'Til Death Do Us Part

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mike Journal Entry 11

Azile drove the truck like the pro she was, getting us through some rough patches of choked traffic jams mostly unscathed. We saw the occasional zombie, but with food so scarce, they were going to stasis mode more and more. We only had one run in of any sort while we were on the road: two motorcyclists who looked like they’d seen better days rolled up alongside us.

One pulled out a large caliber pistol and waved it around, making sure that I saw it. I started laughing my ass off as I raised my M-240. He veered off so hard that I thought he was going to flip his bike. I saw him waving his partner off as they both stopped.

“What’d they want?” Azile asked with some concern.

“I guess they just wanted to say hi,” I told her.

“You do know that the M-16 is a much easier weapon to handle don’t you?” she asked.

“Don’t take this away from me, Azile. When am I ever going to be able to walk around with a machinegun again?” I asked her back.

“Have it your way,” she replied.

“Just like Burger King,” John said. “Although that’s not always the case. I once asked them for McDonald’s french fries with my Whopper, because their fries taste like used socks and the kid behind the counter called me a hippie and maybe if I didn’t have tin foil on my head that I would realize what burger joint I was in. I knew where I was,” John said as if he needed to defend himself to us. “BK has better hamburgers and Mickey Ds has better french fries. Is it too much to ask to have the both of them together?”

I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t even remember how many times I’d had that exact thought. I sincerely hoped there weren’t too many more thoughts John and I shared in common.

“Did you ask for extra pickles?”

“Pickles give you whooping cough. Everybody knows that,” he informed me.

I looked over to Azile for confirmation to see if he was speaking the truth, she shook her head slightly.

It was a couple of hours later when Azile spoke, at some point I had dozed off. “Now what?” she asked as she reached across John and shook my shoulder.

I brought the machinegun up rapidly only to notice that the truck was idling and I was looking at the ‘Welcome to Philadelphia’ sign.

“John…what now, buddy?” I asked him. He was staring at the sign also, although I wasn’t sure if he was cognitively registering it.

“We get Stephanie!” he said excitedly.

“Philly is a pretty big place, Trip, any idea where we should start?” I asked him.

“Are you kidding me?” Azile shot out. “The stoner doesn’t even know which direction to go? How are we going to find her? We can’t waste our time on a wild goose chase!” Her voice was raising and I think she was approaching flip-out.

“Azile...Azile,” I said more forcibly when she didn’t listen the first time.

John’s eyes were wet. “I know she’s still alive,” he said with dejection.

“I know, we’ll find her,” I told him, giving Azile a healthy dose of stink eye over his shoulder.

“We don’t have time for this, Mike,” she told me much more softly. “Your family is in danger.”

“So is his,” I told her.

“Eliza will get away,” she said resting her head on the steering wheel.

“You haven’t met the Talbots yet, they’re not just going to roll over and allow her to do as she wants. We’ve got some time.”

“If you say so, chief,” Azile surrendered. “Where to then?”

“She owns the Courtyard in downtown Philadelphia,” John stated.

“You mean works there?” Azile asked for clarification.

“No, John and the missus are loaded. If he says ‘own’ he means it.”

“Let’s start there. Do you have an address?” she asked him.

“To where?” John asked her back.

“The hotel.”

“You think she’s there?” John asked against hope.

“You got a better place to start…I’m all ears,” Azile told him.

“Your ears are actually quite small,” he told her as he looked at the side of her head.

“What?” she asked.

“And she called me the stoner.”

“It’s an expression. John.” I tried to head off the next five minutes of explanations.

“It’s a stupid one,” he mumbled.

“Do you know your way around Philly?” I asked Azile.

“Do you?” she shot back.

“You’re the truck driver.” I said it as if that meant she should know the entire United States.

“I’m sorry, I’m just a little on edge. Eliza has me wound up,” she explained.

“That’s fine, I’ve known her for a lot less time and she has me in knots. John gave me the address. Twenty-one North Juniper Street.”

She gave me the look that it was still a long shot. I sympathized, I did, but we were still going to give it a go.

“Check the glove box, Horatio had an Atlas,” Azile said, pointing to the dash. Not sure if I could have missed it even if I looked through John’s eyes. Damn thing was the size of an overhead compartment on an airplane—and not one of those little shuttle crafts either.

Traffic got thicker the closer we got to downtown, but like nearly everywhere else, the virus had hit so suddenly and with such force that most folks were caught completely off-guard. A couple of times, the truck bounced as Azile had to push her way through a particularly nasty snarl and the resulting noise would invariably bring a zombie or two to check out the noise.

“I wonder how many sleepers are in the city?” Azile asked, looking up at some of the huge skyscrapers

I shuddered thinking about them. “You’ve run into them, too?”

“Bathroom break.” She blushed. “Found a gas station, walked in and I saw a big mass of them. I figured they had been killed and stacked. Didn’t think too much about it…I mean, the stink was horrendous, but I had to go so bad even that didn’t matter at the moment. Felt a little bad for the next passer-by when I realized the water didn’t flush when I was done. That was the least of my problems, though, I heard stuff going on in the next room…figured it was rats. I’m not a fan of rats, but they don’t scare me, so I peeked my head in and I saw zombie after zombie peeling itself away from that congealed mass of whatever it was.”

“They are creating some sort of secretion that keeps them safe while they are in hibernation. I would imagine it also has some nutrients involved,” John said, glassy eyed.

“I don’t know how he does it,” I said aloud to Azile’s question before she could voice it. I pulled out the atlas and first found Pennsylvania and then checked out the Philadelphia insert. “It looks like we’re about three or so miles away,” I said as I got my orientation within the city. “You’ve got a left coming up.”

“Mike, I don’t really like this,” Azile said as she was swiveling her head back and forth.

And I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but I wasn’t a fan of the city either—and not just because they were Phillies AND Eagles fans here and in its heyday the city had been anything BUT the city of brotherly love. Philadelphians couldn’t stand outsiders…or themselves for that matter. It was claustrophobic; the streets were getting smaller and narrower the closer to the center we got. It was a shortcoming of all major cities on the eastern seaboard, they had been settled at a time when horses and carts dominated and those paths were made from the natural game trails of the deer and Indians before them. They were never built with the thought of a semi driving around.

“It does feel like it’s closing in,” I said as I put the muzzle of the gun on the frame of the truck door.

She looked over and nodded, her eyes big, she looked a lot like the scared kid that she was. “We could get in a lot of trouble real quickly, and with the noise this rig makes, I think that will happen sooner rather than later.” Almost on cue, air released from the drums letting out a large squelching sound.

Then it began, zombies just started to pour into the street. One moment the intersection ahead of us had an overturned cab and a burned minivan, and the next it was filling rapidly with running zombies that were coming out of the buildings on both sides.

“Shoot them, Mike,” Azile said with an edge to her voice. The truck was slowing down.

“I can’t really shoot it straight ahead unless I take out the windshield.”

“Don’t do that!” she shouted as if I were truly contemplating it—although I kind of was. “Stick it out the window!”

“I won’t be able to hold it steady enough. It’s a machinegun and it’s got a ton of kick.”

“Would the M-16 have been a better choice now?” she asked sarcastically.

“Do all women get together in a big annual rally and figure out how they can bust our balls better?” I asked as I pulled the muzzle in and quickly rolled the windows up before our guests arrived.

“Oh this is bad,” John said as he looked like he finally realized what was happening. “Is there a parade? This is really going to delay us getting to Stephanie’s hotel.”

If we can get there at all, buddy, I thought.

“A fucking parade, are you kidding me?” Azile said as the first zombie slammed into the truck’s grille.

