One Blink From Oblivion (17 page)

“After a long while, he passed out on the couch. I was still hiding behind it and I was so close I could smell his breath -thick with alcohol. I knew if I was ever gonna’ keep my promise to my mom then it was time to man up. It had to be now. I was too afraid to move and wake him up so just like he taught me I used what was available. I pulled a broken support wire from under that old raggedy couch. I worked it back and forth until it came loose from the wood. I made a big circle in one end…”

Brooke, realizing where Max is going finds herself unable to look him in the eye any longer and she drops her gaze to the floor.

“I made a noose and I slipped it over his head and around his neck. I braced my feet against the back of the couch and pulled against the loop of wire as hard as I could.”

Max’s face is now free of tears; his fury with his father is even now so hot that they seemingly evaporate before they can drop. He lifts his head and stares straight through the infected occupant across from him and out into the past, and for a moment he is back there, back in that small-disheveled living room with his feet braced against the couch…slowly choking the life out of his father. A new expression has taken over his face, a look of disgust.

“I pulled harder and harder and that metal noose got so tight around his neck that by the time he woke up and realized what was happening there was nothing he could do. His eyes bulged and started to turn red. He tried like crazy to get his fingers between the wire and his neck but he couldn’t. After a while, he stopped struggling and I stopped pulling. I walked around to the front of the couch so I could watch the light extinguish from his eyes. He had kicked his legs and scratched at his throat until it bled, but he did it all without a sound. He died without a voice just like my mother.”

Max pauses for a long time before he is able to continue.

“Big Mama… I called her. I didn’t know what to do. I was too angry and stupid to have given any forethought about what would happen to me after I killed him. All I knew is that it had to be done. In a mad perversion of my mother’s lesson, I saw my opportunity and I took it. I called Big Mama and she came right over. It was late at night, real quiet in the neighborhood. When she came in and saw my dad dead and figured out how he got that way, she just stood and cried for a while. I was angry and confused. I thought she would be happy he was gone. I didn’t realize at the time but now I know, she was crying for me not him.”

“After a minute she turned to me and said, ‘this is what we goin’ to do’. She was so calm and could see everything so clearly. I remember thinking that I wanted to be like her. She spelled out her plan. The two of us together got him up off the couch and moved him to the middle of the room under the ceiling fan. It was the newest and sturdiest feature in our rickety old house. My dad was too cheap for an air conditioner so he had gotten this ceiling fan on a five-finger discount and installed it himself. Big Mama held him up while I got a chair to stand on. She lifted him as best she could while I wrapped the free end of the wire noose around and around the base of the ceiling fan. Once I was sure it was tight, she let go and we watched him dangle for a bit. Then she proceeded to coach me on what to say when the police arrived. ‘I was in bed asleep when I heard a chair kick over. When I came out to see what was up, I found him just as he was, an apparent suicide out of grief from my mother’s passing.’ After she left, I called the police and you know what, it went just like she said it would. I was still a minor, not to mention way too small to lift him up off the ground. The police never even suspected me. Maybe it was his connections that nobody wanted exposed in a criminal investigation, maybe they just had mercy on me, or maybe no one gave a shit. He was after all, a bastard of biblical proportions and everyone knew it. Either way, I was free to go live with Big Mama and that’s what I did… Until now only she and I knew the whole truth.” Max lifts his head for the first time and says with conviction, “So you see, I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I deserve this shit, like it was made to order, but you two don’t, and neither does Big Mama. I promise I won’t let you down.”

***

The truck rumbles south down the freeway under the cloud of a pregnant silence that not even the infected choose to break.

As the truck charges toward the valley, the infected remain relatively silent and uncharacteristically calm. Max wonders if they’re reserving their energy, since the restraints had proven unbreakable –even for them, or if they’re just biding their time until they once again have the opportunity to run amuck. He finally settles on a combination of the two. Previously he had considered that his confession might have brought about the odd stillness in which they now sit. He had briefly thought that perhaps the idea of human blood on
his
hands had birthed a sense of comradery towards him. That is until he noticed the freeway-man staring hard at him and biting his lip. 

