End of an Age

by Mark Tufo

  “They won’t realize that at first. They will be too angry at the deception. This might be the opportunity that Lunos has given you.”

  “What am I supposed to do, just walk in there and challenge him again? If your memory is a little foggy I’ll remind you that he not only handed me my ass, he kicked it pretty well before handing it over. I would think you would remember the part about having to swoop in and save it. I was the bloody lump you were carrying in your arms.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe this was my one and only chance to have another showdown with Xavier. Don’t know who either of us were kidding though. The Lycan leader was faster, stronger, and probably smarter. There was just no way I was going to be able to take him down in a fair fight. Does the concept of being “fair” really apply to a fight that will inevitably end in a death? There is no honor in dying, anyway. Got to love when people say: “He died with honor,” like he gives a shit, like that makes it easier on his family. Here’s a little clue, he doesn’t give a shit. He’s dead. I wasn’t above cheating to win, especially if that meant staying alive. I could always talk out my feelings of remorse and poor sportsmanship with a therapist later. No, the real question was, how in the hell was I going to cheat better than Xavier?

  We both stopped. I was somewhere deep in thought about dumping lava onto Xavier from the bucket of an excavator or something and Mathieu was most likely figuring out how to construct a sled so he could haul my broken ass away from wherever we ended up fighting. The roar stilled every creature in the woods. Apparently, our subterfuge had been discovered.

  “He sounds angry,” Mathieu whispered to me.

  “I don’t think he’s going to hear you.” I hadn’t even realized that I’d answered him in virtually the same way. “So much for going back and sneaking a knife in him. There’s always a drone strike, I’ll just need to get into NORAD and figure out how to get the satellites back online. All of that would be easier than trying to take King Wrong down.”

  “King Wrong?”

  “It’s a lot funnier if you know what I’m talking about.”

  “As usual, I’ll take your word for it.”

  We stood there for a while, long enough that the bugs and the rest of the woodland creatures took up their songs of survival again. The big question hung heavy; at least until I voiced it.

  “What the hell do we do now?” I asked.

  “Go back and catch up to the others.”

  “Don’t you, at least, want to take a peek at how pissed off Xavier is?”

  “Did you not just tell me that you wanted nothing to do with a direct confrontation with Xavier?”

  “Who said anything about a fight? At great personal risk to ourselves we have laid a big fat turd on Xavier’s plans and I think we should, at least, get a glimpse of his expression. A little reaping of rewards.”

  “These are dangerous games you play, Michael. Is it not good enough to know that we have won this battle?”

  “Anger clouds judgment, especially his. Who knows? If he does something stupid maybe we can take advantage of it.” That sounded very Art of War-ish, even to me. Maybe even slightly pretentious, like I actually knew what the fuck I was talking about. The reality, I think, was that I was just sick of it. Sick of fighting, of killing. Even morticians take vacations. And no sooner had those thoughts entered into my mind when the coin flipped and I was granted a glimpse of why I’d been put on the earth to begin with. Why I’d hoarded weaponry, why I learned how to fight. Why after the zombie problem was over I was put into deep storage for a century and a half and then dragged out from underneath the protective covers. Dusted off, patted on the ass, and set about my merry mayhem way.

  Fighting, killing—that was my lot in life; why I’d been created. Why I couldn’t go back to whence I came. I’d become such an abomination even my creator had closed the door to my return; had in fact, hit me in the ass with it on my way out.

  “Yeah, well, fuck you too!” I shouted.

  “Are you talking to me?” Mathieu asked.

  “What? Sorry, my thoughts ran away from me.”

  “So you were cursing at them?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You know that I willingly fight by your side. There are times, like now, that I doubt the wisdom of my choice.”

  “You’re not the first. You need to be quiet now, Mathieu, we’re getting close.”

  Mathieu looked exasperated, considering it was me that had the outburst. That was just one of my many talents; I was able to turn it around and make it look like it was he putting us in danger.