“See any floats?” John asked as he craned his head around.

“Not one of those kinds of parades, John,” I told him as I was trying to figure out how to best use my heavy paperweight.

“Must be a demonstration, they look kind of pissed. They mad about Viet Nam?” he asked me solemnly.

“That’s probably it,” I told him.

“Why do you coddle him like that?” Azile asked hotly. “He needs to know what’s going on or he’s going to get us killed!”

“Hey, John, I’m going to talk about you as if you’re not here, you okay with that?” I asked as I put my hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. He nodded in reply. “On some level he knows exactly what’s going on,” I said, looking up from John to Azile while I left my hand on John’s shoulder. “This is his way of dealing with it. Who am I to tell him it’s wrong? Hell, I wish I were with him, his is an infinitely better world. And this man that ‘will get us killed’ like you said, has saved my life twice!” I accidently on purpose left out the part about me having to rescue him because he thought a couple of zombies were line jumpers for Grateful Dead concert tickets, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “This is also the same guy who figured out how to block out Eliza’s mind transmissions.”

“Fine,” issued forth reluctantly from Azile’s mouth, but it was not difficult to see that she was not happy about it.

John was reaching over me heading for the door.

“Where you going, buddy?” I asked him.

“Philly cheese steak, I’m starving.”

“Yeah I’m hungry, too, but I’m not thinking this is the best time.”

“No, no, it’s the best time. All the street cart vendors come out for the parades.”

“See!” Azile said, throwing her hands up in the air.

“What’s your solution, Azile? Are you tough enough on the inside to sacrifice him?” I shot back.

“If he ever puts my life in danger I’ll—”

“Stop!” I told her. “Don’t say something you’ll regret or force me into a decision I don’t want to make.”

She turned to face forward; the set of her jaw told me she was straining to hold back a litany of words best left out of this journal.

The truck was starting to jostle around as an increasing number of zombies made our acquaintance and still more were coming. I know it’s wrong, I’m not so far removed from reality to know my thoughts aren’t politically correct, but the image I got of all those zombies around the truck was of those late night commercials that beg for money. You know the ones where the Red Cross truck pulls up into the village and the people all run to the truck for their allotment of food? Unfortunately, in this case, we were the food.

“Can you drive forward?” I asked Azile.

“This is a truck not a tank,” she replied as we looked over the expanding sea of dead.

“You guys need to find something to wad up and stick in your ears.”

“Fireworks?” John asked. I thought I might have caught a glint of fear in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a stoned countenance.

“Close enough,” I told him as I pulled back the charging mechanism.

“What are you doing?” Azile asked.

“I am going to destroy these motherfuckers.” I took off my hat under the severe protests of John.

“Listen, bud, I just need you keep the line of firecrackers straight as I set them off. Can you do that?”

“Sure, man, but you should still keep your hat on.”

“I’m fine for the moment.” And I was. The white noise was replaced by an eerie silence in my head. Eliza was nowhere around, at least not in broadcasting mode. I ‘pushed’ the closest zombies away from the running board and opened the door. The nearest ones were straining against invisible bonds, their teeth gnashing at the empty air like Doberman Pinschers trying to find a meaty thigh. And did I tell you how much Dobies scare the shit out of me?

When I was eight, I had a friend in my neighborhood that had two of them. To get to his door to knock, you first had to go through the gauntlet. The walkway was up against the house, and the dogs were chained on the right hand side, their saliva dripping muzzles could just reach the edge of the walkway. I would walk with my back up against the house with my arms outstretched as if I were walking on a six inch ledge forty stories up. Those dogs would be snarling and snapping; long lengths of saliva would be pouring out of their muzzles as they strained against their chains to get at me. The leather on their collars the only thing holding them back from my certain death.

I shuddered thinking of those damn dogs and pushed a little harder against the closest zombies, I wanted them as far back as possible. It didn’t seem to me that they were heeding my ‘advice’ quite as well as I would have hoped, but I had other things on my mind, so the dividing of my thoughts may have had something to do with. I placed the barrel of the machinegun in the crux of the window frame and the truck body. I pulled the trigger and nearly flung myself off the truck.

“Umm, Trip, maybe come over here and grab my belt,” I said before I dared shoot again. I was thankful when my instruction did not lead to a four minute explanation. When I felt he had a good grasp, I let loose with a torrent of hell.

Aiming wasn’t even necessary, annihilation surged from that barrel. Zombies liquefied as the steel-jacketed 7.62 rounds would slam into first one zombie and then into his mates behind him—maybe as many as three deep before the bullet was finally sated with death. As I looked over the multitude of zombies that day, there were all kinds from all races. Men, women, children…fuck, even babies. Some were black, some white, Hispanic, Asian, there were medical workers in scrubs, cops, construction crews, some McDonald’s workers (hopefully Becka was in there—see journal number two), my point being, no one escaped this plague. It’s that, in my memory, I choose to believe that ALL zombies resemble Durgan: white, male, asshole. That’s how I can sleep at night. I just need to pretend that every former human I destroyed that day resembled that one particular asshole. It was that and only that thought that kept me on the good side of the sanity line.

Watching what that large caliber round can do when it strikes a five-year-old girl is not something that is conducive to my already thinly spread mental health. My zombies are ALWAYS big goons who are deserving of that bullet. That is all I am saying. Zombies fell like wheat to a Harvester, and wasn’t that what I was doing? Harvesting the dead? The bullets slammed into them, the sound almost louder than the percussion of the rounds being expended. The ones that weren’t neatly cut in half were pushed back as if the thumb of God had pressed them in the abdomen. Heads disintegrated into a spray of blood, brain, and bone, to mist down on their brethren like a bloody spring rain. But there would be no bumper crop rising from the resultant moisture.

“Where are they going?” John asked over the din of the gun.

It was time for a break anyway, the belt was getting low on rounds, the barrel wasn’t glowing quite yet, but it was thinking about it. Something strange was happening, zombies were still being attracted to the noise, but they were moving away from my firing zone; well…at least the ones that still could.

Azile’s mouth was hanging slightly agape. I don’t know all she’d been witness to since this started, but it may have been safe to say it was nothing quite on this scale.

I leaned my head in so she could see my face. “Drive, girl, before they figure out I’m not firing.”

She might have been in a bit of shock. It didn’t stop her from getting the truck in gear, though. She slammed both feet on the brake, almost sending me once again off the truck, when she ran over the first fallen zombie. She was frozen, her feet were pressed solid on the brake, and her arms were locked straight out in front of her. Her back may as well have been adhered to her seat.

“Shit,” I said.

“You have to go number two too?” John asked.

I didn’t even have time to respond to that. “Hold this,” I said to John as I handed him the machinegun. “Do not touch the barrel.” And before I completely lost my mind, I removed the remaining rounds.

I had not even finished climbing over him when John screamed in pain. “That’s fucking hot!”

“I told you not touch the barrel,” I said as I got between him and Azile.

“That’s the barrel?” he asked.

“Azile, you alright?” I asked gently. She didn’t even acknowledge my presence. “Plan B it is,” I said aloud as I watched the zombies stop their evacuation, they weren’t yet coming back.

I grabbed Azile’s right hand and pried her white-knuckled fingers from the steering wheel; the left came off a lot easier. I then reached down and pushed up on the back of her knees so her legs would bend. Then I stood up over the gear box and physically slid her over to my previous spot.

“Here goes nothing,” I said as I restarted the stalled truck. She still hadn’t moved on her own or even looked over at me.

