Odds were that any pockets of survivors would be to the south, in the more temperate weather. Then I had to laugh. Seems I’d passed on some of my personality traits along with my DNA. They were heading north for just that very reason. The likelihood they would stumble upon people in the deep woods of Maine were minimal. More likely to come across a yeti out there. “Been waiting to see one of those damn things,” I said as I walked through the night. I was thinking I should ask Tommy the next time I saw him if the rumors of the beast were true. If he hadn’t seen one in his time
on earth then I might have to acquiesce to the belief that they didn’t actually exist. Maybe I wouldn’t ask him; some things were better not being known.
At the next marker a feeling I’d been all too familiar with crept in. It was something I’d suffered through during Tracy and my years together. Whenever I’d had to leave the house on business I’d suffered nearly debilitating bouts of homesickness. Pretty sure it was some type of phobia that I heaped on top of all the others I’d amassed over the years. I stared at that huge N cobbled together with stones, bricks and debris and wondered if maybe I should turn back. But those times, many years ago when I yearned to be back in the loving arms of my wife, surrounded by my rambunctious kids and slobbering dog were gone. What was back there for me now? A disgusting old chair? I stood in that spot for nearly an entire day, sometimes my left leg would twitch and I would think to head home, other times the right and I felt like I should plod on.
There are a few things in this life no person, man or woman, should ever have to deal with and one is burying a child. A horror I knew awaited me times three. Add to that the ugly fact that all of my children were now physically older than I would ever appear to be, no matter when I died. It broke my withered fucking heart every time I looked upon my wrinkle-lined youngest’s face. He was my baby, for god’s sake; in a few more revolutions of this giant marble through the sky he would look the parent to me. There were times when, through my selfishness, I had thought to bite them and bring them eternally along on this hell ride of mine. Would they have loathed me for my weakness? I would be taking away exactly what I had so desperately fought for on that roof, just for my own comfort.
“Should I stay or should I go? Oh please, dude, tell me you didn’t just reference an old Clash song.” I remember it well. It was a sudden vicious wind storm, highlighted by a torrential downpour that finally spurred me on. The winds were buffeting me in the direction the kids had gone. Apparently, kismet thought that was the appropriate direction. Who was I to argue with fate? I laughed. I’d been doing that for all my years; not sure why I questioned it at that particular moment. The Ns were getting smaller and more spaced apart the farther I went, as if even my ever optimistic son doubted I would venture this far. The roadway was a crisscross of patchwork pavement. Back in the day, there was no money and no real need for upkeep this far north. Usually, once a year, the state would send a crew or two up with cold-patch and fix some of the more treacherous potholes. Driving up here was certainly at the risk of the driver. Surprised they hadn’t made people sign a waiver before they got here.