  We got to the edge of where the Lycan were. All eyes were on Xavier as he stomped around like a rich, entitled, spoiled five-year-old brat who had just been told he could not get the new transformer action figure because he’d not finished his giant bag of candy. Xavier was having a meltdown. He was stomping down like his feet were on fire, his arms swinging wildly like a very uncoordinated Cowboys’ cheerleader. It was on the edge of comical. I mean, not to the other Lycan, they looked terrified as they watched their leader, hoping that none of that wrath came flinging their way. It was all fun and games until he did find a victim, or in this case multiple ones. He ripped into his human captives with unmitigated aggression. I’d never seen anything like it in my entire existence and I hope the experience is never repeated.

  Body parts were shredded; a horror porn B-movie wouldn’t have done what was happening here—it was too over the top, too unbelievable. Arms, legs, heads, torsos, flew up in the air independent of the bodies they’d once been attached to. The more people tried to scramble away from him, the quicker he would chase them down and unleash his savagery. A blender with the lid off could not have produced the scene before us. Mathieu turned away, I wished I could have as well. Given the chance I would have killed those people too, though not in remotely the same manner. No matter that they were once innocents, they were now weapons and his destroying them only benefited us. Why, then, did I feel compelled to stop him at all costs?

  He’d outright killed over twenty and maimed nearly double that by the time he had stopped, probably from exhaustion. Not one of his victims had tried to stop him or even run away. To just take what is given goes against everything I believe in. If you want to be a victim, just do nothing. There will always be those who will oblige you. Somewhere deep inside of me was a nugget of compassion for these defeated, ruined individuals. Perhaps in their deaths was the mercy of release.

  “Shut up you sniveling little insects!” Xavier screamed to the wailing going on all around him. “Shut them up!” he commanded his soldiers. The handlers moved in quickly sidestepping around Xavier. They were much more efficient as they silenced those that were gravely wounded. Within minutes, the mayhem had died down to merely the crying of the damned. It was a mournful sound, much more heart-rending than the slaughter had been.

  Xavier had been circling the encampment, even came within a stone’s throw of us. I was thinking our confrontation was going to happen a little sooner than I’d expected. I was shaken after seeing his bloody tirade, I was not quite in the proper frame of mind for a showdown. He walked to the center and spoke.

  “We’re leaving now.”

  Lycan looked at each other, unsure of exactly what he meant, or where they were going. I noticed Lunos hanging back, not saying anything. He looked smug, judgmental even, if I had to put a finger on it. Nobody moved, it looked like everyone had been flash frozen in place.

  “We attack. We attack and finish off the rest of them!”

  “We have no werewolves,” one of the handlers ventured cautiously.

  “We have them,” he sneered as he pointed to the people remaining. “We will let human filth fight human filth.”

  That seemed to be something they could all get onboard with; certainly they weren’t about to fight their own battle. The place cleared out faster than a football stadium after the home team lost in overtime. Mathieu and I moved out from our place of concealment and
were standing right where Xavier had been not five minutes before.

  “Now what?” Mathieu asked as he looked around, making sure to completely avoid the sight of the destroyed and broken bodies laying to our left.

  “What choice do we have? We follow. See if we can harangue from the rear.” As far as shitty ends of the stick, this was definitely it. The Lycan would be to the rear. How we were going to do this was tricky, they weren’t moving all that fast, considering they could only go as fast as the humans that led them. We couldn’t just run up on them from the path, they’d see us coming, which meant when we got close enough we would have to veer into the woods and match pace with them through all manner of growth. It wasn’t the greatest idea and I couldn’t imagine we’d be able to kill or injure more than two of them. But it would slow them down, it would give Azile and them more time and that made it a worthwhile endeavor. The captives couldn’t have been moving much faster than a trot. When we came around a curve in the path we saw Lycan and they were almost shuffling they were moving so slowly.

  I gripped the sword tightly that Mathieu had given me. “You ready?”