The truck bucked wildly as I threw it into what I thought was first gear (it wasn’t). I had to stick my hand out to keep Azile from slamming off the dash.

“Buckle her in, John.”

“You said hold this and don’t touch the barrel. How many more things do you think I can do?”

“One more?” I asked hopefully.

“Okay, fair enough.”

John effortlessly got the belt around her and secured her in. I started the truck again, hoping for better results.

“John, one more thing and I promise that’s it.”

There was no need for the precursor statement, he had already forgotten about our previous conversation and was looking at me expectantly.

“Put your seat belt on.”

“Seat belts are just a way for the insurance companies to impose their will upon the people.”

“I don’t fucking care, put it on.”

Thankfully he did. I again engaged the truck into gear, the bucking was much less severe. I must have been somewhat closer to first this time around. I was so intent on watching my hand on the gears and making sure I was giving adequate gas to the engine, I at first could not figure out why we were thrashing around so violently. I thought I had been doing everything right, then it finally dawned on me as I looked through the windshield, I was driving over the fallen bodies of hundreds of zombies.

The bucking had been so much better, it hid a majority of the bone splintering sounds of tires crushing human skeletons. Occasionally I would see matter spray off to my left, coating the curb and sometimes nearby buildings. No matter how much I tried, I could not convince myself that I was running over garbage-sized bags of ketchup, unless the condiment now came packed with meat. Chunks of the spray dripped down from whatever it hit; lamp posts, mailboxes, cafe furniture, even nearby zombies, though they didn’t seem to care too much.

Azile had the right state of mind for this: catatonic.

John was diligently studying the machinegun. A hundred more feet of the sausage grinding and we would be free—free physically, never mentally. This would be something we all took with us for the long haul.

“Just babies,” Azile muttered.

I wanted her to shut the fuck up, like yesterday. The zombies to our side fell in step with the truck, some tried to get in, the rest were content to follow for now, most likely waiting until we became an easier target.

“Take a right up here,” John said, never looking up from the gun.

I did it. I didn’t even ask. I didn’t know if it took us any closer to our destination, all I did know was that it would take the zombie skid line out of my rearview mirror. And that…well that was fine by me.

“Left up here,” John said, again not looking up.

“Buddy, I appreciate the directions, but are you sure?” I asked. He didn’t even question my calling him buddy. There were zombies outside the truck and apparently inside too. He didn’t answer, so I took the turn. Right, left, straight. Didn’t matter much; I had no clue where I was going.

“It’s up on the left about another mile,” John said.

“You sure you’ve never been here?”

He finally did look up this time. “I think I’d know where I’ve been or not been.”

“Just asking.”

Then there it was: a Brown Stone Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. At one time it was probably a pretty nice place. Ornate windows looked into a Victorian themed lobby adorned with marble floors and ceilings. Now, however, it looked exactly like what you would expect a building in a war zone to look like. Bullet holes pock marked the marble in a hundred different places. Furniture was burned or stained a brownish red color. (Don’t dwell, don’t dwell—I said the little mantra over and over.) Zombies that had been milling around inside came out when we rolled up. My first impression was that nobody was alive in there. How could they be? Then it dawned on me. Zombies only hang around when food is available.

“Hey, fucktard!” Someone shouted from above. “Yeah, you, fucktard!” the guy said as I craned my neck to look up the hotel. “Why don’t you get that big zombie dinner bell outta here!”

“We’re looking for someone!” I yelled up.

“Do I look like the fucking white pages, get the fuck outta here!” he yelled back, this time he showed the muzzle of hunting rifle to move his point along.

“Give me the damn gun,” I said to John as I pulled my head back in the window. John carefully handed it over the slowly awakening Azile. “Two can play that game, ass wad!” I yelled up as I stuck the formidable machinegun up and out my window.

“Oh shit!” He pulled his head back in. “We don’t want any trouble! Loud noise brings zombies, that’s all I’m saying,” he answered, not showing himself.

“You just let us know if you have someone up there. If you don’t we’ll be on our way.” I was about to ask if John’s wife was up there, but I didn’t know her last name. I looked over to John, his eyes were closed and his fingers were crossed. I was really hoping this went well, but I wasn’t counting on it. Let’s face it everyone knew the city’s nickname about brotherly love was a misnomer. New Yorkers feared this place.

“John, what’s your last name?” I asked, embarrassed that I had either forgotten it or that I had never thought to ask. Tracy told me I had the social graces of a goat, now I believed her.

Again I was surprised when he didn’t start in on some diatribe about how last names were a way for the government to keep us in check.

“Stephenson,” he said quickly.

“Okay,” I told him as I poked my head back out. Now I had my fingers crossed. “I’m looking for Stephanie Stephenson!” I shouted up.

There was nothing for long moments. I was about to yell back up; the street was starting to get crowded and I wanted to get out of here before I opened up again with the M-240.

Had I not been sitting, I would have had to find a seat when the ass wad from above answered. “Who wants to know?” he asked.

“Do I look like a process server, you idiot?” I yelled up. “Her husband is here.”

A pause but much shorter this time. “John, John is here?” a woman asked.

I was about to respond, but that was before the wind was knocked out of me by John crawling over my lap. “Stephanie, I let the sour cream expire!” he shouted.

“John, you silly, silly man. I have missed you so much,” she said, tears were dropping from her handsome face. She was pretty in a feminine, lumber jack sort of way. Her meaty forearms hung out as if she hoped she would be able to scoop her man up. “I don’t know who you are, mister,” Stephanie said, obviously talking to me. “But thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

John didn’t quite catch the connection when he responded. “I was afraid you might not remember me, you missed you’re last scheduled visit.”

“I would never forget you, my sweetheart. I was thanking the man that brought you to me.”

“Who? Ponch? Yeah he’s a good guy. He had shoes just like yours.”

“John, man, you’re really pressing on some places that are making me uncomfortable.” He didn’t move.

“Ponch?” Stephanie asked.

“It’s actually Mike, and you’re welcome. Your husband is a...unique man he’s saved my life more than once.”

“Thank you, Mike.”

“Okay, this has got to be snap decision time. We don’t have much time until this place is flooded with zombies. Either you guys need to come down here and travel with us, or I need to know how to get John up to you.”

“Hold on,” Stephanie said, going back into the room.

“John, what do you want to do?” I asked him.

“With what?” he asked back. He was looking at me less than three inches from my face, my personal space was getting severely violated.

“The general consensus is to stay put,” Stephanie echoed down. “But I’m doing whatever John wants me to.”

“I’m not sure he gets the gravity of the situation, Stephanie, this is probably your call,” I told her.

“Hi, Steph!” John yelled up.

“Hi, baby,” she said softly, throwing him kisses.

“We have food here for months, we have guns, and we’re relatively safe. Why don’t you all come up?” Stephanie said.

I’ll admit I was pleasantly surprised when I didn’t hear a bunch of protestations from behind her.

“Make sure he brings that damn gun with him,” was the only thing I heard from behind her.

“I think John should go up with you. Nobody deserves to go where I am.”

“Mike, there’s plenty of room for you and the girl,” she said as she shielded her eyes so she could see into the cab.

“I’m coming, Stephanie!” John said as he started to climb out of the truck.

“Hold on, buddy,” I said as I pulled him back in.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you who this buddy guy is.”

“We’ll circle around to that. Just hold on for a second. Azile you back with us?” I asked as I focused my attention on the girl.

“Mostly,” she mumbled.

“They’re offering sanctuary here. My suggestion to you is to take it.”

“Will Eliza be here?”

“Not anytime soon, and never if I have any say in it,” I told her honestly.

“I’m going with you then.”

