For the Fallen Read online

  world that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from tinkering with it from time to

  time, so he created a way to keep himself out.”

  “How, Mike?” BT asked. “How could anything stop him?”

  “Same way you could build a wall that you couldn’t get over,” I told him. I don’t

  know if I was swaying him yet, but it was giving him pause to consider. “I’m just

  saying that there seems to be a LOT of times that his presence seems to shine through

  more so than others. Like there are holes in his wall or net.”

  “Or a back door where he can come in quickly and leave,” Gary said.

  “Sure. Listen maybe I’m completely wrong, but come on, how the hell did we find Paul?

  Or how did Trip find us? And I’m going to use that same logic in the hopes that he

  finds a way to guide us to Doc. That’s the hope I’m holding on to, BT. My son’s and

  your life hang in the balance. I can’t think of a better person to lay my faith on.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” BT turned slightly away. “Fucking pollen,” he said, going

  towards the truck.

  “Stephanie, I can take you two to get another car and I’ll give you directions to

  get to my brother’s house. He’ll take you in no questions asked. Okay, he might have

  a few questions, but you’ll be welcome there,” I told her.

  “I’m a little done with being alone on the open road,” she said.

  “I can’t say I blame you. You’re welcome to come with us, we have the room.” She looked

  dubiously over at the plow. “Gary did some great things in the back. I’m not sure

  how long we’re going to be traveling, and I have no idea what we’re in for, and I’m

  pretty sure your bikers will come back once they pull their tails out from between

  their legs. It’s that damn free will again, makes some people do the stupidest shit.”

  “I’d still rather we stay with you,” Stephanie said with relief.

  “Man, I hate to bring this up,” Trip said, “but do you have Stephanie’s sneakers?”

  Chapter 18 – Dennis and Deneaux

  Getting the gas had been infinitely easier than getting the hose with which to siphon

  it. Dennis was happy he’d only had to swallow a little of the caustic liquid before

  it flowed freely into the rig’s tank. Mrs. Deneaux kept a lazy lookout for trouble

  as she lit another cigarette.

  “Do you mind?” Dennis asked. He was looking at the wavy lines caused by the gas vapors

  that were less than two feet from where Mrs. Deneaux was smoking.

  “You’ve known me long enough now, sonny boy, to realize I don’t.”

  He’d officially made up his mind at this point that, as soon as he had an opportunity,

  he was leaving her crazy ass behind. He just couldn’t get past the crushing feeling

  of loneliness when he did think about striking out alone. Everyone he knew and loved

  was gone or missing. He’d never felt so helpless or hopeless in his entire life. A

  traveler in a land without stops.

  “You ever butcher animals?” Mrs. Deneaux asked after a particularly long drag.

  “What?”

  “Do you hunt?”

  “No. Why?” Dennis asked.

  “I was just wondering, because a piece of prime rib sounds about the most delicious

  thing in the world right now, and if I come across a cow, I’m going to shoot it and

  eat it. Maybe right where it lays, lord knows I’ve had rare enough cuts that they

  were still flopping around on my plate.”

  “That’s gross,” Dennis told her.

  “Weak stomach? This ride is going to be more fun than I had originally thought. You

  just about done?” She flipped her butt. It somersaulted less than three inches from

  the outer edge of the vapors.

  “Crazy bitch with a death sentence. Unfortunately, it’s me she’s trying to kill,”

  Dennis muttered as Deneaux walked away.

  He put the gas cap back on and grabbed a bottle of water to help wash the bitter after-taste

  of fuel from his mouth. He was leaning against the front bumper when his heart about

  stopped. Deneaux had given the horn a sharp long blast.

  “Bitch, what is your problem!?” he said hotly.

  “You might want to get a move on.” She pointed off to her side.

  Dennis took a couple of steps so that he could see. It looked like a whole hideout

  of zombies were coming their way.

  “Shit,” he said as he spun to get back to his side of the truck and in. When he was

  safely in, the door locked and the window completely rolled up, he turned to Deneaux.

  “How long have you seen them?”

  “Oh, at least a quarter mile.” She smiled at him.

  “No chance you could have given me a little more heads up?”

  “I was wondering if you had any sixth sense in you and would maybe be able to tell.

  When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I honked the horn. What more do you want?”

  “Sixth sense, what are you talking about?”

  “Well, I’d swear your friend Michael was prescient. He could smell trouble a mile

  away. Of course it didn’t stop him from going in that direction, but at least he knew

  something was there.”

  “I just can’t believe he and Paul are dead. We shared so much. I feel like I should

  know in my gut. You know?” Dennis asked, looking intently at her profile.

  Tears were in his eyes, because that was the emotion he was feeling, but he was also

  studying his driver. Something just did not sit right with her reckoning of events.

