Lycan Fallout (Book 2): Fall of Man (16 page)

“He has that effect on people.”

“Perhaps it is so, even BT who loved and respected the man, was in some ways intimidated by him.”

“Really? BT intimidated by Michael? Now
that
I find hard to believe.” Azile had a soft, sad smile upon her lips. “The man was a walking battleship.”

“He did not come out and say it in so many words, but it was something about the depths of Mike’s resolve that sometimes bordered on insanity in his actions that I believe scared my great-grandfather.”

“Now you have an idea of what I was feeling. I did not know when it would be an acceptable time to tell him how I felt. Is a bond formed by soul mates ever broken? I did not want him to be angry with me like I was trying to make him forget about his wife. Now he will wander purgatory for all eternity never knowing how I truly felt. He will never reunite with his wife, his soul, or with me.” Azile hunched over, placing her face in her hands as she sobbed uncontrollably.

After a while, Bailey helped Azile into her guest room and laid her down.

“We don’t have time to sleep,” Azile protested mildly.

“Mourn, Red…Azile. The problems will not go anywhere untended to.”

“That is my concern.”

“Rest, Azile. You cannot show the weakness that is on your face right now to those outside. You are a symbol of something much stronger. If you look beaten down, my people will feel it as well.”

Chapter Thirteen – Mike Journal Entry 8

It was a couple of days more before Mathieu did more than grunt in acknowledgement to my presence. I think part of it was that he was pissed; I think another part was he had to remember to be human again. He’d been a ferocious, wild animal a couple of nights ago. Now he had to be a somewhat civilized human being, having conversation and niceties, and potentially raising his pinkie finger as he drank a cup of tea from a delicate floral piece of china. Had to be a hell of a transition. Shit, I was basically human most of the time, and I could barely pull it off.

By the morning of the third day, he was ready to travel; which was good, as I’d done a number on the deer and was feeling a bit like a couch potato. A little football on the television and a remote…I would have been all set.

Mathieu arose from the shelter. I was already up, actually hadn’t even slept now that I think about it. I was watching the sunrise before he stepped in front of it and began to stretch.

“You mind?”

“Haven’t you seen like fifty thousand of those?” he asked when he realized what I was looking at.

“Yeah, and every one of them better than staring at your pasty ass stomach.”

“I’m sorry for the way I have behaved the last few days.”

“I told you before and I’ll tell you again, don’t worry about it. Just leave it at that.”

“Should we get going?”

“Yeah, maybe I can work off the image you just indelibly fried into my mind as we walk.”

My leg, which had been tender when we had first ventured out, was getting stronger every day. The break had done me wonders and we were able to make some decent headway now that we were back on the road. I had made enough jerky to last us a good week or so; all we really had to do was make sure we replenished our water supply periodically. Other than that, we fell into a good routine of walking, talking, and generally just sharing each other’s company. I’d not been able to have that easygoing feeling with anyone since BT, and I was extremely thankful for it.

“How much longer you think until we get to this town you keep talking about?”

Mathieu had asked this question every day as we arose. I smiled. I think he was getting nervous with the prospect of being around other people. I think we hit it off because we recognized that within each other. I’d never been comfortable around other people even before I’d gone on my self-imposed regiment of isolationism.

“I can’t imagine it’ll be more than a week,” I’d responded with the same answer since he’d started asking. If he caught on to my ruse, he hadn’t let me know. Maybe he was more at ease with my answer than if I said, “We’re almost there.” Just like Little Orphan Annie it was always, “Tomorrow.” Shit, now I was left wondering if the writer of that song had meant it the same way I had.

In reality we were maybe three or four days out, wasn’t really sure. Stuff looked familiar, but then again, every poplar tree I’d seen looked like the next one. Seen one cedar tree, you’ve seen them all. I guess I was a treeist. I laughed at my own pathetic joke.

“Something funny?”

“I laughed out loud? That’s really the problem with being alone for so long, you lose social norms.”

“I haven’t.”

“Oh, really? That wasn’t you taking a shit in front of our lean-to two nights ago? The stench was unbearable. Thought I was going to choke on the thickness of it.”

“I’m sorry. It was all the meat.” His cheeks were hot and had a red, embarrassed hue to them.

I had him where I wanted him, and no way was I letting him off the hook any time soon.

“It’s not that you were relieving yourself, it was your choice of locations. I mean, I guess unless you were trying to send me a message or something. Like you no longer wanted to share the shelter. Really, Mathieu, you could have just told me. I’m a reasonable man, I would have understood.”

“I was half asleep, I didn’t know what I was doing,” he pleaded.

“You always hum in your sleep? Seemed like you were having a grand old time.”

“Can we possibly talk about something besides my misplaced bowel movement?”

“We could, but we’re not going to. Even beasts in the wild don’t do that, they have the common courtesy to step away from the habitat they share with others—”

“I GET IT, MICHAEL!” he yelled.

“Well, there’s really no need to get loud. I was just saying.”

He sighed heavily.

“Aren’t you glad we met?”

He did not immediately reply. I thought I was going to have to repeal my statement and apologize for antagonizing him, and then I saw what had captured his attention. We’d traveled off the main trail in search of a game trail. Maybe fry up some fat rabbits or even find some berries, which would be a nice change from the paleo-man diet. I loved meat, but a little variety would go a long way right now. I’d even eat some of those leafy salads Tracy used to push on me if given the chance.

“What is that?” he asked, pointing.

The structure’s walls were crumbling. Vines had crawled up a significant portion of what was left still standing. Fences that I’m sure at one time had been there had rusted away, leaving nothing more than a fine residue coating of red to stain their concrete footings. I wasn’t completely certain, but given the size, shape, foreboding look and the one gun tower still standing, it was a prison, which I told Mathieu.

