Zombie Fallout 8: An Old Beginning (13 page)

The captain knocked.

“Help!” Dixon shouted out.

I shrugged to Tommy. “At least we know where he went.”

The captain pushed the door open quickly and then scanned the room, his pistol pointing wherever he was looking. I followed immediately behind. Deneaux was sitting behind a huge, most likely mahogany, desk; an impossibly large revolver sitting in front of her on a blotter. She had a cigar in her hand, a large plume of smoke encircling her head. Residual smoke leaked out from a wry smile.

“Hello, Michael,” she said, rising. “Good to see you.” She extended a hand, which I avoided. “Oh, come now, we can be civil about this, can’t we?”

“Civil? Are you shitting me?” I advanced.

On all that was holy, I should have just raised my rifle up and blown her into whatever realm she belonged. My abject fear was that the bullets would pass right through her as if she were ethereal, holding no more substance than the smoke swirling around the room. That would be when the ambient lighting would turn red and she would begin to laugh at me in an unnaturally deep demon spawn sound. I hadn’t crapped my pants since I was an infant, but if that happened, all bets were off.

“I need help!” Dixon yelled.

I’d been so focused on Deneaux that I hadn’t even seen the man. He was sitting in an over-sized chair facing Deneaux, his hands clamped over a wound in his thigh. A pretty messy one if the blood leaking past his fingers was any indication.

“She shot me!”

“Stop being dramatic, darling, I barely winged you. Really it’s your fault anyway. You come in here ranting and raving, screaming and shouting. You made me nervous with your threats to seek retribution. What did you expect me to do when I felt that my life was threatened?”

“You shot me as soon as I opened the door!”

She paused and looked at him. “Would those things not have happened?”

“Preemptive strike? That sounds about right,” I said. “Why bother dealing with words when you can get right down to the meat of the problem by shooting it?”

“Oh, come now, Michael. Please tell me you are not crying for this man. Given the chance, he will kill you and feel nothing. I, at least, will have a momentary pang of guilt.”

“A momentary pang? Would that be because of the half dozen or so times I have saved your ass?”

“We do not have time for verbal sparring, Michael. This facility is quickly being overrun with zombies, and we have either got to defend against them or find a safe way to exit.”

“I’m sure Tommy, myself, and the captain here, if he wants, could get out of here just fine. But I can’t think of any reason why I would want to saddle myself to you again.”

“No reason at all, Michael? Strange—I can think of nine.”

“That’s a pretty specific number, Deneaux. What are you getting at?”

“It is the number of loved ones you have that left this facility.”

“If you do anything to them—” I surged toward her. Tommy held me back.

“Don’t be so crass. I would not hurt them. But Dixon here, he would…without a
moment’s hesitation. Isn’t that right?” she asked as she came from behind the desk. She stroked the side of his face with her palm. He pulled away and winced as the movement caused him pain in his wound.

“Just spill it, Deneaux. We don’t have time for you to play out the drama and intrigue in your little soap opera performance.”

I looked over at the wall of monitors. Zombies were beginning to dominate the cameras that were trained on entry points. Soldiers were effectively repelling them, but it was only a matter of time. The outside shot showed a horde that made the last stand at Little Turtle or even at Carol’s farm seem like child’s play. No, this was a coordinated, directed attack. But who could wield that much power? Eliza’s name screamed across my brain, enough so that Tommy recoiled.

“Did I ever tell you I did a stint on
As the World
—”

“Villain, right? Had to be. Come on, Deneaux, I really just want to kind of kill you both and get back to my family.”

“I was actually the twin sister of one of the stars, which was funny, because we looked nothing alike. Yes, I was the villain. I shot her husband after we slept together and he realized I wasn’t his wife. He said he’d known because we’d done things he’d never done before.”

“Gross, just gross.” I had a crappy taste in my mouth.

“Handsome man, unfortunately he was a lemon squeezer.” She was looking off to a far-gone time.