  She was staring straight out the window, seemingly lost deep in thought; then a zombie

  whacked the side of the truck, bringing her back from that distant land.

  “And yet he is,” she answered as she started the truck.

  It was not lost on Dennis that she used the singular while he was referring to the

  plural. He would dwell on the words later, but the zombies that had grabbed on to

  the truck were a big enough distraction for now.

  “A little more warning and we wouldn’t have any hitchhikers,” Dennis told her.

  “Oh, you’ve got to live a little dangerously.”

  “Call me crazy, but just being alive these days would qualify.”

  She looked over to Dennis. “Very good. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I seriously doubt it, but thank you. What do we do if we don’t come across a settlement

  of some sort?”

  “I’ve got enough cigarettes to get through this lifetime. Oh, don’t worry” she said

  when she saw Dennis’ features fall in resignation. “Man has this innate desire to

  be surrounded by his or her peers.”

  “I just can’t believe that there’s so few people left now.” Dennis watched as a zombie

  fell from his side of the truck. It struck the ground hard and spun a half dozen times

  before it came to a rest in the roadway. He was glad they were pulling far enough

  away that he could not see the damage the tumble had taken on it.

  “The world’s better off,” she said callously. “Too many poor people looking for a

  handout. This weeds the weak ones out.”

  “This isn’t a ‘weeding’ this is a genocide.”

  “Toe-may-to, toe-mah-to. There were too many people. The zombies were merely a balancing

  act on the scales of life. Some have to die to get back to equilibrium. You can’t

  have any significant change without it.”

  “How very New World Order of you.”


  “My philandering husband was in all those hush-hush groups. They were constantly looking

  for ways to cull people so that dominion would be easier. Looks like they figured

  out half of the equation.

  “You’re saying the zombie plague was purposefully created by man to control other

  men?” Dennis asked incredulously.

  “What? You didn’t know? Well then I have a whopper to tell you about Santa Claus.”

  “Hilarious.”

  “It probably was my asshole ex. If not for me, he’d be waiting out this whole thing

  in a secure bunker somewhere. Looking for the opportune time to come out and lead

  the survivors to salvation.”

  “What do you mean if it wasn’t for you? Did you turn him in?”

  “In a matter of speaking. Are you a cop?” she asked, cackling.

  “No.” His eyebrows furrowing while trying to figure out what she was talking about.

  “I killed the cheating bastard. Who knows, maybe if I’d done it a few days sooner,

  I could have prevented all of this. But where would the fun be in that? I would have

  missed out on all this,” she said, taking her hands off the steering wheel spreading

  her arms wide.

  “This is a good time for you? Are you kidding me?”

  “I haven’t been this alive in decades,” she said, finally putting her hands back on

  the wheel.

  “Billions of people are either dead or zombies.”

  “Most of them, I’m sure, were assholes.”

  “These men that are hiding, do they have a cure?”

  “I can’t imagine a cure, but they’ll have inoculation. They have to offer something

  to get the survivors to become subservient to them. Probably something that needs

  a booster shot as well.”

  “So instead of a true vaccination, it will be something like a tetanus shot?”

  “You’re getting it now. Otherwise it would be like making a light bulb that never

  burns out.”

  “Your husband was in on this?”

  “He always was ambitious…at least with me pushing him,” Mrs. Deneaux said.

  “I’m sorry, this isn’t ambition this is murder. Do you have any idea where these men

  are?”

  “I have an idea. Why?” she asked suspiciously.

  “We need to get what they have.”

  “Yes, we’ll just waltz right in to their heavily fortified bunker, grab what we need,

  and be on our merry little way.”

  “Exactly,” Dennis said, finally feeling better. Maybe there was a chance of something

  more in this life than just making it to the next day.

  “You’re serious?”

  Dennis nodded.

  “Why not? It would be nice to have some servants afoot.”

  “Where to, then?” Dennis asked.

  “Why, the cradle of civilization,” Deneaux said matter-of-factly. Dennis wore another

  look of confusion. “Athens of course.”

  “How are we going to get to Greece?” Dennis groaned.

  “Georgia,” Mrs. Deneaux once again cackled.

  Dennis didn’t know if he was getting used to her, or if it was that they had some

  hope, but the grating noise that issued forth from the fissure in her face wasn’t

  quite as irritating now as it had been.

  Chapter 19 – Mike Journal Entry 9

  Once everyone got settled and I convinced Trip I did not have Stephanie’s sneakers

  anymore, we left. This time I decided 95 South was the better of the choices. I backtracked

  on the Mass Pike towards Boston and went on our alternate road. The bikers may have

  had enough and maybe they hadn’t. If we however stumbled across them, they might be

  so inclined as to start the fight anew, and I was still sore from my last go around.

  I had a small pucker mark to remember our last exchange.

  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