Authors: Mark Tufo
For the Fallen (42 page)
I had told Justin to come up front with me as I drove so we could have some privacy.
BT was having some symptoms creep up on him, and I wanted—no, I needed—to know how
my son was feeling.
“How you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m not as bad as BT,” he answered, quickly getting where this conversation was going.
“I’ve been getting these bad cramps in my gut every couple of days for about the last
week. At first I thought it might be Aunt Lyndsey’s cooking.”
We both laughed at that. “What changed your mind?”
“I’d still get the pains even when she didn’t cook. And then I started watching BT
when I knew he thought he was alone. We’re kind of on the same time line.”
“Huh?”
“When I hurt, he hurts. And unless he’s the world’s biggest baby, I’m thinking he’s
in a lot more pain.”
This was killing me to ask, and I knew I didn’t even want the answer. “How long?”
“Dad, BT might be days away. I figure I’ve got a week or two at the tops.”
And there it was, my heart was wrenching in my chest. It felt like my rib cage was
crushing in on itself like I had a working garbage disposal in there. We were coming
full circle to that time in my office the night he had been scratched going on the
fool’s trip to save Paul. And for what? My fucking friend and his wife were dead.
Maybe they would have been able to ride the damn thing out in their attic. Couldn’t
be worse, that’s for sure. So we had potentially only forestalled my son’s death and
theirs.
You know when you’re watching a movie, and the hero or heroine says ‘I’d give anything
for just one more second with…(insert loved one here)’ that’s bullshit. I’m fucking
greedy, I don’t want the blink of an eye, I want years. I want barbecues, grandkids,
weddings. I want all the shit that goes with a full life lived. I don’t want one beat
of a heart, can’t even say a proper goodbye in that time frame. I had seventy-two
hours or so to save my friend—not much more than that to save my son—and I truly didn’t
have a clue where to start.
Well, if my theory about God had even a shred of validity, the big man was going to
have to pull out all the stops on this adventure. Just the same, I was trying to put
the gas pedal to the floor on the plow. We were heading south at a respectable seventy-five
miles per hour. I was lost in no small amount of worry when Travis knocked on the
Plexiglas divider. Justin turned and slid the glass back.
“They’re back,” he said.
“What the fuck did Trip do to these guys?” I asked no one.
“I don’t know, maybe they paid him for some origami,” Travis replied.
“What? Have you been around him too long? It’s probably a contact high. You want to
sit up front with us?” I asked Travis.
“I’m fine,” he laughed. “He just keeps wadding up pieces of paper and then he displays
them as works of art to us.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sounds like him. How far are the bikers?”
“Half mile.”
“What are you going to do about those pansies?” BT asked, nearly crowding Travis out
of the window. More quietly, he spoke this part. “Mike, let me sit up there with you.
This Trip guy has pudding for brains. He keeps calling me TP, and then stops himself
and asks if I’m Native American.”
“What?
Oh
…tepee, I get it,” I said.
“Yeah, so do I, but I don’t want to sit near him anymore. I thought your form of crazy
might be catchy, but it oozes off of him.”
“I’d love to help you, man, I would,” I smiled, “but with the bikers so close behind
us, I don’t want to stop the truck. Maybe you should help him fold up some paper.”
“Oh, and that’s another thing. He hands me this thing that looks like a paper meatball
and he asked me what I thought of his rendition of the Eiffel Tower. I mean, this
shit can’t be for real can it?”
“You get used to him.”
“Mike, I don’t want to. He kind of scares me, man.”
“A biker gang is pursuing us and you’re more worried about a guy that torched his
last brain cell back in 1979?”
“Exactly,” BT replied.
“So, Captain Najarian, is it true what the captured truckers said?” Dixon Hawes, former
Senator of Texas and one of the richest men in the world, asked.
“I rarely trust the word of a prisoner being tortured, but it does seem that they
were telling the truth,” The captain answered.
“So the mythical Dr. Hugh Mann’s suitcase is real. I never thought I’d see the day
when that would be discovered. How is Doctor Baker doing?”