“Yes, horrible. Agree with her, Tommy.” I smacked him on the shoulder.

“Horrible,” he said, looking at me. “What’s a lemon squeezer?”

I shrugged.

She whipped back to the present in less than heartbeat. “The satellites, Michael. He will track your family and you, should you escape. He needs what you carry inside, and no matter what he promises, he will do everything in his power to attain it. As for your family, they are now collateral damage. Had you not taken him prisoner, they would already be dead. I saved them.”

“You?”

“Yes me. I called back the drones.”

“You launched drones
!?” I asked Captain Najarian. I was in his face. Any closer and I might have to take him out for dinner.

“I had my orders.” He stood tall under my withering gaze.

“Funny, that’s the same defense the Germans at Auschwitz used. It wasn’t adequate then, and it sure as shit isn’t adequate now. I thought you were one of the decent ones.” I grabbed him by the throat and immediately applied enough pressure to cut off his air supply.

No one moved, not even Tommy. Deneaux looked on with a smug sort of satisfaction and maybe the tiniest of glints in her eyes like she was either excited or scared; or more likely both from what was going on. Captain Najarian wrapped his hands around my arm as I lifted him off the ground.

“Mr. T, he could still help us get out of here.” Tommy took a step closer but, as of yet, had not interfered.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t crush the life out of him?”

“I’m not saying he isn’t worthy of a cruel death, I am merely saying that, much like Mrs. Deneaux wants to use us for her own means, we can do the same with the captain.”

“Looks like it’s your lucky day, Captain,” I said as I rattled him about a couple of times and unceremoniously dropped him to the floor.

He drew in great ragged breaths, his hands caressing his neck. I stepped over him and to the shrinking form of Dixon. “So much for the deal,” I said to him as I moved his hands aside to see the bullet wound Deneaux had put in his thigh.

“What...what did you expect me to do?” He was near to crying. “What are you going to do...!
” It trailed off into a scream as I stuck my index finger up to the second knuckle in his wound. “Man, who knows where my hands have been today. A good chance this is probably going to get infected.” I was wiggling my finger around. I laid my right arm across Dixon’s chest, holding him down like a vise as I probed deeper. “Damn, I’m almost all the way through.”

Even Deneaux winced. “Really, Michael, is that necessary?”

“Don’t you even start!” I pulled my finger out from Dixon’s wound, it made a large satisfying sucking sound as I did so. I was now pointing that blood covered digit at Deneaux. She stared transfixed at the fat droplets of blood as they fell from it. The bat was something—she didn’t so much as flinch.

“We kill, Michael. All of us in this room, we kill. Don’t be so shocked by it, and don’t even try to deny it. I know what you’re thinking, that you killed them all to ensure the safety of your family. Can you honestly hold that truism for each and every one of them? Weren’t there at least a few times where it wasn’t directly related to self-defense or family preservation but rather it was more advantageous if he or she were dead?”

“This is different, Deneaux. He was going to kill my family in cold-blood, my innocent family.”

“Innocent?” she scoffed. “They knew about this place, he was protecting his own by eliminating them. Would you have let a hostile force leave your brother’s home to get reinforcements? He was defending what is dear to him. Look at that wheel spinning in your head; it is a sight to behold.”

“You’ve muddied the waters enough, Deneaux. What point are you going to make that changes my mind about your and Dixon’s fate?”

“This deal is for me, he is on his own.”

Even through his misery Dixon took the time to shoot a glare at Deneaux. “How did your husband put up with you for so many years?”

“As long as he did what I told him to do, we got along fabulously. I warned you not to go down to Michael’s cell. I told you when I found out he and his
family were here that you should kill them immediately. No offense,” she said to me.

I waved it off. I was offended, but she would not have cared.

“How did not listening to me work out, Dixon?”

“Fuck you, Vivian.”

“You wanted to, didn’t you? If you had played your cards right this all could have been yours.”