“I don’t think that’s the wisest choice you could make, but I’d love to have you because I can’t stand driving this kidney killer.”

She actually had the corner of one lip pull up in a sliver of a smile.

“It’s just going to be, John,” I told Stephanie.

“How close can you get to the side of the building?” she asked, pointing to her right. The hotel ended and abutted up to an alleyway. “Right at the edge of the alleyway is the fire escape, the truck should be just the right height.”

Except for a couple of lampposts and a mailbox, I thought I could get pretty close.

“Move,” Azile said as she watched me guesstimating how I was gonna go about getting the truck in position. I figured I could make it in about a twelve or thirteen point turn.

“Thank you,” I told her as I moved a reluctant John back to his seat, then crawled over Azile.

Surprisingly, the street poles broke away with not too much effort on the truck’s part. The mail box, on the other hand, seemed to have twenty-foot-deep pylons set into the earth’s mantle. Black smoke poured from the twin smoke stacks as the truck strained against the blue box. The truck thrummed and vibrated as the box failed to yield.

“Fuck this,” Azile said as she threw the truck in reverse.

“Seat belt, man,” John said to me.

“Yeah good move,” I said as I quickly strapped myself in.

Azile took out more than a few zombies as she backed up a good hundred feet or so. The real fun, however, began when the truck started to move forward. She was whipping through the gears, and I wouldn’t doubt if we hit that box doing forty. I wouldn’t know I was too busy holding on for dear life to give the odometer a second glance. Cable bills, vacation postcards, and birthday cards blew in the wind as Azile destroyed that box.

“Air mail!” John yelled.

“Fuck me,” I said as I quickly undid my belt and John’s. Azile had the truck within five feet of the black metal fire escape. “Let’s go,” I told John as I leaned across him, first checking out his rearview mirror, then opening his door. We had a window of opportunity; Azile had cleared a decent sized path.

John started to get out of the truck by stepping down. I grabbed him and pointed up.

“Right,” he told me as he stepped on his seat and onto the roof of the cab. “Nice view,” he said to me as I joined him.

I didn’t agree. I was looking back the way we had come. It looked like a casting call for Thriller coming down the roadway. There was a couple of feet separating the truck from the trailer and the trailer was maybe a foot and half taller than the truck itself. It was not that an imposing of a gap, so I was completely confused when John was looking at it like he was attempting to jump over the Grand Canyon on a moped.

This was the same guy that didn’t mind tunnels much wider than a snake’s asshole and flew a helicopter that looked like it came out of a cereal box. “John, we’ve got to get moving. Just follow me okay?” I stepped up and over the gap, no harder than if I was going to stand on a chair, and not those stupid office chairs with wheels on the bottom of them either.

He missed, his right foot hovered in the air came forward, caught the lip of the trailer and began to slide down the front of it. I reached over and grabbed one of his flailing arms and manhandled him onto the trailer.

“Any chance you want to move this along?” Azile asked, poking her head out. She was seeing the same sight I was.

“Working on it,” I told her. If John thought the gap to the trailer was the Grand Canyon, then the distance to the fire escape might as well have been the Valles Marineris trench on Mars. I don’t know the exact dimensions; I just know it dwarves the Grand Canyon. Maybe it would have been better off if I had just used terrestrial examples, like from the truck to the trailer looked like Snake River Canyon and to the fire escape looked like the Grand Canyon, but would that make any more sense? Who really knows how big the damn crossing is on the Snake River? Even Evel Kneivel couldn’t do it in his stupid rocket motor cycle.

“John, you can do this?” I told him.

“Do what?” he asked, all wide eyed.

“You can do this, honey!” Stephanie said as she started rushing down the escape.

Ohmigosh! I thought, she was a big-boned woman. Not fat…not at all. Just maybe like as a child she had been separated from her Amazonian tribe and come to live in Philadelphia with us lesser human beings. I was under the impression she could have, and should have been a comic book super hero. For a moment, I saw exactly what John did in her. She was statuesque, almost a demi-god.

“Just remember your support group,” she said as she was now standing on the escape directly across from us.

“Support group?” I asked her.

“He’s afraid of heights,” she informed me.

“What about that gyroscope he called a helicopter?”

“Small heights frighten him.”

“Is there even such a thing?” I asked John.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Listen, John, you’re going to need to get to the end of the trailer and get a running start, then curve over right about here,” I said, pointing to where I was standing for just this reference. “Then you’re going to need to jump like your life depends on it…because it does. You got all that.”

He was nodding ‘yes’ as he was looking feverishly at his Stephanie.

“Mike, goddammit, hurry up,” Azile said.

“Honey, we’re running out of time,” Stephanie urged.

I should have known how poorly this was going to go just by how closely John nearly walked right off the back of the trailer.

“He has spatial issues,” Stephanie said to me after she took in a great gasp of air at his near blunder.

“What? Wait. John, hold on!” I said, but he was already barreling down the trailer. “Fuck.” He was making the turn and coming right towards me, then he missed, he flat out missed launching himself. My mind and my body were racing; John was hanging in the air like Wile E. Coyote in that moment before he plummets to the ground.

Luckily I had already been in movement as John was going by; I had one hand on his belt as one managed to get a grip of a fair amount of shirt material around his shoulder. I tossed him much like one would a midget down a bowling alley. (I mean if you’re in to that kind of thing, I’m merely using it as a descriptor.)

As he was arcing towards his wife, I was pin-wheeling my arms violently to keep my balance. I watched as John’s outstretched hands failed to grasp onto the metal railing, Stephanie plucked him out of the air like a little girl chasing airborne dandelions. I had just regained my balance as Stephanie gave me a questioning look. I had snagged her husband and tossed him five feet with no more difficulty than if he had been baby-sized—not that I’m advocating throwing babies.

“Momentum,” I lied to her.

She accepted my explanation. “Thank you so much,” she said as she hugged her weeping husband tightly.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he told her. “I brought you something.” He extracted himself from her and showed her a giant Rasta-joint that I had no idea where he could have had it on his body and kept it so pristine.

“Honey, you know I don’t smoke,” she said as she kissed him fiercely.

“More for me and Ponch then,” he said turning back. “You coming, man?”

“This is where we part, my friend. It has been both an honor and a trip to have made your acquaintance,” I told him, I was sure going to miss him.

Azile’s horn blast negated nearly every part of John’s response, but I caught something about meeting again. I hoped so as I quickly climbed back down the truck and in. Azile quickly pulled away. I stared out my window as I wiped an errant tear away from my eye.

“You alright?” Azile asked after we had left the bulk of the zombies behind.

“Yeah I just hate leaving friends behind,” I told her.

“You’ll see him again,” she said really not even thinking about how her words were just placating platitudes.

I looked over at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just seemed like the right thing to say.”

“It’s alright, you were just trying to make me feel better,” I told her as I dragged my hand across my face. I rolled down my window and maneuvered my face so I could see it in the mirror; I was pleasantly surprised to see some facial hair making a comeback.

“You looked like you checked out there for a minute. Are you alright?” I asked her as I pulled my head back in.

“I...I’ve just never seen it that bad I guess. I was already on the road when the invasion hit. Hardly would have even known it happened on the open roadway. The real first clue I got was obviously the radio news reports, then the lack of them. And still I thought it might be some elaborate hoax until I noticed just how little traffic was on the highways. There was just no way that many people could be involved in something like that.”

“Just count yourself lucky. It was no bargain on my end. I would have much rather preferred a newscast letting me know what was going on as opposed to living it.”

