Zombie Fallout 4: The End Has Come and Gone (40 page)

“Five minutes,” Tomas answered his old friend.

“Why bother at all,” Mrs. Deneaux said. “He couldn’t survive five minutes against the old Durgan, now with the new and improved model? Pah, we should have kept more guns.”

“You should see if that gun has any rounds in it and hold it up to your eye. I’ll pull the trigger for you,” Alex said.

She “pahed” again.

“What of my soul?” I asked Tomas.

He shook his head in negation.

“I can never go to Heaven?”

“Only to the gates.”

“I’ve been there,” I said, burying my head in my hands. “It’s a beautiful place, lonely but beautiful.”

“Oh Mike,”
Tracy
said, draping her body across mine like a shield against the worst of what the world had to offer.

“I’m not strong enough for this,” I said as my body heaved.

“Our lives are not worth eternity,” BT said as he wrapped Tracy and myself up in his own embrace.

“Eliza will discard all of your souls before she is done,” Tomas said.

“Why are you doing this?” Meredith asked, “You play on the other team now, what do you care what happens to us?”

“I have my reasons,” Tomas said evenly.

I looked around at the faces surrounding me, searching for an answer that only I could produce. It was Travis and Justin that solved my dilemma. Watching them die today was infinitely worse than watching them die at some mythical point in the future.

“Do it.”

“Talbot! NO!”
Tracy
yelled.

“You sure man?” BT asked in disbelief.

“Do I look sure?” I asked him, my eyes red-rimmed.

“I don’t think so,”
Gary
said. “What? He asked!”
Gary
replied when BT looked at him sideways.

“Damn, I thought the whole Captain Obvious was
my
strong point,” Justin said. “It must run deeper in the family than we thought.”

Tomas came up beside me, “You will want to lie down.”

“Is this going to hurt him?” Meredith asked.

“Extremely.”

“Wicked pissah,” I said.

Tracy
walked away, her arms folded across her chest. I couldn’t be sure from my position, but it looked like her shoulders were shaking with sobs.

I lay down, saying the Lord’s Prayer in one last vain attempt to possibly keep a dialog open with the Big Guy.

BT held my hand tight. “Let’s just go out guns blazing, Mike.”

I looked over to my sons’ very concerned faces. “I would if we were alone my friend.”

“I get it, I do. I’m sorry it came to this, buddy,” BT added.

Paul and Alex stood guard over my prone body as Tomas leaned in. It was Henry that almost stopped everything. Where he had been and what he had been doing I’m not sure, probably basking in the sun and sending out his own ozone melting flatulence.

He jumped across my chest, his back legs by my left arm pit and his front paws down by my right side. Froth formed on his muzzle as he barked and growled incessantly as Tomas approached.

“I will kill him if you do not remove him,” Tomas said, stopping his progress.

“You kill him and I will drill you in the eye with my Ka-Bar, Tomas,” I told him.

“Perhaps you would Michael. Now move the dog so that we can get to the business at hand,” Tomas said, still not moving, maybe because he was fearful of the dog or me.

Justin grabbed the big Bully and hefted him back. Travis stepped in to assist and still they almost lost control of Henry.

“Put this in your mouth,” Tomas said as he handed me a piece of rubber roughly the size and shape of a cigar. “And do not concern yourself where it has been, germs will no longer be a problem of yours.”

That almost made this whole scenario a worthwhile endeavor.

Tomas moved down to my neck. I had an instant of paranoia thinking that he merely wanted to get this close so that he could rip my throat out. And then he did, at least that’s what it felt like.
Sparks
of pain ignited in my throat like my veins were igniter cables and the fuse had been lit. Fire spread through every portion of my body. I arched so hard only the heels of my feet and the back of my head still made contact with the roof.

So this is how your soul was removed, it was burned out. I could smell burning cordite as my teeth struggled to cut through the guard. Muscles spasmed with a force that put my body into contortions that must not have been anything near to normal. I couldn’t register it then, but even BT was looking away, not able to stand what I was going through. Although I’ll give him this, his hand never left mine and I know I must have put enough force on it to crush a normal man’s.

“Th..th..thisss thu..thucks,” I chattered to BT.

He squeezed my hand tighter. “It’s no bargain on this side my friend,” he said, still not looking down.

Tomas had strode away at some point, could have been five minutes or five hours. Having your soul seared kind of takes your mind off of time.

“Dad?” Travis asked.

I gave him a nod but there was no guarantee that I pulled it off. My muscles were firing independent of any messages I was sending them. For all I knew, I could have stuck my tongue out at him.

“You stupid, stupid bastard,”
Tracy
said, cradling my head gently.

“Is it over?” I asked.

“You passed out a few minutes ago buddy,” Paul said.

“You said “goodbye” right before you went under. We were scared,” Alex said. “Do you know what you were referring to? Did you have a vision?”

I shook my head no, but I did know what I was referring to. It was the loss of my humanity, my mortality, my personage, my soul. I was less of a man now and more of a demon. And I had never felt weaker in my life.

“We need to clean his neck and stand him up before Eliza gets here,” Paul said looking nervously towards the door. “Tomas said this would look too suspicious if you were on the ground,” he said, looking at my confused face.

“I’m… I’m not sure I can stand yet, at least on my own,” I said. I don’t think I could have held up Eddy’s slight frame in this condition.

“Just lean on me,” BT said, picking me up like a rag doll.

