Zombie Fallout 3: THE END .... (28 page)

"Hi Mike!" A familiar voice shouted.

"Durgan." BT said flatly.

"Anyone see him?" I asked raising my rifle up looking for a target.

"You should put that gun down, Mike!" His voice boomed.

I hadn't even thought of it, of course, we were lit up like Christmas trees. "Everyone down!" I shouted pulling Travis down with me.

We could hear Durgan's laugh. "If I'd wanted you dead," he elaborated, "you would be dead. My master would like to have all of you come out."

Without poking my head up I shouted, "We're pretty tired right now. Any chance she could come back next week?"

"What is wrong with you Mike?" Tracy asked.

"Worth a shot." I said

Durgan wasn't expecting that, it took him a bit before he was able to recover.

"Fucking Talbot, that isn't a request, it's a demand. And to prove she's serious... Saunders!" Durgan said.

I had a feeling what 'Saunders' was doing long before I heard someone screaming for mercy.

"What is going on?" BT asked.

I looked down at the floor. "They're killing hostages."

"We gotta go man, we gotta go help them." BT said, shaking.

"BT, they're already dead." Not literally but that was just a matter of degrees in time.

"Then what? We stay here and listen to them slaughter those people?" BT asked.

"No, we're going out, I can't stand it anymore than you BT, I just wish that it hadn't come to this."

"You can't be serious?" Tracy asked, her voice full of concern.

"They'll kill us too." Doc said.

"Doc. stay here, they don't know you're even here, you have the pendants. When Eliza is done they'll move on in search of more fertile grounds to eat."

Doc was stuck in a quandary, the safety of his family versus solidarity.

"Doc", I said, scooting away from the window first and then standing up by him."Listen Doc, you've been a good friend and I've come to love you and your family. You have a real chance to get away from all this. I won't begrudge you that. She knows everyone else in this room and won't stop until she gets us." I didn't say it, how could I tell my family that we were dead men walking.

Doc hugged me. We all made our tearful goodbyes. It sucked being on our side for obvious reasons. Our goodbyes were of the permanent kind. "Doc, just stay low, do not poke your heads up at that window no matter what you hear. Understand?" I asked. He nodded, tears threatening. I was going to miss the Doc he was one of the good guys.

Justin awkwardly picked up his backpack, spilling the contents on the floor. I was going to tell him to leave it, he wasn't going to need it where we were going, but the finality of the thought was entirely too final. Instead I got on the ground with him and started putting the contents back in.

"Talbot, NOW!" Durgan shouted.

The shout had caught me off guard and I had nearly dropped what I had in my hands. Justin stood bolt upright and put the pack on. I didn't want to give Durgan any more reason to come crashing into this apartment. I placed what I had in my hands into the pockets of my jacket and started to head to the door.

"What about the zombies?" Tracy asked.

"Durgan, what about the zombies?" I shouted out through the window.

"Oh, they're harmless for now," he laughed. "Oh and one more thing Mike, no guns."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - JOURNAL ENTRY 17 -

Possibly the ugliest zombie I had seen since the start greeted me at the doorway. He was a little taller than me but didn't possess the healthy vigor that I did. Half of his forehead from the top of his scalp was exposed, and one cheek had been neatly removed. His top lip was gone along with a fair portion of his nose. Slimy gray cartilage had almost eroded away due to predators and the elements. His breath was going to make halitosis a term of the past. His clothes were in tatters, but I guess the thing that struck me the most for some strange reason was that 'Bob' (as I was going to come to call him) only had one shoe. Why this was the point I fixated on was beyond me. It just seemed to be the crux upon which this jacked-up world now spun. Rational thought was quickly taking a back seat. This wasn't a matter of just going to meet my fate. I was taking the whole family, even Henry, and that saddened me the most, for he didn't even know it. Maybe that was for the best.

Bob moved aside as did his brethren as we entered into the hallway. BT shut the door behind him. I hoped the Bakers would make it out, I really did, but my first concerns lay elsewhere as we descended the stairs. Zombies moved away from us like WE were the plague carriers as we entered into the courtyard. Men, of the living variety, began to fill in the vacated spots.

"You pieces of shit!" I yelled trying my best to shield my family from the predatory gazes of the vermin around me. At least a hundred rifles and pistols were pointed at us. I was maybe a bit flattered that they thought us that dangerous but to say 'overkill' would be an understatement. Henry summed everything up perfectly when he walked up into the open middle ground and took a world class shit. I hoped it was on purpose.

Durgan broke through the ranks with the widest shit-eating grin he could display. So intent was he on making a show to the assemblage he narrowly missed stepping in Henry's excrement. As it was I laughed when he stumbled to avoid it. The insanity within him flared as he turned on me.

"You did this!" he screamed.

'Yeah that's it,' I thought to myself. 'I dropped my trousers in front of God and everyone and took a steaming shit. You dumbass.' I wanted to say it out loud but I was afraid he would take it out on Henry so I kept quiet, letting him think it was mine.

He was huge as he purposefully strode over to me. In a previous life I would have paid big bucks to watch a cage match between BT and Durgan. When he sucker punched me in the stomach it wasn't by complete surprise, but there was no way I could have prepared for the devastating blow. I absorbed the impact and went instantly to my knees. I didn't think I would ever be able to catch a breath again as I rolled to my side. I heard a bunch of gun safeties clicking off in what I could only imagine was some of my family members making a move to come to my aid.