She prodded me for more information, which I reluctantly gave out in bits and pieces. The vast majority of my recent memories were still sticky, pus-oozing sores, and I had no desire to peel back the scabs to see if they smelled of rot or not. After a few hours of the sanitized, abridged version, she realized she wasn’t getting much more and let me stew in everything she had made me stir up again.

I was not sad to see the Pennsylvania state sign become a distant milestone as we cruised into the Garden State. It was a damn shame that it took a zombie apocalypse to make the state not smell like a fermented garbage pail.

The beauty of youth, I thought concerning Azile. She’d been through a lot in the last few days—maybe as much as me—plus she was driving and looked like she could go at it for days. I was fading fast; the mile markers were putting me into a trance. I knew she carried a severe hatred for all things Eliza, but did it burn so bright inside of her that she couldn’t rest?

“Are you sure about this, Azile? I know I asked before, but if you just helped me to find a new ride and turned this rig around there’s a decent chance you could have some sort of life somewhere.”

She didn’t say anything for nearly a mile. “I had no life before, and I can’t imagine finding one now. When Eliza killed my mother, the state awarded me to my uncle.”

I told her I was sorry when I figured where this might be going.

When she understood the origins of my apology she spoke. “No, no it’s nothing like that. It’s just that he was twenty-four and had absolutely no desire to take care of a kid. He was always decent to me, never did anything inappropriate. No…probably my biggest complaint was that he just didn’t know what to do. There I was this emotional wreck, crying all the time, looking for comfort, and he would leave me alone. He just didn’t know how to handle it.” She looked over at me to gauge my reaction.

“Raising kids is hard when you’re planning for it. Being thrown into the mix without a clue has got to be brutal,” I told her.

“He tried. He bought me more stuffed animals than he could afford, and that was another thing, he worked at a video store and was barely paying his bills before I got there. He had a one bedroom apartment and he gave me the bedroom when I moved in. He tried, he really did, but we both knew I was a burden. He didn’t bring dates home or go out with his friends that much either. He was always afraid to leave me by myself which was kind of funny, because he always left me alone in his room while he sat on the couch.” She finished with a faraway look in her eyes.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Bonneview Memorial Cemetery. The night I turned eighteen he went out and celebrated with his friends. He wrapped his twelve-year-old Honda around a tree six houses down from his apartment. Funny thing is…I heard it. I was laying in bed thinking about my mother and how much I missed her when the explosion of metal and glass crashing into oak shook my window. I didn’t know it was him, but I did. Does that make sense?”

I nodded.

“On some level I knew it was my uncle, he had finally won his freedom I guess.”

“Do you blame yourself for it?” I asked.

“I did…for a while, but it didn’t make sense to. Everything traced back to Eliza. She killed my mother, my father, and my uncle and she should have killed me. In a way, I guess she did. There are parts of me that will never function properly, starved of nurturing as they were. Is that too dramatic?”

“Not at all, if that’s what you feel.”

“So back to your original question, Eliza’s death is the only reason I hold on to this life. Until I kill her, I don’t think I can find peace. So yeah, I’m sure I want to come with you.”

“Fair enough. Most people I have this discussion with don’t normally have as much insider knowledge about Eliza as you do. I’m glad you’re coming if only so I don’t have to drive this thing.”

“I think it was your driving more than anything that got me out of my stupor.”

“Great, another smart ass, just what the world needs.”

She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth at me.

“What’s your family like?” She sounded genuinely curious, or she might have just wanted to while away the time as she drove. It wasn’t like she could turn the radio on and listen to America’s Top Forty.

That side thought hurt a little more than I wanted it to; I’d loved music since I was a kid and my parents had bought me a Realistic transistor radio. I think the first song I ever listened to on it was While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the Beatles version. I knew I was hooked from that moment. Music had been a constant component of my life, from the hundred or so concerts I’d attended, to listening to it while I worked—my desk job and my construction one—during the commutes to and from work or errands. It would be safe to say that I listened to more music on average per day than I watched television. And now my life had another little void in it where music once filled it.

“Mike?”

“Sorry I have a tendency to lose focus every once in a while.”

“Your family?” she asked again after waiting a polite amount of time for me to continue.

“Yup, sorry, completely spaced it. Well let’s start with my dad, Tony. He’s a World War Two vet, saw a lot of action. Sometimes he’s as tough as nails, and at other times you can see he’s on the edge. Wait…not the edge…that sounds wrong. I don’t mean of breaking down or anything like that. If you look long and hard at him when he’s quiet, you can see what his stint in the war did to him. It fundamentally changed him, and at times I think it’s a daily vigilance for him to have it not affect him. My mom passed a couple of years ago. I miss her, but she was far from the easiest person to love. She had great difficulty expressing concern for anything that did not revolve around her.

“Then there’s my oldest brother Ron. He’s all that a big brother should be, always looking out for his siblings—sometimes more than we would care for, but always appreciated. I know he’s kind of grooming himself to become patriarch of the family as our dad passes the torch, but I’m not sure if he’s relishing it right now. The stress of keeping your family safe weighs heavy. He’s married to Nancy, great lady, she can make a can of beets into a soufflé. Don’t ask me how, it’s like fucking magic.”

Azile snorted.

“They have four kids, Melanie, Meredith, Melissa and Mark. Melanie hasn’t been heard from since after the first day of the invasion. Ron went and looked for her once, and so did Meredith—both times almost compounding the disaster. Then there’s my brother Gary, he’s a twin with my brother Glenn who again we haven’t heard from since the start. I have my reasons to believe he’s since passed. Gary is the free spirit of the group. Of all the people I’ve ever met in my life, he’s easily the most comfortable in his own skin and some of that passes off to you when you’re around him. There’s my sister Lyndsey. She could easily make cheerleading an occupation. She’s not that crazy bubbly ‘rah! Rah!’ crap. She just genuinely enjoys life and lets everyone know about it. She’s married to Steve, kind of a reserved man, almost as quiet as my sister is talkative. They have a son Jesse, good kid, always willing to lend a hand.

“Then there’s my wife Tracy, the love of my life,” I said with what I imagine was a faraway stare. “I cannot wait to hold her in my arms. This time I will never let go. She is my strength and the reason I continue on when all seems lost.”

“She sounds very special. You’re lucky.”

“She is and I am, and she lets me know it at every opportunity.”

“That’s funny, do you have kids?” she asked.

I let out an involuntary gasp of air, just thinking of my kids knocked the air out of my solar plexus. Why the fuck did I risk my life on this journey when I should have been with them?

“I do,” I continued when I thought I had composed myself enough. “My oldest, Nicole, is pregnant. Her fiancé Brendan died saving my stupid ass from another of my hair-brained ideas. I guess that’s not entirely fair, he had been bitten before he came…long story that I have no desire to revisit. My daughter reminds me so much of my wife. I hope that someday she’s able to raise a family with a man that is deserving of her. My middle son Justin is a good kid, hell of a shot, he would do anything for anybody, he’s had a tough go during this whole thing.”

“How so?”

“He was scratched by a zombie.”

“He lived? I’m sorry was that callous?”

“That’s alright, and yes, he’s alive. It was touch and go for a while, and a lot of the time he had to battle constantly to hold onto himself. Eliza invaded his thoughts and sometimes he didn’t even know which team he was playing for. Then my youngest, Travis, it’s hard for me to see him any older than the seven-year-old boy that he was when we would build Lego castles together. But that boy has got me out of more scrapes than I care to count. Sometimes I’m afraid this world is going to harden him to a brittle shell of himself and at other times the scared boy shows through. Well that’s the condensed version of my family,” I told her as I wrapped up. I really didn’t want to dwell on it anymore. I still had to contend with telling my father that I had no idea where Gary was. Last I had seen him he was alive, and that was at the point in which I was going to stop pondering his fate. There was no way BT would let anything happen to him.

