'Til Death Do Us Part (86 page)

“Holding the line!” Ron told him as he urged his nephew on. A tear fell onto the floor.

The four had just rounded the corner and where within a few feet of Mad Jack who was urging them
on when they lost their footing.
The
floor jumped up to meet them and all went silent as a giant explosion ripped through the house bringing some of it down upon itself.
 

***

Mike stood no more than a foot from Eliza, no more able to control his movements than he had been that fateful night so many months before when she had given him the kiss of death. For that is what it had truly been, everything else that had happened had merely been in preparation for this moment. Tracy was held back by one of the truckers as she tried to get to his side. BT had a small arsenal of weaponry pointed at him, no one dared leave him to his own devices.

“I do not know why this moment h
as eluded me. You are not supernatural…
there is nothing extraordinary about you. You are merely flesh and bone, weak like all men. I do not see your God rushing in to help you. You are abandoned, and alone.”

“Fuck you,
” Mike spat out
,
struggling to have at least that small victory as she held him tight within her mental grasp.

Kong watched fascinated, he knew that he would have been begging for her mercy were he in Michael’s shoes, yet the man still fought. He hoped Mike’s demise would be swift
,
but did not hold much stock on that assumption, Eliza held no ability for compassion.

“Would you rather I kill your pretty little wife before I dispose of you?” Eliza asked.

Mike was shaking with impotent rage. Eliza had his jaw clamped shut so that even a cutting remark could not be issued.

Kong almost made the fatal mistake of
helpi
ng. The moment was beyond tense as
three lives hung in the balance.
Mike
,
with his arms pinned against his sides and his fists balled up
,
was still somehow able to unfurl his middle finger. It was pointing downwards
,
but the message was not lost on Eliza.

“Is that for me? Let me get a closer look.” Eliza said as she wrapped a small hand around Mike’s neck. She picked him up as if he were no more than doll. Mike’s legs began to buck as she cut off his air flow.

“Stop!” Tracy screamed
,
trying desperately to get through the guards.

“Your turn is c
oming, do not be in such a rush,
” Eliza said
,
turning a cruel smile Tracy’s way. “Although I may allow my men a little fun first.”

BT punched the guard nearest him in the temple. The man fell to his knees, BT pushed past the other two that had been watching Eliza
between leers
at Tracy. BT rushed at Eliza, she saw him coming and gripped tighter on Michael’s neck in preparation for the attack. As BT came at her
,
Eliza let loose a back hand that sent the man sprawling, his legs lifted off the ground from the force of the blow. He struck the ground in a non-moving heap.

Michael’s vision was tunneling, his le
g
s twitching violently in their death throes, his knee struck against Eliza’s chest a small tinkle as if a
wine
glass shattered could be heard over the din. Two spirits seemed to pull away from Eliza as she shrieked in horror.

One was her twin in looks only,
not countenance
;
the other was a Native America Shaman. He gained stature as he stood tall. Eliza backed up
,
still holding Michael by the throat
using
him as a shield to keep the doppelganger away. The
s
haman took in the scene around him, his eyes finally resting on the surprised face of Azile, who was still on the ground. He took his old gnarled
hands and meshed them together.
At
first Azile did not unde
rstand his message,
then it dawned on her.

The truck drivers had moved back as the event unfolded.

Azile stood. “I bind you
,
lost soul, to the one that has forsaken you.”

Eliz
a’s head whipped around. “NO!” s
he screamed. “Kill her!”

Azile looked around and quickly repeated her words.
“
I bind you
,
lost soul, to the one that has forsaken you.”

“Kong
,
kill her!” Eliza yelled, even as her soul began to merge within her.

One of Kong’s men raced towards Azile, a club raised high, Kong who had been momentarily stunned by the events came out of his daze and shot the man in the chest, the club clattered to the ground as he shouted.

“Anyone else approaches and I’ll kill them too!”

The shaman repeated the hand clasping gesture to Azile.

“I bind you
,
lost soul, to the one that has forsaken you!” Azile screamed.

Mike fell to the ground as the force and shock of the spell took hold within Eliza.

“She’s mortal?” Tracy asked, never looking around to gather an answer.

She pulled free from the man that had been holding her and was now moving away. Mike’s body was still and seemed devoid of life as she touched his face, he was
so cold.
In
direct contrast
,
the anger within her was white hot. She reached down across his body and took his knife from
the sheath attached to his leg;
with one fluid movement
she stood, spun and buried the Ka-B
ar hilt deep into Eliza’s breast.

