Zombie Fallout 3: THE END .... (40 page)

The dismality of my mood did not lighten with the breaking of dawn. The shingles that my sister was going to try to pass off as French toast were not going to make matters any better. She somehow made them smell like steaming broccoli mixed with liver. I had to get out. I went into the garage, thankful that my father had kept my skates hanging up where I had left them. The peacefulness of being out on the ice was exactly what my soul needed. I grabbed my hockey stick and a couple of pucks and headed out to the pond, a mere 50 yards away.

It was cold but not nearly as frigid as Ron's house had been the night before. I was halfway to the edge of the ice, my head down checking my footing, when Gary scared the hell out of me.

"Going to do some skating, little brother?" I did a complete 360 looking for him. "Up here."

I looked up. He was about 15 feet high in a tree with a deluxe model hunter's stand. It was actually a pretty neat set up. It had a chair, a canopy roof, wind break walls all around and it must have even had a small heater in there too because he looked pretty toasty. I think I even saw a curing sleeve of meat, maybe salami. It was more a small tree house than a stand.

"Nice set up. You got heat in there?"

"Sort of, the Coleman lamp I've got running keeps it nice in here. Better than the house, that's for sure."

We both said "cheap bastard" at the same time. Who it was directed at was common knowledge.

"There enough room to sleep up there?" I asked him. He laughed, but I was serious.

"Have fun Mike, haven't seen anything around here you need to be worried about. There's some deer on the other side of the pond but I haven't been able to get a clear shot at them."

"You don't mind if I skate? I don't want to scare them away."

"No, enjoy yourself, a couple of days ago I shoveled off a hockey rink."

"Sweet, thanks." I trudged on through the snow. My fingers froze as I laced up my skates. "Why has no one ever created Velcro laces for skates? Another million dollar idea I'll never be able to bring to fruition now." I said sourly.

"You say something?" my brother shouted. I had forgot how easily sound could travel over the pond. I shook my head in the negative.

The weather was crisp and had a bite to it, not like a grizzly bear mind you, more like a pissed off weasel. It was invigorating. Pulling the cold air deep into my lungs was somehow refreshing. I'll say this for the apocalypse, the air had gotten a lot cleaner since man's machinations no longer wheeled and spun. I could feel Gary's gaze on me for a while. Really wasn't a whole bunch else to look at, and then even I must have become boring because he started to belt out his rendition of 'Sister Christian' while listening to what appeared to be an ancient Walkman by the bulky look of it.

"Might as well get an old reel to reel," I muttered to myself as I finally finished lacing my skates. I dropped the puck on the ice, grabbed my stick and just flat out enjoyed the feeling of cool air sliding across my face as I glided on the ice. The sound of my blades cutting across the frozen water was interrupted only by my occasional less than stellar slap shots and Gary's high-pitched tone deaf crooning. It sounded like he was halfway through 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns and Roses, but I wouldn't attest to that fact in court. When I said aloud "Good thing American Idol can't hear this," I immediately wished I hadn't. That one malignant thought spiraled into thoughts about the host, Ryan Seacrest, and then right back to Tommy.

The thought of the kid missing and most likely with Eliza brought me to a complete halt. It also saved my life. I had been concentrating so hard on my skating and puck control I had not even checked my surroundings. Four zombies dressed like hunters were almost halfway across the pond. They had entered from across the other side. Their pace was hampered somewhat by the snow but they were now less than 25 feet away.

They had come upwind from me so that I could not smell them. My hope was that it was an unintentional coincidence, not that I had come across many of those lately. I quickly patted down my pockets. No gun. I absolutely could not believe my stupidity. It was just that I had come home, I should be safe, I shouldn't have to wear a gun constantly. Having a gun in the outside world had been such a necessity not having one was akin to a mother going to a grocery store with her infant and not bringing a diaper bag, who does that? "Only the ill prepared," I said aloud. "Yeah but without a diaper bag you only have a fussy smelly baby, without a gun you have death. Talbot, stop talking to yourself." Yep, I said that aloud.

Plan B: Get Gary's attention, he had a 30-30 and from this range it should be pretty easy pickings. I shouted until my throat felt like I had swallowed fish bones, but Gary was looking in the complete opposite direction down the access road and now singing some horrible nightmare equivalent of 'Every Rose Has a Thorn'. I made a snowball but unless I had a slingshot or Dwight Evan's arm (the star outfielder for the Red Sox in the 70's) I was never going to be able to hit him. The lead zombie had just entered onto the rink from the opposite corner. He immediately slipped and fell on his head. Somehow I didn't think a concussion was going to stop him.

"GARY!!!" I reached way down for that and put everything into it from my Marine Corps years. I would be sucking down Sucrets for three days to pay for that scream but it was worth it.

There must have been a lull on Gary's mix cassette (yes it was a cassette) because he turned to see where the offending noise had come from.

"Zombies!" he screamed, his headphones still on.

"You think?"

"What?" he screamed again.

I motioned for him to take off the headphones.

"Oh sorry!" he screamed again. "Zombies," he said in a much more conversational tone with the ear gear off.

All four zombies had made it onto the shoveled ice. Their progress was greatly impeded but it would only be a matter of time. Gary lifted his rifle up, from this angle the barrel looked like a cannon.

"Umm, I'd rather you waited until I moved," I yelled, a little too late. His first round blew one of my pucks up.