My thoughts turned sour instantly as I began to think of the loss of my lifelong friend Paul. I had always considered him my fourth brother and his death was a tangible hurt. I could touch it, it had so much presence. How I was going to walk in that house and tell his wife Erin was beyond me, the tears cascading down my face would be all she needed to know as I hugged her. There would never be a reason why I would tell her how he had met his fate. And what of Cindy and Perla? They would always hold me responsible for what happened to their significant others; no matter that I had nearly begged them not to come with me. Much like I had asked Azile, maybe I should just kick her out of the truck, or better yet, maybe I should just hop out. No, that wouldn’t work. She knew where the convoy was going.

I was still thinking as the uncaring sun began its descent on the horizon. It had shined when the earth was nothing more than a caustic stew of magma. It had shined down for hundreds of millions of years as dinosaurs ruled. It had heralded in the dawn of man and it would once again rise on our plunge into extinction. Zombies would be the dominant predator for a while, but if the tree huggers thought the average man was an earth destroyer, they would change that tune after the stripping of life the zombies incurred. As horrible a beast as they were, why they weren’t cannibals was beyond me. Did they have that modicum of a moral compass? I sat up quickly when that thought came to my head.

“What?” Azile asked. It looked like I had taken her out of a state of road hypnosis.

“You look half asleep.”

“I’m fine,” she replied while also stifling a yawn.

“It’s not going to do us any good if you crash. Find a good spot. I’ll take the first shift while you get some sleep.”

She looked like she was going to protest, but that was right before her next yawn. “Sounds good. We’re going to need some diesel soon, too.”

“I hate gas stations.”

“We’ll worry about it in the morning.”

“Oh I can guarantee I’ll worry about it all night,” I told her as she pulled off the highway. It looked like some sort of industrial park and she found the oldest, dilapidated piece of corrugated crap to park behind. Seemed perfect for what we wanted, but on the flip side, it looked like the setting for ninety percent of every horror movie. It was four stories of scrap metal; meth heads would have avoided the thing it was so far gone—even they had standards. Sleep would not easily be forthcoming.

It wasn’t three minutes after the engine noise stopped echoing through the abandoned building when I heard the rhythmic breathing of Azile. I’m glad she pulled over when she did. There was a slice of moon in the otherwise cloudless night; the stars were beginning to make themselves known, although I did not think they would honor my wish. My gaze alternated between the brilliance of the night sky and that damned building. The broken windows with panes of glass hanging out of them looked like eager jagged teeth that wanted nothing more than to kill what was left inside of me. I heard a bottle skitter along a concrete floor somewhere within the structure. I peered at the windows, willing myself to evolve a few millennia further when man could finally see in the dark. It wasn’t working. Then I fell into the trap that every—and I mean EVERY—person in movies, literature, and real life situations fall into.

I waited and expected more noise, another hint or clue to what had made the original sound. When it was not forthcoming I tried my best to rationalize it away, reasoning that it was most likely a rat, or the wind, or even a ghost. But never once thinking that it was truly what it was, something out to kill us. Wouldn’t something with nefarious reasons that had just given itself away with some blundering move, immediately try to become a black hole of sound? Unmoving, ultra-cautious? It only made sense.

How many times have you been in bed, and in the middle of the night you had been awoken by an unexplainable sound? You sit up rapidly; your heart is crashing against your breast plate. You struggle to adjust your vision to your surroundings. Alert for danger from any quarter, ears trying to pick up the minutest of sounds. When you realize that the threat is not immediate, you begin to relax, starting to find rational causes: the over-stacked dishes in the sink toppling, the dog knocking over the trash can, maybe even a particularly heavy gust of wind causing the drapes to push over a lamp. Never once believing it to be the man right outside your bedroom door holding an eight-inch curved blade, but he’s patient, he knows he should have been more careful when he knocked the family picture off the small table in the hallway.

He’ll wait until he hears your soft snores before he slowly turns the handle on your bedroom door, when he hits that creaking floorboard right next to your bed, it’ll be to late as you catch a glimpse of the steel glinting in the sliver of moonlight shining through your window as the blade is drilled into your neck, severing you carotid artery. Screams will escape you as he places his gloved hand over your mouth. Thoughts of your children in their rooms will fleet through your mind as your life slides away.

I sat up, there was a malevolent force in that building, and it was staring at me I could feel it’s gaze upon me like a physical presence. I brought the M-240 up to rest on the windowsill. I would light that fucking building up like the Times Square Christmas tree if given half a reason. Azile was young enough that she probably wouldn’t have a heart attack when that first round went down range.

“Show yourself, fucker,” I whispered. I was calm, mostly. I was hoping I wasn’t making any mind phantoms. There were enough demons and monsters running around without the need for me to create mythical ones.

“Mike?” Azile asked.

I jumped. Thankfully my finger was not on the trigger or I would have certainly blown off fifty or sixty rounds before I knew what I was doing.

“What’s going on?” she asked as she saw the gun in the ready position.

“I heard a noise in there,” I said pointing. It sounded a lot weaker when it was verbalized, and I didn’t tell her about my feeling.

Now she was listening. After a while she spoke. “Probably just the wind.”

“And wouldn’t that be what they wanted us to think?” I asked her before I truly thought about my word choice. Oh boy, my paranoia was on high alert that fine evening.

“Who, Mike? Do you see something?” she asked as she was peering over my shoulder.

“I don’t see anything. Something sees us, though. I can feel it.”

***

“Do you think he sees us, Dave?” the dark haired man asked nervously.

“I don’t think so Greg,” Dave said, putting his night vision scope down. “But I swear he keeps looking right at us.”

“Why don’t you just shoot him?” Greg asked.

“First, because Kirk hasn’t told me to…second, because it’s not an easy shot…and mostly because of that fucking gun he has. If I miss, he’ll punch holes through this piece of shit building. A lot of fucking holes,” Dave said, again picking up his scope and looking at the barrel of the death dealing machine. “I can guarantee one thing, though, Kirk is going to want that gun.”

“You saw the gun. You should tell him,” Greg stated nervously.

Their leader Kirk was a scary, solitary, psychotic man, who ruled more by abject fear than through any true leadership qualities. The last person that had left their group had been hunted down mercilessly. When caught, Kirk had ordered him to be hung upside down and whipped until foot long strips of skin scraped against the ground as he swung back and forth on the chain that secured his ankles. Dave shuddered as the man had screamed for mercy that wasn’t ever going to come. And what had made it worse was the man was Dave’s friend, and he had done nothing to protect him.

Dave had convinced himself that it wasn’t so bad under Kirk’s regime. They were safe, they ate every day, and as long as they did exactly as they were told, there was nothing to fear. That wasn’t always the truth; sometimes Kirk forgot what orders he issued, or if the outcome wasn’t to his design, someone would pay. But for the most part, if you did what you were told you were safe. Dave’s friend Bill had begged him to leave with him. Dave had refused, not because he didn’t want to go but because he was petrified of what Kirk would do.

When Bill had come up missing during morning roll call, Dave had not even hesitated when asked where he was or where he might have gone. In fact, it was Dave that had to deal a significant amount of punishment to his ‘friend.’

“We’re friends, Dave. Don’t do this,” Bill had begged. “We grew up together for Christ’s sake. Dave, stop this!” Bill had screamed as he was hoisted in the air.

“Five lashes,” Kirk ordered.

“Five lashes? That’s it?” Dave asked, hoping that his friend would someday be able to forgive him.

