A few zombies looked up at me as I came out of the truck. I put the vial around my neck and they went back to the business of orally eviscerating my accident victim. I hastily walked to the back of my truck and moved the latch. Fritz was no longer clutching the cat, for better or worse, the vermin had decided it was better off on its own, I’m sure the stringy thing hadn’t tasted any good, but I won’t lie and tell you I wasn’t happy to see it gone.
“Oh thank God,” Fritz said. He was huddled up against the doors, nearly falling out as I opened them, snot, tears and the drool of the closest zombies covered him from head to toe. I ripped the chain from his neck quickly closing the door to his screams. The trailer rocked a little as Fritz became a late night snack.
I climbed back into the truck and handed Azile a necklace. “Take this,” I told her as I handed it into the back of the sleeper.
“Where’d you get it?”
“Do you really want to know?” I asked back. She accepted it without a response. “I’m going to see if I can find anything out.”
“What about me?”
“I’ll lock the doors. I should be right back, if I’m not, consider me lost.”
Her eyes got big at that statement.
“Azile, if that’s the case, unhitch the damn trailer and get out of here, just leave. If you do stay close enough to figure out what happened and you see Eliza leave, go west or north, just get out of here. If not, come back. Whoever is left standing will take you in.”
“Mike, I came here to kill Eliza. I’m not leaving until that’s done.”
“Okay, let me see what I can find out,” I told her as I got back out of the truck making sure to lock both sides up.
The zombies had pretty much stripped the truck driver clean. Most had left as he was down to about bone marrow; but a few of the more ravenous were even going after that. I pushed them away and I kicked what remained underneath his truck just to avoid any prying eyes. We were far enough from the action, but there wasn’t any reason to take unnecessary risks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so much a kick as it was a push with my boot, because there just wasn’t enough of him left for my sole to find purchase on.
“Fucking gross,” I said looking at my boot that was now covered in what I was going to call ‘goo’. I walked the rest of the way down Dowboin lane, then took the left down onto my father’s lane. I was still about a quarter of a mile from the house but this was where all the activity was happening. The zombies were present but they were very sparse, those that I could see where heading towards the Talbot compound. I saw a knot of men and had to imagine that Eliza was in the middle of it.
I had my gun and I was weighing out the odds of success. If it were just zombies I had to deal with I might have taken a chance, and I still wasn’t sure she was in the throng. I caught a glimpse of her as the group broke up. A large man was walking in my direction. Eliza went to wherever evil bitches go.
“I need prior military volunteers!” the large man was shouting.
“Fuck it,” I muttered. At least I wasn’t lying when I told him I was prior military. “Here.” I raised my hand.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked stopping right in front of me.
“I came in with Fritz. I helped him fix his truck, he told me what was going on and I wanted in. My name is... (what the fuck is my name?) Josh, Joshua Buker.” No clue where that came from but happy for the inspiration.
“You all vialed up?” the man asked.
I showed him. He seemed to have completely missed my pause as I sought to name myself, understandable with how much was going on, add to that the repeated rifle shooting.
“Well, if he trusted you enough to give you his spare, then that’s good enough for me.”
He had a spare? I thought.
“Where’s he at?”
“He’s working on his trailer, told me to see what was going on.”
“You’re prior military?”
“Marines…Afghanistan and Iraq,” I told him.
“Good enough for me, I’ve got a team with two Navy Seals, one Army Ranger and a Green Beret.”
“Great,” I said. Why don’t we just add in some fucking special forces ninjas to make it interesting? I thought. The Army guys would be tough, but the Navy Seals would be brutal, I love my Marine Corps, but the SEALS were second to none, not only in the US, but the entire planet.
“My name is Kong.” I stuck my hand out to shake, he looked at it and then at my face. I got the hint. “You take care of this…then I’ll shake your hand.”
I nodded. What I wanted to do was punch him in the head. Instead, I asked him where I could be briefed about what I had volunteered for.
Half an hour later I had an extra four magazines of ammo plus two grenades. Of the five men, I had come out of the service with the lowest rank, and now I was the oldest among them. My job was to bring up the rear, in this case, that was just fine. Someone had wrangled up a camouflage top for me which I was thankful to wear; the purple pants wouldn’t be a problem in the impenetrable light. We melted into the woods and past the loose ring of men surrounding the house. There was a small sliver of moon to guide us by. I could see the now useless spotlights, shards of glass hanging precariously from them.
I waited until the two SEALS and the Green Beret entered into the ring of zombies before I made my move. I slung my rifle so that it was on my back and closed in.
“Watch it, fucking jarhead,” the Ranger told me as I kicked the side of his boot. He turned I think to give me more shit, then, ironically, I shoved the knife he had given me into his Adam’s apple. I thought the fibrous knot would resist more, but the knife cut the neck protrusion neatly in two. He gurgled as I drove it further in severing his spinal column.
His eyes pleaded for an answer, so I gave him one. “My name is Michael Talbot and that’s my family you’re trying to kill.” He might have understood, but that wasn’t making his passing any easier. I grabbed the chain off his neck and dropped him for the zombies, hurriedly catching up to the rest of my squad.
The fucking SEAL I think was prescient; he turned just as I was coming up on him. The set in my eye may have given it away, or the fresh blood still dripping from my Army combat knife. It had a nice feel to it, not quite as deadly as my beloved Ka-Bar but it would do in a pinch. A grin spread across his lips when he let his M-4 swing on its tactical harness as he pulled out what looked like a short sword from a leg sheath.
“Looks like you brought a butter knife to a sword fight,” he said as he got down into a fighting stance, the zombies were not yielding much room. Our fighting circle wasn’t going to be much more than two strides across. “I’m going to make a Popsicle out of you,” he said, still grinning.
His smile may have faltered a little bit when he realized I wasn’t dissuaded from my present course of action, although he may have just changed it to determination.
“Never much liked you fucking Marines, bullet catchers are all you’re really good for.” He said.
I got down into a fighting stance. “Are those really the last words you want to say?” I asked him earnestly. Before he could reply, I moved in. I’ve got to admit, he was fast. Unfortunately for him I was enhanced. I brought the blade up against his wrist severing as many arteries as I could.
“How...how did you do that?” he asked as blood welled then poured from his non-knife wielding arm. “I’m a Navy SEAL, you can’t do this to me,” he said.
“If you promise me that you’ll leave now and never come back here, ever, I’ll let you leave.”