'Til Death Do Us Part

AFTERWORD

Three days after the death of Eliza, the war at Camp Talbot was over. I could not do much more than shiver as I sat in a rocker, on the part of Ron’s deck that was not on the blood steeped lawn. I watched, as he pushed piles of dead zombies into giant pyres with his tractor. The boys were keeping vigilance over him. Gary rode on the tractor as an added layer of protection.

“Will this ever get better?” I asked, my teeth chattering even in the seventy-degree heat of the day and two blankets wrapped around my legs.

“Not anytime soon, Mr. T,” Tommy said as he sat beside me suffering through the same symptoms. “With Eliza, gone we’ve lost a piece of us.”

I felt like a hard core heroin junkie who had gone cold turkey, my bones dripped in pain, if that makes any sense. I’d already taken a loss I did not figure I could absorb when I had lost my soul, but with the absence of whatever Eliza had filled the void in with, I was adrift in a sea of black. My innards ached as they seemed to move around in the shell that once housed me.

“It would be better to die,” I told him with vacant eyes, “than to live like this.”

He may have nodded in reply or it could have been my shivering that gave the illusion of movement on his part.

***

“Can you do anything?” Tracy asked Azile as she looked through the window and out at her husband who was so obviously suffering.

Azile shook her head, she also was trapped in her own misery.

***

“There’s more,” Tommy said.

I stood, hoping that my bones were not as hollow as I felt. “Do tell. I could use a bit of shitty news right about now.”

“The order I put to halt the progress of BT’s zombieism will unravel now that I no longer have as much power.”

My legs weren’t hollow, but they were having great difficulty supporting my weight at the moment. “How long?” I asked him.

With considerable effort, Tommy shrugged his shoulders.

“You once told me that you saw your sister get bitten, then she ultimately killed her sire. How did she survive? Did she walk all these years like this? Is that even possible? I feel hollow, Tommy. I can sense the pain I should be feeling, but I’m numb to it. With every beat of my heart I flip from my heart breaking at the death of my father to an absolute fathomless void, where nothing not even emotions can stem from. I know I should be concerned for my friend’s health, sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not. I know I should be loving my family, and yet there are times when I can’t even remember what the emotion entails. I felt more concern for a dead squirrel in the roadway when I was human than I do now.”

***

Tracy shivered as she overheard words she wasn’t supposed to.

***

“Eliza killed her sire. She was not diminished from his death, but rather enhanced by it. That was why she never let any of her charges live for very long, lest they try to take her power from her. The emptiness will go away, you’ll fill it in with something, Mr. T. My sister filled hers in with hate and cruelty for everyone and everything. But that’s not who you are, you have it, we,” he stressed, “have it in us to fill it with something better.”

“You’re still a vampire right?” I asked him.

“I am.” He let his head drop.

“Why now the change back to this ‘Tommy’ persona? How can I ever trust or believe you, if I ever even care again?”

“I took on a large part of my sister when she turned me. With her influence gone, I’m more the boy you remember.”

“I wish I could believe that…I do…for my family.”

I watched as zombies burned by the hundreds. With some effort, I was able to walk down towards one of the pyres. I should have been close enough for my skin to be melting, and still I quaked in the unoccupied recesses of my mind.

“You alright, Mike?” Ron asked a good fifteen feet behind me. I turned to see his hands shielding his face from the intense heat.

I waved him away, not because I was concerned for his safety, but rather, I wanted to be alone. I wondered if I would feel anything if I walked just a few more feet into the intense blaze.

Tommy stepped up beside me. “The shaman did it.”

I didn’t say anything. I realized that at one time I would have had an answer for him, something revolving around, ‘Sure now all we need is some peyote, a shaman and sweat lodge and we’ll be all set.’

“We have a witch,” Tommy said, filling in the gaps in the conversation.

I turned and we walked back towards the house. Travis was watching me as I entered.

I went to BT’s room. “Good news, buddy.”

“They discovered a cure for sarcasm?” he answered.

“Better…road trip,” I told him.

“You’re kidding, right? You’re not, are you? Fuck…why? This is about the Jeep isn’t it? You want to go back and get your fucking Jeep! No, Mike I’m not traveling across the damn zombie infested country for a damn Jeep I won’t do it!”

I’ll admit that thought had crossed my mind, but even I wasn’t that nuts, although if our travels brought us anywhere near Colorado I was going to snag it.

“No, my friend, we need to find Doc Baker,” I told him.

“Oh, man, you know he’s probably dead,” BT said.

“I asked Tommy, he said he wasn’t.”

“And you believe the Edward wannabe?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Nothing, it was a character in a book I read before all this shit happened.”

“We need the Doc, BT.”

“Need? Why who’s dying?”

I kept staring not saying anything.

“Oh shit, it’s me isn’t it? Dammit, I finally get to rest my damn body and now we got to go gallivanting all over the damn place again.” BT put his shoes on.

I walked out in to the hallway. “Boys!”

“Not a chance, Talbot, not unless I’m coming with you,” Tracy said.

“Are you friggen clairvoyant?” I asked her.

“No, you’re just transparent.”

“I would like to go to,” Azile said, raising her hand slightly above her head.

“Fine…pack up. Travis, keep an eye on your uncle, I’m going to see if I can get in his closet trap door.”