"Who's the piece of shit now, Talbot!" He screamed into my face, spittle coating my pained grimace. I still don't know how getting slugged in the stomach made
me
the piece of shit, and I would have voiced the question if I could only suck enough sweet oxygen back into my system.

"YOU'RE the piece of shit Durgan," BT thundered. "Why don't you try that weak ass shit on me. I'll kick your spindly ass."

'Spindly?' Durgan was a lot of things. Spindly wasn't on that list. I hoped that one day I'd have the opportunity to ask BT about his word choice. I was finally able to take in my first quarter-breath of air since I had gone down, now it only hurt because I was still alive.

Durgan got back in my face. "I lost all respect for you Talbot when you started hanging around with that colored."

"Who, BT?" I croaked. "Is he really? I hadn't noticed."

I was rewarded with a boot to the solar plexus region, which was largely deflected by my arms. They were already wrapped around my tender belly. He was lining up for another go when Eliza's cold voice stopped him in mid kick.

"He is mine to do with as I please," she said savagely.

"Yes my mistress," Durgan said, bowing obsequiously as he stepped back.

"Pussy." I said it just loud enough for the two of us to hear. Devil be damned, I thought he was going to come back and finish what he'd started.

Eliza walked closer. From my vantage point I couldn't see much more than her black boots. "You should have left when I gave you the chance," she said, finally stepping into my line of sight. Her tone carried no good grace, no sadness, no yearning for a different outcome.

"What, and miss all this?" I said, still clutching my mid-section.

Striking cobra fast, she reached down and grabbed my face in her cold hand, lifting me off the earth and into the air as if I weighed no more than a cat. Her fingers dug into my cheeks. Tracy cried out behind me. Now I was afraid, afraid to a depth I hadn't even known existed up to this point in my life. Hope was extinguished, valor and courage were merely sounds made from the mouths of fools. Salvation was unobtainable. She was a chasm from which nothing escaped, a black hole unto herself. She dropped me to the ground. My unsteady legs gave way. I found myself on my knees to the enemy. I had sworn I'd eat a bullet before it got to this point. I had compromised my purpose, my beliefs and everyone dear to me would pay for it. Tommy's sobs were the only thing that could be heard in this circle of hell.

"You shot me Michael," Eliza said. Pointing to a bullet hole in her black leather jacket. "I had thought I might just kill you slowly. Now, however, I have decided you will have the pleasure of living as I slowly kill your entire family." Eliza turned from me, her gaze now on Tommy. "We are going to have such wonderful talks."

Something was poking my already tender stomach. If I was going out it might as well be as comfortably as possible. I reached into my jacket pocket and wrapped my hand around the offending object. It was one of Justin's syringes that had fallen out of his pack. The cap must have come off as I was being so tenderly cared for and now the point was a good three or four layers deep in my epidermis. I gently pulled it out.
'USE IT'
shot through my head. The message was from Tommy but he didn't clarify his thought and I couldn't think to ask him as Eliza turned back to me.

"Use what?" she asked me, one might almost think gently.

Then it hit me what I should use, and as God is my witness I wanted to tell her and I would have if not for Tommy.

"
Deus has relinquo vos
!" he shouted in Latin (God has forsaken you).

She laughed as she replied back to him. "
Ut ego have relinquo him
." (As I have forsaken him.) "Your God is dead."

My chance was here, I was of no concern to her as I pulled the syringe out and drove it up to the barrel into her calf. Her backhanded blow sent me rolling twenty feet. If my jaw wasn't shattered, I had at least lost some teeth but the pain was too intense to tell exactly what was busted.

"What have you done?" she questioned calmly as she pulled the needle out of her leg.

'I don't know,' I would have told her but the mere thought of moving my jaw stopped that response in its tracks. The zombies that had been generally milling about paying this little drama not a notice, seemed to awaken as if from a dream. I mean as much as a zombie can seem to 'come awake'. I had an inkling of a feeling what was about to happen as zombies began to close in around the circle. I forced myself to stand as waves of pain cascaded down from the top of my head to the bottom of my spinal column.

"You rise when I tell you to," Eliza said evenly. There was no anger in her voice, only a conveyance of truth. She was used to always being obeyed.

I staggered a few steps, moving away from the perimeter guards. All eyes were on me as I drunkenly made my way back to my family. Tracy looked as if she was going to come to my aid. Eliza interjected herself by quickly moving towards me. It is a strange sensation to find yourself hovering in the air, suspended only by your neck. Eliza, was not much bigger than my daughter, so to look down and see those slender arms have enough power to raise me up like a beer for a toast was strange to say the least.

The pain of my nearly shattered jaw warred with the affliction of having my neck compressed to half its diameter.

"Do you find this as fulfilling as I do?" Eliza asked me.

This chick was psycho, first off between my neck and my jaw I couldn't answer her even if I wanted to. And then what the hell kind of question is that? Sure, sure I always wanted to have the life crushed out of me by a character in a horror movie, it was a lifelong dream of mine. Eliza looked over my shoulder as the first of her human guards let out an ear-piercing shriek. Looks like the zombie menu just grew exponentially.

I could see some strain in Eliza's eyes as she attempted to regain control of the zombies. The shot obviously worked. It had interrupted her communication/control over them. I hoped it was a permanent fix, but temporary at this point was alright too. Still though, she could dispose of my entire family in less than a minute, long before her wall of human sympathizers crumbled. Would zombies eat a vampire? Was she in any danger? I hoped so, but at the same time I wondered whether the living dead eating the undead might be taboo.