“His research is going well. I don’t believe that he has caught up to our team yet,
though.”
“Should we bring him into the fold, Captain?”
“I don’t think so, sir. From what I can tell, he’s approaching the problem from a
different angle. I don’t know who’s right and who isn’t, but to have him see our progress
may alter his way of solving the problem.”
“Agreed. Have you got copies of the contents of the case?”
“It took two valiums in the good Doctor’s dinner to do it. He never leaves the suitcase.
It has all been copied and brought to the main research facility.”
“He has no idea the true purpose of this place?”
“No, sir, he believes it to be what I told him.”
“Would he come on board if he did know?”
“Doubtful, sir.”
“What about using this Porkchop as leverage?”
“I would prefer it didn’t come to that, sir, but possibly.”
“Just a few more months, Captain, and we would already be in power. That’s how close
we were to a vaccine. I don’t know what that idiot Deneaux was thinking.”
Winston Deneaux owned the facilities that had housed the viral agent. It had been
his sole job in the whole process to safeguard it and then distribute the weapon when
he was told to.
“He lost focus when he started screwing his secretary,” Dixon said, his large jowls
turning a shade of angry red.
Captain Najarian had heard this rant before and stayed quiet. He did not remind Hawes
that it had been the senator’s idea to send Lori Stanton to spy on Winston. The captain
was impressed that the old geezer could even get it up to do her.
Had to be pills
, he mused. Even with Deneaux’s screw up, the captain had been sent to retrieve Winston
once the zombies came. When he got to the house, someone had beaten him there. The
old man was sitting in his armchair with a neat bullet hole drilled through his head.
Looked like a professional hit. The poor bastard hadn’t even seen it coming.
“What about this Michael Talbot? Has there been any luck in finding him?” Dixon asked.
“Sir, it’s a little difficult to spare the resources looking for this man right now.”
“I want him found, Captain. The man and his family were in possession of the suitcase
for over seventy years, we need to know if they’ve discovered any secrets to the doctor’s
research. We cannot afford any loose ends, do you understand me?”
“Loud and clear, sir.”
“Then I want you to make this your first priority. Send up those drones and have those
little video game players find him!” Spittle was now coming down the senator’s chin.
“Sir, if he’s out there, the pilots will find him. If not, I can assemble a team and
we’ll go up to his brother’s house in Maine.”
“No more loose ends, Captain. We’re so close I can taste it. We will run this world
the way it was intended. With an iron fist!” he shouted as he brought his hand down
on the table they were seated at.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
, the captain thought. But he was not complaining, he had been promised complete control
of the military, and once the zombies were eradicated, he would rebuild an army that
the world would quake at.
Looks like I caught a little of the fever
. In theory, he liked everything the Triumvirate stood for. It was an equality of
all those below the ruling class.
Crime would be wiped from the planet, because to commit one was tantamount to suicide.
Justice would be swift and final. Man would be free to practice whatever faith they
desired so long as it started with a solemn prayer to the Triumvirate. People would
earn their keep or they would be denied the protection and vaccination they offered.
As quickly as the senator and his party could give, they could take away. Even if
a person had received the vaccination there was a way to override the produced antibodies
and reintroduce the zombie virus. All those that did as the ruling class dictated
were safe. A populace that had to capitulate or die, that would ensure their complicity.
The Captain had always considered himself a patriot and now he was on the side for
Socialism. ‘Wouldn’t the world be better off with one leader, one direction. All striving
for the betterment...of what.’ He paused. ‘Dixon.’ Was the only answer he could come
up with. Dixon had approached him with such lofty ideals when the plan was in its
infancy. A world without wars, hate, drugs, crime, the worst of humanity wiped clean
from the planet.
‘We’ll be the new Noah’s Ark.’ Dixon had promised.
On some level the Captain knew the fallacy, less people meant less war, hate, drugs
and crime but certainly not the eradication of them. It was the power Dixon offered
that truly intrigued him, no matter what Dixon’s words said, it was the implied meaning
that spurred them both on.