Since his confession, Vinny and –more importantly- Brooke haven’t said a word. He assumes that Vinny’s silence is due to shame. Though he hadn’t revealed Max’s secret outright, what he did still constituted a violation of trust in Max’s book. However, Max has already made up his mind to forgive and forget. If there’s one lesson he’s learned in his life, it’s that hopeless situations can cause people to do things that normally they would never even consider.

Brooke’s silence is a little more troubling. She had just had her first hard look into his soul and apparently didn’t like what she’d seen. She had yet to make eye contact with him, and it seemed as though she’d even scooted further away. Max wasn’t sure if the latter was even possible given the restraints, but that at least was his perception. He wonders what’s going through her mind. She is -after all- a psychology major so perhaps she is psychoanalyzing him right now. Somewhere in the annals of psychological history, there must be a justification for what he had done. Temporary insanity? That might fit, but he had just killed several infected –one of which they knew personally- with extreme prejudice. What does that say about his psyche? Does all of it make him a sociopath? Psychotic? What? Max sure as hell doesn’t know, and isn’t sure if he even wants too. The fact is, some people find killing easier than others do. Soldiers on the front line know better than most that anyone is capable of taking the life of another but only a select few can sleep peacefully at night after doing so. Max just so happens to be one of those people. It doesn’t mean that he takes killing lightly. He just has found a way in his mind to justify it, rationalize it and keep on going.

The truck heads down an off-ramp and strikes a pothole. Brooke’s shoulder bumps against Max’s arm and he feels her recoil slightly, or again at least that’s his perception. He turns his head, hoping to catch her gaze and with it some semblance of what she is feeling. Her eyes are shut tight and she appears to be praying, about what Max has no clue. Right now, there is just too much to choose from. He readies his mouth to speak and chokes on his words before he’s able to utter a sound.

Max feels the truck bank to the left without coming to a stop at the bottom of the off-ramp. Moments later a loud thud can be heard followed by the sensation of rolling over a speed bump while traveling at a high rate of speed.

“Did we just hit something?” Vinny asks with a perplexed and slightly horrified expression on his face.

“
Someone
is more likely. Let’s hope they were infected. We must be in the valley now. This area is probably crawling with biters.” Max cranes his neck, trying to get a glimpse through a seam in the canvas.

Brooke asks, “If the virus is airborne out here in the valley, then won’t we be exposed to it?”

Max is surprised by how much the sound of her voice affects him, “You’re right, but come to think of it none of the soldiers were wearing protective suits. They must know something we don’t.”

“Not hard to do since you apparently know very little.” Her British accent is diminished but still highlights the rhythms of her speech.

Max, Vinny and Brooke turn simultaneously to look at Alia. Aside from a slight yellow tinge to her eyes and a few drops of blood dotting her lower lip she still looks very much the same.

“The virus was only airborne for a short while. It turns out that it is quite susceptible to ultra violet radiation. Odd that something so virulent inside a human host would be so vulnerable to a little sunlight.” Alia’s gaze is fixed on no one in particular. She seems to just be staring blankly off into the cosmos and talk as though thinking out loud. “But you see that is the beauty of its design. The virus lives long enough in the air to infect just a few through their open wounds…and those few become many. Spreading out like a multitude of streams from a river, each one begets countless others, eventually giving rise to an army of infected. If the virus merely infected everyone directly through the air then there would be no one left for us to feed on, and thus no fun to be had. In fact, this is not a plague at all… It is an evolution.”

Max, Brooke and Vinny exchange agonized glances but say nothing.