  “I wonder what my life would be like if I had left you to die that day I stumbled upon you in the woods. If I had not helped, you would have surely died.”

  “I would have for sure. My guess is you would have met a beautiful woman that completely understood your condition and wanted you to move to her castle down south where you could make more babies than you could count, all the while she would feed you grapes and rub expensive oils on your feet.”

  “It all sounded pretty good until you went to the feet.”

  “Too far?” He nodded. “Alright, let’s get on opposite sides of the pathway. I’ll take the one with that streak of lighter hair down his back. When we’re done with our strike we head back this way. Stay in the woods.”

  “What if they follow?”

  “They won’t at first, not without Xavier’s say-so.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “It’s what the British used to do during the American Revolution when the rebels attacked their columns. I’m not sure I can really apply that here but it’s the best I have to go on.”

  “Your confidence in your conviction is waning.”

  “Because I absolutely have no clue if this shit is going to work or not. Let’s move while I’m still in the doubt phase.”

  “Comforting.”

  The Lycan, for the most part, were moving along, unaware and unbothered. My target had his head down as he trudged on. Maybe his morale was low, maybe he was thinking about getting back to his old ways, maybe like most males he wasn’t thinking about anything at all except what was right in front of him. Not my concern. He never even glanced my way as I came out of the woods. Sword held out in front of me, I drove it straight through his mid-section. Fur parted or was cut short as the sword gained purchase, skin peeled back, muscle unraveled. The steel was firmly entrenched in his stomach before he even knew what was happening. He doubled over the blade as I pulled back. More flesh tore as he turned to see who had attacked him. Mathieu came out from the other side, his sword slicing high on the shoulder of the one next to my victim, the edge of the blade biting deeply into his exposed neck. Our momentum brought each of us past the other and back into the woods. We’d struck fast and deadly.

  Cries of alarm sprang up just as I felt the first tugs from the branches and brambles I was now blazing through. We’d taken out two Lycan in a surprise attack; the odds we could do that again had been drastically reduced. We’d made it a few hundred yards back behind the column; Mathieu and I stared, caught our breath, and then just looked at each other from across the path, both of us wondering what the hell we were we going to do next. The issue was forced onto us as two more Lycan came thundering up the pathway.

  “Shit.” Pretty much my first response in any bad situation, so I’d had great practice in the proper inflection.

  “Staying or fleeing?” Mathieu asked.

  My first inclination was to stay; neither newcomer was Xavier and one on one with these foot soldiers seemed decent odds given the circumstances, until a third came into view. Then my choice was made.

  “Run. I’ll see you where we met up last time. Don’t let them get those flowers, and good luck, my friend.”

  “Luck to you as well.” He melted into the woods almost instantaneously, that brown fur was great camouflage; I wouldn’t have minded having a pelt right about now. It didn’t take too long to realize that his blending-in tactic worked a little too fucking well. Instead of splitting up, all three Lycan came right at me.

  “Should have stayed together.” I didn’t swear, I let my tone speak for itself. Taking on three Lycan without a rifle was suicide by lupine. I could hear them crashing through the woods, my only real chance was going to be getting into thicker vegetation in the hope that they would be slowed down and I, the sleeker, faster, furless wonder, would have enough time to forge parts and assemble a machine gun. That’s about how confident I felt that I was going to be able to make a clean getaway; that my thoughts were drifting to the absurd. Where the hell were the vampire traits of old? Shouldn’t I have been able to turn into a bat? My luck there’d be a platoon of eagles looking for food at the very moment I took flight. I’d be all huffing and puffing, beating my wings like a madman on acid atop a roof who is convinced he can fly. I think Trip once insisted he did fly doing that. Although it was Stephanie, his wife, that told me after he “landed” in the back yard, the doctors at the hospital gave him some Dilodin, which often makes one feel like they are flying. It was all the same to Trip.