“Yes, five lashes from you. And hit him like you mean it or I’ll make you do it again,” Kirk said.

Bill screamed as Dave whipped him across the back.

Kirk said, “Zero. Hit him harder or I won’t count them.”

Dave reared back and struck again. Bill writhed in agony, screams, tears, and blood coming from his body.

“Better…one,” Kirk counted. “Continue.”

Dave delivered four more brutal blows. Angry wet, oozing welts as thick as breakfast sausages criss-crossed Bill’s back. His body heaved as he sobbed.

“It’s over, buddy, it’s over. I’m so sorry,” Bill said as he headed over to the chain release.

“What are you doing?” Kirk asked.

“Letting him down,” Dave said with a confused look on his face. “You said five lashes.”

“Yeah and your five lashes are done, I meant five lashes from each of us.” Kirk said sweeping his hand across the twenty-eight-person populace.

“You’ll kill him,” Dave stated.

“No shit. Hand the whip to Chad,” Kirk stated as he went back to playing his Nintendo DS, the beeps and whistles the game produced doing little to drown out Bill’s whimpers and groans.

By the time the whip made it all the way to Kirk, Bill had come to the last link in his chain of life. Dave was amazed Bill had anything left, but when Kirk began to whip his face, he managed three more screams as his eye was torn free from its facial moorings and his lips were flayed off. The affect was grotesque as his face began to slough away. More than one person in the group had to walk away. Dave didn’t, though, because Kirk was watching him intently as he finished his friend off.

***

“Let me see the scope,” Kirk said as he came up next to Dave, startling him out of his memory.

“Jumpy?” Kirk asked as he grabbed the night vision glasses.

“Sorry, the guy in that truck sort of scares me.”

“More than me?” Kirk asked smiling. “Just busting your balls,” Kirk said as he looked through the scope. “Holy shit, did you see that gun?”

“I did. That’s why I had Greg get you.”

“Well go get it then.”

“Wait…the gun…by myself? How?”

“Relax, you take shit too seriously,” Kirk said smiling. “Just busting your balls again.”

“Ha ha,” Dave laughed insincerely, hoping Kirk didn’t pick up on it.

“Hey, dipshit!” Kirk yelled.

Dave was about to ask ‘Him?’ when Greg called out ‘Yeah?’ from behind them.

“Go release the zombies,” Kirk said.

Greg raced away.

Those fucking zombies, Dave thought. They gave him the willies just thinking about them and that they housed them in the same building had been one of the reasons he had a major loss in sleep.

***

“Something’s going on,” Azile said in my ear.

Not sure how she thought I could miss the loud metallic clanging in the otherwise still night.

“Sounds like a security door rolling up,” Azile said. “They had them at the loading docks where I worked.”

“Not good, not good,” I said as I charged the weapon. A heavy cloud chose that exact moment to cross over our small source of light. The moon was completely blanketed as we both heard the sounds of metal scraping along pavement. Sparks were shooting up from the ground as what we later learned were chains being dragged along. We couldn’t see what was dragging them, but it was clear they were headed in our direction and fast.

“Shoot!” Azile begged.

“I can’t see anything. Get us out of here!”

Using the sparks as an indicator, whatever was coming had halved their distance and were not slowing. Without being able to see what was coming I could not shoot I was ninety-nine percent sure what it was, but not a hundred.

I heard the whir as the truck tried to catch. “Azile, now would be a good time.”

“Won’t start,” she said as she pumped the gas and messed with the stick shift.

The cloud cover passed, my nightmare was revealed as hundreds of zombies raced toward the truck. Bullets and tracers lit up the night as I hammered them into the oblivion they so rightfully deserved.

***

“Fuck,” Dave said as he watched the hellfire issue from the truck. He was glad he hadn’t taken a shot. He would have never got a second one off if he had missed, and he was no marksman.

“He’s killing my pets!” Kirk shouted. “Kill him!” he shouted at Dave.

“I don’t have a shot.”

“Make one or you’ll be running out there.”

Dave lined up a shot. His crosshairs dancing wildly as he made the attempt. The shot went wide blasting through the windshield.

***

“Fuck!” I shouted as the windshield blasted out away from me. I had caught the muzzle flash from my peripheral vision and swung the M240 in the general direction. Bullets slammed into and through the thin aluminum shell of the building.

***

Bullets danced over the heads of Dave and Kirk as they dropped for cover.

“That might have been a bad idea.” Kirk was smiling again. Broken glass, debris and dust were still raining down on them long after the bullets had ceased their attempt at ending their lives. Kirk didn’t get back up to look out the windows until the gun started up again and thankfully not in their direction.

***

I was not egotistical enough to think that I had killed the threat from the third story window, but I imagine I had put the fear of whatever deity he believed in into his heart, and as long as he embraced that fear, I’d be fine. “How’s it going, Azile? I’m running a little low on ammo.”

“I’m trying, stop yelling at me!” she screamed back.

***

“Recall the zombies!” Kirk yelled as he raced down to the first floor.

Dave stayed where he was. Recalling the zombies meant putting out some of their prisoners as bait and he didn’t want to be part of it. “I should have left with Bill,” he said softly.

“You say something?” Greg asked.

“What’d you hear?” Dave asked.

“Something about you wishing you’d left. I’m going to have to tell Kirk.”

“Tell him this for me,” Dave said as he put a round in Greg’s chest. Dave ran to the opposite end of the building and down the two flights.

“What the fuck is going on out there?” Len asked as Dave nearly plowed into him.

Len had the unenviable task of guarding the door that was located the furthest from the action.

“Armageddon, Len, I’m getting out of here.”

“You know the rules, Dave, nobody in…and especially nobody out.”

“Len, just let me go. Or, better yet, come with me.”

Len actually did think about it for a moment. “Shit, Dave, I’d like to, but you saw what he did to Bill. I can’t go through that.”

“Just let me go, Len.”

“I can’t. There’s one way out from the back of this building, who do you think he’s going to blame?”

“Just say you didn’t see anything.”

“But I did and I’m a horrible liar.”

“Fuck, Len, I’m sorry” Dave said as he shot Len in the midsection.

Len fell back into the door as he placed his hands over the wound. “That fucking hurts, Dave,” Len said as he slid down the door.

“I’m sorry, man.” Dave grabbed Len’s legs to move him out of the way.

“Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” Len said as he pulled his .38 Special from his holster. He drilled a hole in the top of Dave’s head. The smell of expended rounds and burnt brains dominated the small enclave. Dave was dead before he could form the thought.

“Asshole. Who does that to their friend?” Len said, referring to Dave’s whipping of Bill. He lifted his shirt and his bulletproof vest; a fist-sized bruise was already forming on his stomach. “That’s gonna hurt,” Len said as he slowly worked himself back up into a standing position. He opened the door quickly, making sure nothing was out there. His plan was to drag Dave out so that he wouldn’t bleed all over his guard station and then a new thought formed in his mind.

“Fuck it.” He ran for the tree line.

***

I had maybe fifteen rounds left when the zombies stopped coming. Fifteen rounds to a machinegun is like eating one potato chip; it’s not enough.

“You stopped shooting, Mike, are you out of ammo,” Azile said, checking under the dash for potential truck starting problems.

“The zombies are heading back in,” I said, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Why?” Azile asked, and that was immediately followed by the screams of the reasons ‘why.’

“They’re using people to bring them back.” I put my head down on the butt stock of my gun.

“What?” Azile asked in surprise, then she figured it out. “Shoot the zombies!”