***

After a few more twists and turns, the heavy truck eventually comes to a squeaky halt. The back canvas is thrown open and a new set of soldiers stand guard, while two more -wearing gloves and goggles- enter the rear of the truck. For Max they bring to mind Abbott and Costello. One looks to be six-feet-plus and is thin as a rail while the other is about five-five and surprisingly rotund for a soldier. The tall one (Costello) is armed with a stun stick while Abbott carries a Remington 870 shotgun. A familiar soldier (CPL Steward) appears at the rear of the truck and points to the freeway-man. Costello produces a key ring and heads directly for the freeway-man. He stops just to the left of him and Abbott moves to his right effectively bracketing him. He raises the shotgun and points it directly at his head. The freeway-man furrows his brow and produces a crooked grin. The lurid expression gives Brooke a chill down her spine.

Costello begins to reach for the lock but is interrupted by Brooke’s desperate voice, “Please tell me you’re not about to unlock him with all of us still in here?”

Abbott gives the shotgun a waggle and coolly replies, “We’ve got this under control ma’am.”

Max speaks up, “Hold on man she’s right. This guy is not your average biter. Didn’t anyone tell you what he did to the last group of soldiers? You’ve got to let us out of here first!”

“Do it!” the words come from outside of the truck. CPL Steward motions to Max, Vinny and Brooke, “Those three there, let them out first. I’ll take ‘em.”

The two soldiers turn their stun stick and shotgun on Brooke.

“Guess it’s your lucky day sweetheart. You’re going first,” says Abbott with a smile.

Costello steps in with the key-chain, locates the right key and turns the lock. Brooke’s restraints clatter to the floor of the truck and the soldier lifts Brooke to her feet.

He turns her toward the back of the truck and gives her a slap on the rear, “Move it sweetheart!”

Brooke pauses a moment to give him a dirty look before proceeding to the rear of the truck where she is helped down by another soldier that at least has the decency to be wearing an apologetic expression on his face. As her feet hit the ground, the pungent odor of vulcanized flesh fills her nostrils and at once she feels as though she may swoon, retch, or both. She swivels her head, panning across an expanse of burnt-out vehicles and finds the source. One hundred yards away in a distant corner of the mall parking lot, a funeral pyre rises from its flat surroundings like the volcanic Mount Pele, but with one exception; the dripping lava here is made of human flesh. The towering heap of diseased bodies seems to writhe and undulate beneath the dancing plasma flames. Fiery flakes and ashes of jeans, tank tops, button-down business shirts and baby shoes alike, rise and twist into the ethos attempting to break their earthly chains and follow the spirits of those they once adorned. As some hollow thing in the center of the mass burns through, the entire heap drops and shifts to one side, causing a single charbroiled figure to tumble rigidly down and onto the pavement, like a Yuletide log from an overstuffed fireplace. What had once served its owner as an arm, shatters upon meeting the hard blacktop of the parking lot and all of the individual pieces become their own small glowing islands of cinder mimicking the mother fire like a multitude of offspring.

A backhoe swoops in from the shadows to tidy up the mound of slowly melting muscle and boiling bile and is soon met by a department of waste management dump truck that saddles up next to the blaze and slowly begins to tilt its cargo-bed of contents onto the pavement adjacent to it. Brooke watches in revulsion as a broken mass of bones and a viscous, bloodied, gelatinous fluid pours from its gaping yaw. The bodies had not only been thrown into a dump truck like yesterdays garbage but had been compacted to make room for others that no longer possessed the ability to protest. Brooke averts her gaze and does her best to stifle a gag. Thank god her stomach is mostly empty -save a few remaining bits of Twinkie. Water trickles from her eyes and paints salty streaks down her reddened face.

CPL Steward grabs Brooke’s restrained wrists and forces her down to her knees.

He turns back to the truck and says to the two soldiers, “Now the black one.”

They approach Max with a bit more caution. Costello holds the stun stick inches away from Max’s abdomen while he unlocks the shackles with his other hand. Free of restraints Max rises to his feet under his own power and turns toward the open tailgate of the personnel carrier.