  Anyway, I’d be all trying to keep airborne, figuring out how to keep from spinning or pulling to either direction, and meanwhile the eagles would be soaring majestically nearby before spotting my flight of the bumblebee and come to investigate. Maybe flying to get away wasn’t such a great idea after all; then again, maybe I could just perch upside down from a high branch and wait it out. I was moving deeper into the woods, angling to the left and what looked like a crop of tall reeds. Wasn’t sure if that would slow my pursuers down, but it was worth a shot. Didn’t think much of the squelching noise as I neared the edge of sawgrass. In fact, I paid no attention at all until I charged ten steps in and my boot was just about wrenched from my leg and foot. The suction from the deep, sticky mud was leeching all of my speed away. I got frantic as I started pulling my legs up higher and with more force.

  The Lycan were closing in to the point that I could hear their labored breaths. I didn’t dare turn; I knew what was happening without having to visually confirm it. The loud squish of paw meeting mud followed immediately. Then there was another, one more, then....nothing. I kept goose-stepping, thinking the Lycan had launched and was about to bowl into me. I glanced up and over my shoulder, expecting a snarling face poised to rip mine to pieces. That wasn’t quite the situation. The Lycan that had followed me into the mud was stuck—wedged tight, even. The mud had grabbed him nearly knee deep. He was struggling for all he was worth to get free. Anger etched across his features, although that did change quick enough when he realized that I knew what was going on and was coming back for him.

  There was a flash of fear, desperation, maybe some resignation, then a complete circle right back to really pissed off. His long arm swung out, I met his gesture with my sword. Lopped three of his fingers off just like that. By now, the second and third of the chasers had caught up, the second, not one to grasp simple concepts, was now up to his ankles in the quagmire and still trying to get to where we were. I’m sure the first was hoping it was to help a buddy out, but I knew Lycan enough to know it was all about killing me, not coming to aid his comrade. The second one must have had a few extra burritos for lunch; he got locked in about five feet from where we were. Didn’t stop the mentally challenged one from striking out. All he succeeded in doing though was laying open claw wounds on Leftie’s back.

  My target forgot about me pretty quickly as he
received friendly fire. I moved in closer and drove the point of my sword straight through his throat. The steel bobbed up and down as the great beast tried to catch a breath, blood bubbling all around the wound, down his throat, and into his lungs. I was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t even have the wherewithal to strike out. Lycan number three was obviously the brains of the outfit; he didn’t join in our little mud-wrestling match. He ran around the edge trying to find a solid way in. Him I would deal with eventually. I turned my attention to Mr. Dirty Paws. Giving him a cat name made the muscular, six hundred pound weapon seem less dangerous. And you would be right in thinking that was about as effective as it sounded.

  “You cannot kill me,” he snarled.

  Bravado or prophesy? Either way, I didn’t like how convinced he sounded. Was thinking maybe I’d just leave him there to waste away in that quick-mud. Death by bug bites would be justice served in the most devious of ways. I was beginning to turn away to find a spot to place my foot that would not entail me sinking as well or getting more mud in my boot.

  “Once you are dead, Old One...” I could have squeezed liquid contempt from those words if I were so inclined.

  “Don’t say it, Mr. Dirty Paws. Stop there.” Of course he didn’t, just not in this particular one’s genetic make-up. He’d followed the other in after seeing him getting stuck, and even when I was on the verge of leaving his mangy hide, he just couldn’t leave it alone.

  “Once you are dead, I am going to feast on the Witch.”

  “I knew it, I just fucking knew you were gonna do it. Just too fucking stupid and ignorant to walk away. Well, I mean, not that you could anyway, but you get the idea.” I turned, his arms were up waiting for me to get close enough that he could use them. My sword bit deeply into his right forearm digging a groove two inches deep and almost a foot wide. He didn’t blink. “Great. Not only do I get a Lycan with the IQ of a toaster, but he feels no pain. Ever hear about death by a thousand slices? No? Well I guess we’re going to see how close to that number we can get.”