“I think she will know something is up,” Mrs. Deneaux said, “with you carrying him
around
like a ventriloquist’s dummy.”

BT had one arm wrapped around my waist and had me pulled into his side, this I could tell because my head, which seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, was pointed straight down. Like a new born baby I couldn’t even hold my head up.

“At least I’ll be able to see Durgan’s boots as he kicks me with them,” I said. Gallow’s humor.

“Not funny man,” BT said as he dragged me around the roof. I’m not sure what he was trying to achieve but he kept doing it. Pretty soon he was going to scrape the tips of my hiking boots clean off.

“I’m not a junkie. I don’t think walking me around in circles making sure I stay awake is going to work in this situation,” I said, still looking down at the rooftop.

“Can’t think of anything else to do man, and I’m nervous as hell, so you get to go for a ride.”

“Wheee,” I said cheerlessly. “How much more time do you think we have?”

“Never enough,” he answered.

I was able to finally move my head upwards by degrees as we heard Eliza coming up the stairs.

“I’m
in trouble
,” I said, almost able to pull my head into a horizontal viewing position.

“If you’re
in trouble
, we all are,” BT said grimly.

“If I can’t stand by the time she comes for me, make sure you save one of those bullets for me.”

“Will that work? I mean now?” BT asked me.

“I think if an overzealous horsefly came right now, he could finish me off.”

“Mike, you’re not instilling me with confidence in our group decision.”

“You think?”

“So you lose your soul but not your sarcasm?”

“That might have hurt if I could muster up the strength to care.”

“Do you think this was a trick?”
Gary
asked.

I hadn’t known it before but he was walking behind us the whole time.

“I mean, maybe he just weakened you so that you had absolutely no chance. I mean, it seemed like he set his sister up, maybe he did the same to you,”
Gary
finished.

“Well, you’re just full of good cheer,” I told him. “Maybe he even injected me with a little zombie plague for shits and giggles.”

“It’s possible Mike,” BT added.

“Nobody thought to voice these friggen’ concerns before I let Bat Boy bite me?”

BT shrugged his shoulders but since I was attached to his hip my feet now dangled four inches off the ground
as he made the gesture
.

“Michael?” Eliza asked almost sweetly.

“Mike’s not here!”
Gary
yelled.

I could feel BT’s head turning around. “You kidding me?” he asked
Gary
.

“I mean, he’s sleeping!”
Gary
told Eliza.

“Get him!” Eliza said with not a hint of her earlier merriment.

“I’ll see what I can do,”
Gary
said.

“Don’t they have medication for what ails you Talbots?” BT asked.

“I’m still looking!”
Gary
yelled in a different direction to make it sound like he had moved.

“One minute, Michael, or the deal is off,” Eliza said furiously.

“I’m here,” I rasped.

“Has the shroud of death settled over you yet? It is a cold cloak, wet with the tears of mourning loved ones and broken dreams,” Eliza asked.

“They don’t make one in his size, bitch!” BT roared. “You should know that by now!”

“Durgan will be ready in ten minutes, will you?” Eliza laughed as her voice trailed behind her descen
t back down the stairs
.

“I don’t like her very much,” BT said.

I would have agreed but I was in the midst of passing out again.

‘
Michael, I have stalled as long as I possibly can, you need to get up.
’

‘Tomas? Oh no, you’re in my head again.’

‘My sister and Durgan will be on the roof in less than five minutes.’

‘Was this a trick?’

‘Get up!’
Tomas shouted in my head.

Can someone go deaf from shouting WITHIN their head?
‘I’m up!’
I shouted back, but the connection was broken.

“Michael, there are no surprises waiting for us are there?” Eliza asked suspiciously.

“I’m up!” I shouted again, this time vocally. “Sorry,” I said to those around me as I sat up.

“Well, that’s an improvement,” BT said, “Can you do any better than that though? Unless of course Durgan wants to thumb wrestle you to death.”

“Don’t you have some nails you can chew or something?” I asked him. “Help me stand.”

“Michael?” Eliza asked again.

“What?” I said testily. “Oh. No, there are no surprises, our original agreement is in effect.”

“You won’t mind then if I send some of my army in to verify that?” she asked.

“You sound awfully frightened for being the Lord of All You Survey,” I rang out.

Mrs. Deneaux got a good chuckle out of that one. She tipped her cigarette to me.

“Go ahead, send in your smelly minions!”
Gary
yelled.

“You felt the need to invite them, did you?”
Tracy
asked him.

“No more than a hundred,” I said to Eliza.

‘Why?’ BT mouthed.

“I’m hoping by having to count them it’ll take longer,” I told him.

“Michael, what trick are you trying to play?” Eliza asked, her dark eyes narrowing.

“No trick, I just want the fighting ring to be as big as possible,” I told her.

“It’s so the little faggot can run away like a screaming little bitch!” Durgan yelled.

“Someone got their ‘roid injection today,” BT said.

“Three hundred, Michael,” Eliza said.

“Fine,” I told her. “Even better,” I said to BT. It would take longer.

After a few minutes of zombies filing in like students into an auditorium, Durgan pushed his way through the throng. Two of them fell on their faces, and he smashed his heel down onto
one of the fallen zombie’s
temple. The sound was much like that of a large beetle being squished, it was not pleasant.

“That’s going to mess up your count,” I said, taunting him.