As he begins to move, he can hear that gravelly voice -like trickles of ice cold water snaking down your spine on a hot summer’s day- saying, “Catch you later.”

Max turns his face toward the freeway-man so the knave can see the absence of fear in his eyes. Max’s face is calm and emotionless. He’ll be damned if he’s going to give that monstrosity the satisfaction of a cowering response. When he’s sure that the freeway-man has understood the message conveyed by his blank repose, he resumes his march to the rear of the truck. Once there, he hops down to the pavement and does a quick reconnaissance of the area. He immediately recognizes his surroundings as the parking lot of the Topanga Mall. Finally, he is back in familiar territory, and though they are still several miles from Big Mama, the truck has at least brought them within walking distance –albeit a long one.

Max is suddenly aware that CPL Steward is, and has been, pushing down on the zip-tie that binds his wrist together in an attempt to force him to his knees next to Brooke. The soldier apparently lacks the strength to complete the tasks and his face begins to redden with embarrassment when it becomes obvious that Max was merely distracted and not actively resisting. A few chuckles arise from soldier-bystanders and his blush deepens to the crimson stain of a radish. He un-holsters a cattle prod from his side and proceeds to jam it into Max’s ribs before letting the sparks fly. The soldier cackles in the odd high-pitched tone of an over-stimulated hyena, as Max’s knees begin to buckle under the strain of one-million-plus volts of direct current. Max starts to go down and the stun stick breaks contact. In that moment, he is able to regain enough strength to catch himself before his knee hits the ground.

The soldier -unaware that his shock did not have the intended affect- has already turned his back on Max and is waiving the stick in the air victoriously while bragging, “I guess that’s one way to put an angry ape down isn’t it?!”

With the stick still above his head, he completes his victory spin and is dismayed to find Max once again standing erect before him. His grin and cackle dissolve quickly. He brings the heavy stun stick down toward Max’s head with as much force as he can muster. This time he’s determined to finish what he’s started. To his surprise, the stick never connects with its intended target. Faster than the soldier can blink Max has caught the stick above his head with his bound hands and ripped it from the soldier’s grasps. Max spins the stick in his hands so the business end is pointing back at his aggressor. He gives the trigger a quick squeeze and a hot blue arc travels across the tip of the prod with a loud cracking sound that causes CPL Steward to recoil with his eyes shut and arms pulled into a defensive position across his face. After spending several moments in this position the young man realizes that it was not Max’s intention to use the weapon in retaliation, but merely to shame him further. He slowly opens his eyes and relaxes his defenses. Embarrassment is once again apparent on the soldiers face as a few scattered laughs fill the night air.

  “All you had to do was ask,” says Max while turning the harmless end of the stick back toward the soldier and relinquishing the weapon.

The soldier reluctantly accepts the stick and Max slowly drops to one knee next to Brooke.

In a last ditch effort to save some face CPL Steward commands Max in as ardent a tone as he is still able to muster, “Stay there until I tell you to get up!” He is disappointed to hear his voice crack as he speaks these words.

Max gives him a crooked smile but says nothing.

The soldier turns back to the truck and points his stick at Vinny, “Now the bean pole,” he says authoritatively in an attempt to regain what little respect his fellow soldiers may have had for him prior to recent events.

Abbott and Costello turn their attention to Vinny whom they unlock and escort to the rear of the vehicle with little fanfare. Once he’s down and out of the truck CPL Steward commands Max and Brooke to rise and proceed toward the open –but heavily guarded- main entrance of the mall. Behind them, Abbott and Costello return to the tasks of removing the remaining prisoners from the back of the truck. Brooke hopes to be well inside by the time they get to the freeway-man, but before they reach the towering glass entrance, she unconsciously takes a look in the direction of the burning corpses. She is horrified to find a flamethrower-equipped soldier setting fire to the piles newest arrivals. Red clouds of flame billow from the flamethrowers spout and seem to ignite the very earth that the bodies lie upon.