“
Till
death do we part, bitch!” Tracy said as she twisted the knife.

The confusion and pain that were etched in Eliza’s feature were quickly replaced by relief as she realized her unnaturally long life was coming to an end and then
to sheer
terror as Eliza glimpsed what her afterlife would entail.

“It appears that eternity is not quite as long as you would
have
believe
d
.” An evil voice said as it drifted up from and through the ground

Tomas fell to his knees, shrieks of pain and loss in his voice. The shaman smiled sadly at Azile and walked towards a rhythmic drumming that only he could hear.

BT turned his sore and battered body over enough to witness the entire event, the first thing that came to his mind was to sing a
line
from one of his favorite childhood movies. “Ding Dong. The wicked wit
c
h is dead.”
He said before laying his aching head back down.

Mike Journal Entry 20

I was shattered.

I felt like a mirror image of Humpty Dumpty
,
so when I fell
,
my eggshell and my reflection were destroyed. I felt arms around me, I could hear bedlam, men were screaming, shots were being fired and I was slowly rising to consciousness. I was in the arms of the trucker Kong who was rushing to get me to a ri
g.
I could see zombies running towards us as we ran, or at least he ran. BT was cradled in Tommy’s hands, parts of BT did not look to be moving
,
but I was having great difficulty focusing on anything as we bobbed.

I came up from the depths of unconsciousne
ss, a
killer headache worthy of a
twelve-
pack of cheap beer hangover thrumm
ing
through my temples. I saw Tracy and Azile in the sleeper behind me,
they seemed to be constructing a make
shift sling for BT. Tommy had put my seat belt on as I kept finding myself pooling on the floor of the cab.

“Fucking zombies, now we’ll show them!” Kong laughed as he pulled on his horn. Even the deep throated bass of his truck horn could do little more for me than allow me to make the pitchfork sign of rockers everywhere.

The truck bounced around as Kong did his best to make zombies an integral part of the roadway system. With the passing of Eliza
,
her vials and the s
afety they offered were removed.
Truckers
that were slow to recognize this often found themselves under the assault of multiple zombies. The zombies that had been single-mindedly att
acking Ron’s house relentlessly
now pulled back when they saw no signs of food. Speeders and bulkers attacked the
retreating truckers ferociously.

A
s I slowly came back to the world of air breathers
,
I got the sense that the only thing keeping the rest of the men from bolting was Kong and his threats of retribution if they ran.

The man was
nuts, probably more so than me. T
he trucks were making short work of the zombies that dared come out, but they weren’t quite as clueless as we hoped, more and more of them would wait by the edges of the road where the trucks could not get and would only attack when the truck had to slow down and turn around or open the windows to fire rounds. I witnessed at least one trucker get pulled from his truck, I would have sworn that the zombie pulled the door handle, yet I was holding out hope that my oxygen starved mind had maybe missed a detail or two. I still locked my door though.

“Shit,
” Kong said as he pulled his pistol in. “O
ut of rounds. I miss my wife,” h
e said to no one in particular. “Do
you think she still loves me?” h
e turned to asked Tracy. “I’ve done some things.”
W
hether looking for forgiveness from my wife or a higher power I didn’t know. “There’s a duffel bag in the compartment over your head could you get that for me?”

With some
effort she handed it past Tomm
y
.
Kong put the bag on his lap with a loud clang, he unzipped it, metal shone as he did so.

“Big ComiCon fan are you?” I asked him as I looked down at a satchel of swords and large knives.

“This isn’t that reprod
uction shit, this stuff is real,
” Kong said
,
digging around through the contents.

“What are you going to do with them?” I had an idea I just didn’t want to be right.

“I should’ve been a better man. When others a
round me were weak, I succumbed.
Instead
of helping
, I made things worse…
in most cases much worse. Well today that changes
,
today I go out a better man, hoping that God and my wife can find it in their hearts to...”

He didn’t finish as
he opened his door, a large two-
handed broad sword slashing back and forth violently. Blood spray coated the windshield and driver’s side door as he hacked off body parts with no more effort than a band saw would have going through balsa wood. Arms flopped t
o the ground, heads rolled away.
Once
or twice I saw him cut down zombies at the knees, but he was tiring and the zombies were just getting started.

“Help him,
” Tracy said in alarm.

“He
wants
to die, is that what you want me to help him do?” I asked her.

“
He helped kill Eliza and h
e saved your life
.”

“Are we forgetting the little detail of why he was here to begin with?” I asked.

“Fine
, I’ll do it,” s
he said
,
making a move to come up front.
“In the end he did what was right.”