Robert Walker: Zombie Eyes

"I, too, must go now," said Esruad, holding on to the skull.

Stroud stared through Esruad's eyes at the spongy, moldering residue of mossy material left behind where Ubbrroxx had been. There were no smoldering skeletons hanging from the wall, no sign of Kendra or Wisnewski ever having been here; not so much as a shackle. There was only the wavy, fading apparition of Esruad, the skull he held in his hands and the fire inside the skull--electrical impulses, miniature shooting stars.

"Any further battles with the demon god," said Esruad in a reassuring voice, "will be fought inside the skull."

"Wait!" said the blind Stroud, stumbling toward Esruad but in the wrong direction as Esruad's spirit flew into the skull and the skull fell to the planks of the ship and rolled to Stroud's feet.

Esruad, too, was gone ... possibly forever.

Stroud gathered up the skull which had saved them all--all but Leonard, Wisnewski and dear Kendra, he feared. He had been willing to sacrifice himself for them all, but that apparently was never the demon's wish. Ubbrroxx had wanted them all, and especially Esruad. The demon had wanted to swallow the skull and make its energy source part of its own.

Watch what you wish for, Stroud silently told Ubbrroxx, wherever the damnable bastard now was. "And watch yourself, Esruad..."

Stroud stumbled about trying to find his way, unable to see, as blind now as a man could be, banging against dangerous tiers in his way, belowdecks of a ship sunken beneath earth. He was blind inside a black hull.

Then he remembered the radio. He couched the skull in the crook of one arm and tried to raise James Nathan, and it seemed that all static had been created by the demon. He got directly through to Nathan. An agitated female voice came over before Nathan got to the radio.

"Abe! Abe, you're alive! You're okay!" It was Kendra.

"And you? You're topside?"

"Yes, Wisnewski and I made it back when--"

"I thought you died. In fact I thought I saw you die, both of you. Illusions, deception ... all along."

"Thank God you're okay."

Nathan must have snatched the receiver away, for he was suddenly on. "Stroud, it's like a miracle. Everyone here, the zombies--"

"All free, I know ... I know."

"Thanks to you."

"I need help down here. Can you send help?"

"We're on our way."

Kendra got back on. "You must be awfully lonely down there by yourself. How ... how did you do it, Abe?"

"Kendra, I ... I've lost my eyesight."

"Your eyes?"

"Burned badly ... can't see ... stumbling."

"Stay where you're at. I'm coming back with the team. We're on our way."

He wanted to shout that he didn't want her to set foot in the pit or the ship again, but she was gone, replaced by Wisnewski, who said, "Now, Abe, just sit tight. Stay right there. Stumbling around inside that debris field could get you killed, and after all you've gone through--"

"I know, a terrible irony now to have a beam fall on my head, or to suffocate below a mountain of bones."

"What about the ... your ... ah--"

"Have the skull with me, and thank God and Mamdoud in Egypt that we had it with us."

"I keep thinking of poor Leonard."

"Yeah ... yeah ... me, too."

Stroud soon heard them coming and thanked Wisnewski for staying on the radio with him. "Not afraid of the dark, are you?" asked Wiz.

"Now I am ... afraid of blindness."

"What do you think of our doing something archeologically sound with the ship now, Stroud? Now that the cursed demon has vanished?"

"I say let sleeping demons lie."

"Ahhhh ... thought you'd say that."

The others finally reached him, Kendra throwing her arms around him, Nathan helping guide him along. It took some time maneuvering out of the ship and through the tunnels. When Stroud took in the first breath of fresh air he'd had in hours, it was a great relief, moving him near to tears. He'd thought on several occasions that he would be buried forever in the tomb.

Kendra tightened her grip on him, and he held firm to the crystal skull, asking her to see that it be kept in an absolutely safe and unassailable place as they put him into the waiting ambulance. She climbed in with him, telling him he wasn't getting rid of her so easily. In the absence of his eyes, unable to see the destruction to his torso, limbs and arms, Stroud sensed her apprehension on seeing him in the light of the outdoors. The medics were calling in with the report to the hospital, second- and third-degree burns over two thirds of his body. Most of his clothing had been torn away. Stroud wondered if Kendra thought he was going to die when he went off into a drifty little boat that carried him into unconsciousness.

Three months later

Abraham H. Stroud's bandages had come off his eyes the week before, and after some initial distress, he was able to see through darkly shaded sunglasses, and by now he knew he would regain full use of his eyesight. This week some sections of the burn bandages were being peeled away and the skin given treatments. His body was a mangle of scars from various other encounters with beasts of the night and cave dwellers, not to mention the war. He felt like a man who had gone in for full-body tattoos, except that he hadn't gone in voluntarily.

Still, all his limbs were intact and in working order, and he hadn't gone out of his mind, although some people would question that--especially the nurses on the floor.

Kendra had suffered through the worst of the agonies with him, to the point of exhausting herself, and was for days tearful and easily agitated. She continued to come to see him and sit with him every single day, letting her career go and angering him for doing so. She'd put everything on hold for him, unable to return to the CDC until she was sure that he would be all right. For a time, he flirted with the idea of making her his wife, but the near mention of the idea backfired, and now she was rushing off for Georgia to get back into life there and the career she had almost abandoned for him. Kendra could not see herself waiting up nights wondering what new banshee or beast he was combating next. Like most of the people who knew or read about the circumstances surrounding the bizarre New York legion of zombies that had fed live people to a gaping hole in the earth, Kendra didn't know quite what to make of Abraham H. Stroud, or his strange crystal skull; even now the fact that he had survived engendered more awe and fright than respect or love.

He couldn't completely blame her. Why should she wish to spend a lifetime with a man who was called by the tabloids a modern "vampire hunter"?

Wisnewski visited with chocolates and flowers like a man going on a first date. He discussed in detail with Wiz the events leading up to the final demise of the demon, a story that Kendra did not want to hear. Stroud was glad to tell it, but it had left Wisnewski a little estranged, too, as if Stroud had some kind of communicable disease. In time, Wiz would come around again, he told himself, but the old doctor got busy again in his Museum of Antiquities and never returned.

A surprise visit by Commissioner Nathan proved testy at first, Stroud assuming the man wanted nothing more than a hasty whitewash done, a rationalization that would make the truth go away, a rationalization of the events that would be more farfetched than the actual horror that had occurred in the city. But Nathan surprised Stroud again as they went through every detail of the events that had occurred below Manhattan.

"I don't expect you'll be sorry to see me go," Stroud finished. "Seems everyone would like that."

"On the contrary, Stroud. If you need anything, want anything at all, I'm at your disposal. You gave this city a second chance at life, and I'll never forget that, ever."

Stroud had heard that song and dance before, from the commissioner of police in Chicago for one. Nathan would likely deny any connection with Stroud after today, he had thought.