“Did this hold all the bad people in the entire world?” he asked as he took in the scope of the thing. Even though only a portion was still standing it was enormous, easily spanning a few hundred yards across and double that to the back.

“Sadly, no. This one maybe covered the general area. There were hundreds, probably thousands more of these things across the country. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many were in other countries.”

“Were people really that bad?” he asked as he strode closer.

“Some, I guess. Prisons had become something of a business in the end.”

“What?” He was incredulous.

“Yeah, the government spent huge amounts of money on the prisons to house the prisoners. So you would have thought it would have been a good idea for the government to maybe invest in better education and work opportunities. Nope, didn’t happen that way. What did happen was these corporations that started running the prisons would give the law makers more money to make more laws with stiffer penalties thus ensuring that the prisons always stayed stuffed with humanity’s throwaways.”

“I think I’m happier I live in this time period, even if what half of what you talk about was true.”

“You should be. That is but one tale of greed and corruption, and on the grand scale of things, probably on the lower end.
And
if one half of what I talked about was true? What’s that mean?”

“I am having a hard time believing in machines that flew like birds and carried people around the world. Or boxes in every home that showed what you call movies or moving stories. Or a device that would let me talk to someone no matter where they were. What did you call that? A ‘jone?’ ”

“Phone, telephone. You lived in a nuclear bomb facility, yet you have a hard time believing those things? Hey, where’re you going?”

“Perhaps there is something in there that will validate the things you’re talking about.”

I knew he was just giving me a hard time. He’d seen all of that and more in the magazines he’d found.

“Mathieu, that place wasn’t safe to go into when it was new and it certainly isn’t now.”

“It is rare to stumble upon these relics so I think it is worth some of our time to investigate.”

“Don’t give me that shit. I know what this is about, you’re stalling.”

“Stalling?”

“Yeah. You don’t want to get to Talboton.”

“I do not know what you are talking about.” He was not looking at me when he uttered those words, because he would not have been able to hide the lie they were wrapped up in if I was able to see his facial features.

“This is sketchy,” I said as I placed my hand on the wall next to the entrance and a fair amount crumbled away and onto the ground.

“What are you worried about? You’re immortal,” Mathieu said as he stepped in.

“Yeah, but you’re not, dumbass.”

He did not reply as he began to step around varying obstacles. Most were chunks of heavy cement that had fallen from the roof. Some was heavy steel furniture that had not yet succumbed to the elements as it was still fairly protected.

The prison felt like a tomb. It was quiet; the only sounds our footfalls as they reverberated and echoed off the walls of the large antechamber we were in. Had to be the receiving area where new inmates were given their first glimpse into the hell they were about to descend into. Ahead of us, about twenty feet up on the wall, was a door and a small ledge where I’m sure the warden must have come out to “greet” his new charges by explaining to them that they now belonged to him. And as long as they respected the rules of the institution they would get along fine, but make no mistake—if you cross him, he would make you wish your whore of a momma had never got drunk that night and opened her legs. That might be a little embellishment on my part, but I’d watched enough prison movies in my day to know that prison wardens were all from the south and they had a warped sense of justice.

“Mathieu, there is nothing to be gained from this place.” He was listening to me less than my kids used to, which was hard to do.

The deeper we got into the fortress-like structure, the less damage had been wrought. What I am sure was lead paint hung in sheets, thickly peeling from walls and ceilings. We had just passed under a sign that somehow looked as if it could have been hung yesterday that read, “Cell Block D.” We’d no sooner passed over the threshold when the smell assailed me. It was an all too familiar stench. I could see Mathieu’s face wrinkle up, as he must have also gotten a heavy dose of the reek.

“What is that?”

“Zombies or a secret cache of Tommy’s liver and Mongolian beef Pop-Tarts. Either way, I don’t want to be here.”

“Zombies? As in the monster that took down your civilization?”

“One in the same.” Sort of amazing that something so brainless could take down those of us who considered ourselves so smart. “Come on, let’s go.”

“You’re not curious at all?”

“I’m not man, not at all. I’ve seen enough of them for a lifetime and mine could extend for quite a bit more. You get grounded a lot for not listening to your mom?” I asked as I followed him.

There was another corridor, and although its sign didn’t look quite as good, I could still make out a “C” on it. We were moving into a new block. The smell had intensified and had almost become something physical; something you could reach out and potentially feel with your fingertips it was that pervasive.

“It really is excruciating.” Mathieu had turned to me. His eyes and nose were running, clear fluids leaking from them like he was in the midst of the world’s worst allergic reaction.

“You cannot think this is a good idea, can you?”

He just kept going forward like he was a wind-up toy and could not deviate from the path he’d originally been set upon. I had my head down, stuffing my mouth and nose into my clothing as best I could. I nearly walked into Mathieu, who had finally stopped moving. He was in front of a steel barred door looking into Cellblock C’s common area. It was a pretty big room with benches and chairs, but that wasn’t what had stopped Mathieu in his tracks. It was the mounded high bodies of zombies.

“Oh no, not again.”

“Are...are they dead?”

There were piles and piles of zombies coated in a thick, gelatinous mass of some sort, like a protective cocoon. It was somewhat opaque and had to be close to a couple of inches thick. This, I surmised, from the rays of light that had found their way in through cracks in the ceiling and walls and struck the heap at various points.

“Mike?”

“We should get out of here. This can’t be happening.”

“What is it?”

“Those are zombies, somehow in stasis. How, though? How is that even possible?”

“Not all that hard to believe, cicadas stay underground for seventeen years.” Mathieu seemed entirely too fascinated and definitely not afraid enough.