"Was that your puck?"

"Are you kidding me!" I yelled at him.

"Bet I couldn't do that again if I tried."

"I really wish you wouldn't."

The sound of the shot reverberating through the woods brought some reinforcements from the Talbot clan. I had begun to punch holes through the snow with my skate laden feet. The zombies were halfway across the rink by this time. I was in no immediate danger of being caught but I honestly didn't want to dull my blades by walking on the ground. Trivial matter, sure I know that, but when's the next time I'm going to be able to take them down to the hardware store to get them sharpened?

Gary's next shot splintered the lead zombie's head in two. "Hell of a shot!" I yelled, getting away from the killing rink.

"Can't stand zombies, Mike!" he yelled back.

"I got that," I said, giving him the thumbs up.

My dad was on the porch watching, a look of concern on his face; the illusion of peace had been shattered.

My nephew Mark asked his dad, my brother Ron, something and then headed down to the edge of the pond with his gun. Looked like a .22 long rifle caliber. It's a relatively high velocity round but it is used mostly for small game. Now I'm not saying I'd want to get shot with one, I was just wondering how effective it would be against men. Travis and Justin immediately followed with much heavier calibers.

Mark's first shot skidded off the lead hunter zombie's head, a three inch swath of skin pulled back to reveal a gleaming shiny white skull. I thanked God I had not eaten Lyn's breakfast because I could not imagine that it would taste any better coming up than it had going down. Mark's next shot, much like Gary's puck crusher, could not be duplicated on a bet. It skidded to the left this time nearly making an equal skin flap. It looked like the zombie was trying to sprout a head visor. The whole front of his forehead was exposed in all its horrid glory. The small window of quiet was only broken by Gary's splashing vomit as it rained down from on high.

He, unlike the hunters was downhill; the smell of his tossed up salami would take that magically delicious deli meat off my menu for the remainder of my life.

"Sorry," he gurgled. There is something disturbingly fascinating about watching half digested round meat slices swirl through the air in a haze of brownish bile. My reverie was short lived as much larger rounds punched through the air. The Flapper fell in a puddle of his own making. Mark took a few more shots, actually felling one of the smaller zombies. Travis' shotgun ended the minor threat that had unveiled itself.

My dad had come down to the edge of the pond to see if he knew any of the men, but the gory nature of zombie killing can make even the most basic of identification damn near impossible.

"The big guy with the peeled back scalp looks like a guy I'd seen a few times in the post office. The other three, can't really tell." My dad looked more than a little upset. "Haven't had any this close to the house in over a week."

"We tend to have that effect," I said absently.

Gary's dry retching filled the air.

"You alright?" Ron asked him.

Something along the lines of "fine" was Gary's only response. A perimeter of brown now encircled the tree he was perched in.

Ronnie's youngest daughter Melissa ran out of the house to see what all the 'to do' was about. Like a typical teenage girl, she was way late to the party. All she got to witness was Gary's fragile constitution expressing itself.

"Oh my God, why is everyone out here watching Uncle Gary puke. Eww, that is so gross! It's way too cold out here. Why does Mark have a rifle? Do I smell gunpowder or is that Uncle Gary? Dad, are you going to get Aunt Lyndsey away from the stove, she's making the house smell like dead mice again! Mom says Mark has to clean his room. Can't you make my cell phone work again? I haven't heard from my friends in Massachusetts in forever. Do you think I could turn on the second generator, I really want to use a hair dryer. Are there dead guys over there? Oh gross, I'm so not cleaning that up." The whirlwind that was Missy immediately turned and fled back into the house. The scene was once again quiet, broken only by Gary's gurgling geyser.

Ron came down to inspect the situation, then looked over at me. "You had nothing to do with this little brother."

"Can you be so sure? Ron, she took down a fully fortified military base in a few hours."

"This is just a coincidence."

I wasn't nearly as convinced as he was. She couldn't have found us this quickly, could she? She had Tommy and if she could follow his link to us then that was really the answer, wasn't it? That's why I hadn't heard anything from the kid. He knew that too. "Oh Tommy." My gut was beginning to feel a lot like Gary's.

My sister poked her head out the door. "Breakfast!" she yelled. Gary threw up again. Now I don't know if it was in response to my sister's threat but his timing was impeccable.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - JOURNAL ENTRY 30 -

"You can't be serious, Mike?" Tracy asked. I stopped packing to look over at her. "You don't honestly think those zombies were from Eliza?"

"They probably weren't, at least not this time, but it really is only a matter of time. Eventually Justin's shots will run out or Tommy is going to cave and the mind highway is going to open at that point. Eliza will just waltz on down the yellow brick road."

"Nicole won't stay behind, and are you going to be the one to tell BT he's staying here?"

"It's for the best, and I really wish you'd stay here too," I said grabbing her shoulders tenderly.

She shrugged my hands off. "Not a chance. Tommy has as much access to me as he does to you, and I don't trust you not to get into trouble."

"But I've been doing it for so long, why stop now," I asked facetiously.

"Yeah, I just wish you weren't in such a rush to hook up with it again."

"This is my … our family I cannot bring her to them. She's already taken Tommy away. I will not let her do us more harm."

"Do you think you can get him back?"

"I have to try." Which loosely translated to, 'I doubt it, but I'll die trying.' Now the hard part of the equation was, was I willing to sacrifice my two sons in a vain attempt?