Zombie Fallout 3: THE END .... (30 page)

Within five minutes we were on terra firma as opposed to under it. There would eventually be eternity for that, just not yet. Camp Custer was in ruins. It looked like a set from a 1960's Godzilla movie. Buildings were smashed to rubble, fires blazed, cars and trucks were strewn about. You know the idiom: History always repeats itself. Camp Custer fell just like the legendary General. Who was the idiot that named this place? His first choice was probably Camp Alamo or Camp Pearl Harbor, maybe even Camp Waterloo. I would have gone with a name that didn't ultimately spell doom and destruction, but that's just me.

Sadness threatened to completely overwhelm our beleaguered band of travelers. We were all tired. Add in a heavy dose of depression, stir in a dash of death and you get a recipe that nobody wants to choke down. I had to keep telling myself this wasn't home, this had been merely a brief respite, a healing way station until we were able to get back on our feet both physically and mentally. Another two months or even a year or so here would have been perfection but Tommy's sister had other ideas. That was another wrinkle I would have to deal with eventually; 'all good things to those who wait,' I thought sarcastically.

We hadn't moved very far at all from the manhole cover we had come up from when the stench of death wafted up; it wasn't too difficult to figure out what was down there. For the first time I was thankful it was zombies and not humans. Unless we had moved on to Zombies Version 3.0 they would not possess the motor skills necessary to climb the ladder, but it still made my skin crawl that they were that close. Apparently I wasn't the only one that shared that sentiment, as we all collectively and subconsciously moved farther away from our escape hole.

"Alright, we've got to find some wheels," I said, more to break the painful silence that had settled on us all than to relate any new information on our plan.

"Mike." Carol said as she sat down on some cinder blocks that had once held up a wall on what used to be a nail salon. "I need to rest."

I looked hard at her, not out of anger but only for concentration purposes. I was adverse to splitting up.

"I'll stay with her," BT said. It was part altruism and part necessity for BT. He wasn't in much better shape than Carol was. Pain exuded from every motion as he plopped down on his own makeshift resting spot.

This was sucking more and more. Those two couldn't outrun a crawling zombie and I was about to leave them to their own devices without any protection whatsoever. Their decisions were made. The best thing I could do for them was hurry up. Their concealment in this destroyed stretch of roadway was not by the book battle tactics but it would have to do.

"Go man, go." BT said. "I'll keep an eye on her," as he bowed his head nearly into his lap.

It was looking more like Carol was the one that was going to be keeping an eye on him.

The rest of us moved off, keeping close to the rubble line. Tommy never spoke and barely took his eyes from the road six inches in front of his feet. I was feeling bad for the kid but he had a lot of explaining to do even if Eliza had only spoken 25% of the truth. My gut told me that nothing she said was a lie. She was the essence of pure evil and nothing cuts deeper than unvarnished truth.

The farther we moved away from Carol and BT, the more nervous I became. This was looking more and more like a fruitless effort. What wasn't burning outright had fallen victim to the Terexes' crushing power.

"Mike?" Tracy asked with concern.

"I know, I know." I wiped my forehead free from perspiration that should have not been able to form in this hostilely cold weather. "We have got to find a way off this base, Hon. There is no other option. Zombies will sniff us out eventually. Walking isn't even an option and not because of BT and your mom either, we're all wiped out."

Travis had gone up to the next corner scouting the way ahead. When he signaled I couldn't tell if it was good or bad. It ended up being a mixture of the two. He had found transportation. It just so happened to be surrounded by a cluster of zombies that were fighting over the remaining scraps of an unlucky soul who had also been looking for a way off the base and had been fractions of a second on the "too late" side. His crappy fortune was to our benefit.

"I've got an idea, Dad," Travis said as he pulled back from his vantage point.

He never gave me the opportunity to dispute the validity of his plan as he quickly crossed the street unseen and then shouted to the zombies, "Here I am!"

I wanted to throttle him. That really wasn't much of a plan. If there were speeders in the mix he didn't have much of a head start on them. Too late now, the play was in motion. I turned, gesturing to everyone to get down. Travis made sure that the zombies had taken an unhealthy interest in him and then he bolted down the trash-scattered roadway. I was going to kick his ass when I got back to him. We hadn't even figured out a rendezvous point and I had to hope that he was smart enough not to bring them back to our original starting point where Carol and BT were.

"Damn him," I muttered as two speeders raced by, followed by four ragged deaders and one crawler that looked as if she had fallen victim to the Terex. From about midway down what remained of her ass was flattened to pulp. The pressure from the tire grounding her into the pavement had caused one eye to completely rupture out and it was now dragging on the path alongside her, leaving a trail of slime much like a slug would. That grossed me out more than the shattered bone fragments that protruded at odd angles through her tattered blue jeans.

Travis and the speeders were long gone. The deaders were far enough away that even if they noticed us we still had plenty of an escape cushion. That left the crawler. She turned her head in our direction as we stood back up and headed to the humvee. Her voided socket stared at us as intensely as her good eye. For someone with so many damaged parts she made short work of turning back around and pulling herself towards us. Tracy and Nicole were nearly riveted in place. I'm not sure Tommy even noticed her, so intent was he on some flattened gum on the sidewalk. As Justin and I headed for the hummer, the movement drew the zombie's attention away from the women, not that they were in any imminent danger anyway.

The small bits of flesh that clung to the remains of the unlucky individual inside the hummer made any sort of identification impossible. The skeletal size suggested a small woman or a kid. I opted for small woman. Neither was a great choice, one just happened to be less crappy than the other.