I’m pretty sure if she’d had a skirt or a dress on she would have pulled the front up. Tommy turned away, embarrassed. I was wondering if I could make it to the waste bucket in time to launch my lunch into it. “Wow, how did that become the most disturbing thing the day has yet to offer? Deneaux, out with it, we’re running short on time. Why am I not going to kill you along with my buddy Dix here?”

If his wound in his leg didn’t hurt so much, and wasn’t gushing blood because of my ministrations, I think Dixon would have taken this time to make a run for it.

“I can disable the computer system in this facility…forever,” she added at the end when I didn’t immediately react.

I was about to tell her “big fucking whoop” when I finally figured it out. “No computers, no satellites.”

She touched her nose. “Exactly.”

“You can’t!” Captain Najarian said as loudly as his tortured throat would allow, which wasn’t much above a hoarse, whispered yell. “You’ll be condemning the lives of thousands.”

“Pity,” Deneaux said. “What of it, Michael?”

“If I kill Dixon what does it matter?” I asked.

“Do you truly believe that someone else, perhaps even the captain here, will not immediately take hold of the throne? There are always more idiots. Isn’t that one of your lines?”

“Could be. Sounds vaguely familiar.”

“As much as I’d like to tell you to take your time, we can’t, Michael. The zombies are on a different timetable than us.”

“Mr. T?” Tommy asked. Was he asking for my decision, or why I was even contemplating it? Who the fuck knew?

“How many times can one make a deal with the devil before something gets firmly entrenched up an anal cavity or two?” I was looking straight at Deneaux, but if I was looking for some sort of a “tell” from her I was barking up the wrong tree. The woman could look a crying baby holding a kitten, in the face on Christmas day, and not show a lick of emotion. Unless, of course, maybe if a snake was trying to eat the baby, then she might crack the corner of her parched and withered lips.

Eliza was evil incarnate, you knew where you stood with her at all times. She wanted you dead, always and at any cost, pretty easy to figure her out. Deneaux, on the other hand, well it all came down to what purpose you could serve to better her life. She was a constant shifting sea of ambitions and conditions. You were safe if that suited her and dead if not. Trust was not something you could ever hope to achieve with Deneaux, the best you could hope for was a platform of mutually assured destruction.

“Kill the system. I’ll take your ass out of here, but once we’re safer…we part ways. I am not bringing you with me.”

“Those are acceptable terms.”

I grabbed Captain Najarian’s arm, as he seemed like he wanted to jump over the desk and stop her as she performed a set of keystrokes. The lights in the room flickered, and the monitors behind Deneaux got grainy, went to complete white static and then blackness. While I was watching all of this transpire, I took note that the captain’s struggle against my hold was now lackluster at best.

“How do you know I won’t just kill you now?” I asked her.

“How long do you think I’ve been dancing this dance, Michael? No matter the state of your soul or lack thereof, you still have a moral compass.”

She let that comment sink in. I’ve got to admit, hearing her say it out loud hurt a little more than I figured it would, and I’m not talking about the part about the compass. Although if she truly knew how far out of whack it was now that I was no longer moored to a soul, she might not be so smug. Sometimes that needle spun like I was going through the Bermuda Triangle.

“We need to leave. I suggest you finish Dixon off so that we can.”

“Bitch,” Dixon heaved out.

“And perhaps the captain if he doesn’t want to join us.”

“Wow, you are something special,” I said sarcastically.

“Coming from you, my dear, I will take that as a compliment. Well, I do believe it is time to go.”

“Naw, not quite yet. Something stinks here, and I know all about bad smells; I have an English Bulldog after all. See, you might be a world-class deceiver, Deneaux. Shit, you probably taught the devil a thing or two to hone his craft. But the captain here, well, he’s a different story. He should be a lot more distraught about you having just destroyed their safe haven. I mean, I would imagine this is one of the last bastions on US soil. And like he said, there are thousands here who rely on this place. Not only for food and shelter, but also for research and obviously for the grand designs of taking over a crippled planet and ruling it as any normal sociopath would. For all I know you just changed the channel.”