“I would,” I told her sadly, “but I don’t have enough rounds, and I don’t know exactly where the people are. I’d just as likely kill them as save them.”

“This can’t be happening.” Azile frantically pumped the gas pedal and turned the ignition.

Oh, it most assuredly is, I thought as I heard the screams of the eaten.

A few moments later, when the hordes had been retrieved and the cries of the lures had died down, we could hear the doors that housed the zombies being lowered.

“What is this newest nightmare?” I asked in preparation for round two.

“Hello, travelers!” a voice shouted from the shadows. “My name is Kirk and I am the captain of this facility.”

“Like Captain Kirk?” I asked Azile.

“Who’s Captain Kirk?” she asked as she shrugged her shoulders.

“Where’s Spock! I want to talk to Spock!” I yelled.

There was some muttering, then Kirk spoke back up. “There is no Spock here. Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

“You mean since your first attack was unsuccessful in killing us, you want to go to a diplomatic approach?” I asked dripping in sarcasm.

“The release of my pets was unfortunate.”

“Pets?” Azile and I asked each other.

“Someone here misunderstood my orders,” Kirk added.

“Was he one of the ones you fed to your pets?” I asked.

“No, no, they were prisoners of war.”

I wanted to tell him that the war was against the zombies, killing each other off wasn’t doing anybody any good; he didn’t seem like the reasoning type. Spock would have been a much better negotiator.

“And if we don’t come to an agreement?” I asked, leaving the question hanging.

“Well then, I would consider that an act of aggression,” he stated simply.

“Azile, what are the odds you can get out of the cab and grab another box of ammo without being seen?”

“I’d have to crawl out the window so the cab light doesn’t come on.”

“Shit,” I said as I caught movement in my rearview mirror, “they’re trying to come up behind us. I hope I sound convincing,” I told Azile, then I yelled to Kirk, “My rear observer just told me that you have people attempting to come up behind us. If they don’t stop now I will level your building.”

There was a long pause. “Let’s be civilized about this.”

“I’ve been nothing but, you’re the one that sent your pets to kill us, then fed them dinner. And now, while we are in the midst of negotiations, you send men to try and waylay us. I will consider that an act of aggression.” I opened up the breech so that I could make as much sound as I could ‘re-loading’ my weapon.

“Okay, hold on,” Kirk’s voice said with an edge. “My men are returning.”

“We’ll talk more when my observation post confirms this. He says they haven’t moved yet. Azile, you need to move. Sooner or later he’s going to figure my ruse out.”

Azile rolled her window down and slid effortlessly through the opening. She peeked up. “Once I roll the back door up, the cab light will come on.”

“Okay, I’ll improvise. Make sure you grab the box that says 7.62.”

“I know guns,” she muttered.

“They’re not quite gone yet!” I yelled.

“Patience,” Kirk yelled back.

“Oh I’m patient but you see my gun here she isn’t.”

The dome light came on, startling the hell out of me. I pulled the trigger and let a controlled three-round burst issue forth from my gun. That would get any ‘lookie loos’ diving for cover. The echo of my firing was just dying down as the light clicked off.

“Sorry...mosquito!” I shouted.

“I’ve got a girl” someone said triumphantly behind me. I heard some scuffling.

It seemed that my rear observation post had failed me. I put the weapon down and exited the truck as quickly as I could. Azile was struggling in a man’s arms. Her legs were kicking uselessly in the air as he had lifted her up against him and was pulling her back to the building.

I ran at him, he had been looking back towards the building. When he finally turned forward and saw me, I was within ten feet.

He put Azile up as a human shield. “Wait...you don’t even have a gun.”

I kept coming at him. Azile pulled her head to the left as I brought a punch from somewhere off in right field. Azile’s attacker was not able to do much more than watch as my fist made contact with his face. I had struck him so hard, bones cracked. At first, I was certain the snapping bones had been my knuckles. It was difficult to tell in the moonlight, but I was certain that his face was indented; it was a nauseating sight.

His nose had been pushed flat and his right cheek bone was non-existent. He fell backwards to the ground, the back of his head slamming off the pavement. The cavity in his face was soon filled in with a rush of blood.

“Jonas,” Kirk called out, “you still got her?”

I could hear blood pounding in my ears, fury had taken root. “That would be a negative!” I yelled as I grabbed Jonas by his shins. I screamed in rage as I tossed his body a good fifteen feet, more of his frame splintered as he landed with a crushing blow.

Azile was watching me, possibly thankful, possibly warily. “How?” was her one word question.

I wasn’t entirely sure if she meant, how did I cave his face in or how did I throw a two hundred-something pound man fifteen feet. More likely both. My chest was heaving from the adrenaline, not the effort, no, that had come easy enough.

“Shit, Kirk, he just killed Jonas!” someone yelled from one of the higher stories.

We were in the open and had nothing to shield us.

“NO!” Kirk screamed just as I heard the doors open back up.

Zombies were streaming towards us. “RUN!” I yelled to Azile as if she needed any prodding. I mostly meant for her to run away, but in the confusion she headed back to our haven, our not operating haven.

I ran to the back of the truck to retrieve the fallen ammo box. I quickly turned to head back to the passenger side door and realized I wouldn’t make it—or maybe I would. I started swinging the box like it was a Louisville Slugger and my team was down by three, bases loaded, two outs, and bottom of the ninth. I figured if I was going for cliché, I might as well go all the way. The lead zombie met the full fury of a twenty-five pound ammunition box as it completely caved its skull in. He hadn’t hit the ground before I drove it into Kirk’s next pet.

Brain matter shot out the tops of heads like sleeves of Mentos dropped in a gallon container of Diet Pepsi. I was covered in the viscera, and still they came. My arms were beginning to burn from the effort.

“My pets!” Kirk screamed from a doorway. Some saw their ‘master’ and turned to express their gratitude; most stayed behind thinking I would eventually let one in. More than once I nearly lost my grip on the box handle as viscous blood coated everything. “Get more prisoners!” Kirk screamed as he headed back in.

They might be his pets, but he knew enough to realize that they bit. More screaming ensued as the damned witnessed their fate bearing down on them. I would have chased the retreating zombies down, but I was exhausted and exposed. It was only a matter of time before someone shot my ass.

“He fucking killed like twenty zombies with...with his bare hands,” the man that had informed Kirk of Jonas’ passing yelled.

To be fair, it wasn’t my bare hands. Now my chest was heaving from the exertion, I moved quickly to the truck and pulled myself up with no small amount of difficulty.

“Mike?”

“Later,” I said breathlessly. “Help me...lift the gun.” My arms were jelly-filled rope. Azile did her best to help me while also not getting too close; I was beyond gross. I loaded the new belt in. “Keep the ammo straight,” I told Azile as she got up behind me, reaching to my left to hold the ammo up. “This’ll...be...loud,” I breathed out heavily, looking back at her.

“I’m fine,” she returned.

“Friend!” Kirk yelled.

“Friend this, motherfucker!” I unleashed hell’s fury in multiple 7.62 projectiles. Screams of terror echoed throughout the building as I tried to tear it down. Bullets whined as they struck home, some ricocheting inside and doing more damage as they careened off of poles or beams. I was indiscriminately doling out death. I hoped the prisoners were tucked away safe but even if that wasn’t the case, I had to believe I was giving them the escape they had longed for. Kirk didn’t seem like a benevolent captor. The building’s groans of protestations were the only sounds once I dry fired.

“Mike?” Azile asked again.

“I’m fine,” I told her through gritted teeth. At least as fine as a mass murderer can be.

Azile did the only think she could think to do, she tried the truck again. Of course this time it started without a hitch.