"I'm so sorry," I said as I dragged the exceptionally light carcass out of the front seat. I laid her down as gently as time would allow, did a short 'Our Father.' Then I sat down in a medley of hair, blood, bone bits, possibly some jewelry and whatever other disgusting remnants come off someone that has just been eaten.

"You alright Dad?" Justin asked as he climbed into the passenger seat.

My frozen features displayed pure disgust. This above everything else was going to cause me many sleepless nights going forward. Blood and gore were seeping through my clothes. If Travis weren't running for his life I might have just completely seized up. I was making inroads into my germaphobe psychoses but I hadn't gone this far.

"Help me" may or may not have weakly made it out of my lips. Luckily, it was masked by Tracy, Nicole and Tommy's entry into the rear.

"Mike, is something wrong with this truck? Won't it start?" Tracy asked leaning forward through the gap in the front bucket seats.

"Uh sorry, waiting for the glow plugs to heat," I told her as I clicked the ignition.

Tracy could see the human goulash dripping from my seat and the perspiration dripping from my head, but with her baby outside she would not suffer my neuroses.

"Let's go Talbot, next Wal-Mart we see I'll get you some Clorox wipes and a new set of jeans, but right now you have to get our son."

"Yup." It was all I could muster without taking the chance of adding my own vomit to the mix.

"You know your son is out there right?" Tracy added.

I thought I might be stuttering at this point but I'm pretty sure it was only in my head.

"And my mom and our friend BT. They are all out there waiting for us Mike," she threw in for good measure.

"Um...the... what now?" I may have muttered. Higher functioning had completely seized up. I was being steeped in human goo and I couldn't move. Ever since this whole Armageddon thing started, I had shot hundreds of zombies, K-Barred a few humans and had been covered in gore. None of it had affected me like this. There was just something about having my genitalia simmering in the blood of another human being that was shutting me down.

"Justin, we've got to get him out of the seat. You're going to have to drive," Tracy said as she moved to the door.

Justin blanched. You may or may not recall, but in my first journal I spoke of how Justin had not deemed driving a priority in his life and had thus far found ways to escape that mundane task. "I'd…I'd rather not," he said, looking down at the cauldron of caustic bile I was in.

"Talbot!" Tracy screamed smacking me upside the head. "Get over it!"

Like shoving a sticky transmission into gear, I moved. It might have been the yelling but more than likely it was the physical force she had put behind that blow. Three older brothers and the Marine Corps had trained me to move into action by physical contact, and not of the tender variety.

In hindsight, my immobility may have saved my son's life. His original plan, unbeknownst to any of us, was to lead the zombies away and then circle back to the original place where the hummer sat. I was going to try and track him down which would have proved disastrous when he came around only to discover that his ride was gone. The speeders hadn't gained any ground on him, but they had the advantage of being tireless. When Travis hopped into the back he was bathed in sweat much like I was, and was dragging in huge gasps of breath.

The hummer jerked forward as I released the hand brake. Speeders smacked into the hood as I moved away.

Tracy turned the ire I had stirred towards her son. "What the hell were you thinking? What kind of plan was that?"

"I got the idea from Brendon," Travis said with a ghost of a smile on his face.

"I thought I recognized that," Justin said, smiling as well.

"This is your fault Talbot!" Tracy said swiveling her beacon of ire back my way.

I may or may not have released a wan smile. I was entirely too busy trying not to vomit, hit zombies or freeze up again. My internal operating system was running at 98% and was threatening to have a fatal error.

Within a minute or so we came upon BT and Carol who were on full alert but seemed no worse for wear as we pulled up. In fact, Carol actually had some color to her and BT looked like he was finally managing the extreme pain he was in.

"Couldn't get anything bigger?" BT joked as he hopped over.

"You might want to hurry," Tommy said from the back seat, his first words in over an hour.

BT's expression changed quickly and dramatically when he heard Tommy's words and saw the lack of expression and color on my face. It doesn't take a zombie apocalypse to realize when something is wrong, but it sure helps. Travis, Tommy and Henry moved into the plastic shell covered trunk to make room as BT and Carol got in. The relief in Tracy's face as she smacked me upside the head again was clearly evident.

"What's that all about?" Carol asked Tracy.

"It's the only way I can get him moving," she answered.

Carol had a look of consternation on her face but did not bother to ask for a clearer explanation.

"Kind of like a slap stick," BT exclaimed, alluding to a popular brand of transmissions during the muscle car years of the early 1970's.

"Hilarious," I mumbled. But I had to admit it was effective.

We were all caught up in our own silent reflections as we left the base behind. Except for Travis and Henry who slept, deeply I hoped.

Tracy thought about the safety of our family and how close to the edge of peril we were again. The base had been a chance to recharge the batteries, a place where normalcy had reinstituted itself. It wasn't home, but maybe it could have been.

Justin was thinking about what was going to happen to him when his two month supply of shots ran out; would he once again fall under the spell of Eliza? That was something he could not go through again.

Carol regretted leaving her lifelong home. She had spent a lot of sweat and tears working that land and it seemed only right that she should have shed her life's blood there as well.

Tommy was fearful of what this revelation meant to his new family. Would they abandon him? He didn't really think they would, but that thought above all others scared him.

Nicole still grieved heavily for Brendon and could not fathom raising a child in this monstrosity of a world.

BT hoped that he would have the strength when the time came to defend his friends. He could not shake the feeling that he was somehow responsible for Jen's and Brendon's deaths. The emotional pains of those two losses far outweighed his broken leg.

My thoughts, well they were something along the lines of…disgusting, repulsive, filled with loathing, nauseating, skuzzy. Do you want me to keep going on? Remember I'm a germaphobe so I have an extended thesaurus when it comes to words revolving around 'repugnant'.