Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

***

Exactly fifty-eight minutes later, the last of the trucks pulled out of the parking lot, seventeen trucks stood as lone sentinels.

Kong pulled up alongside Eliza’s car. “Five of the drivers of the seventeen trucks sitting are not going,” Kong said as he pointed back to a small group of men standing in a loose circle.

Eliza rolled her window back up. Kong hurriedly put his truck in gear, wishing to get as far away from what he expected to happen as soon as possible. He had made sure to double check with the men, strongly urging them to rethink their stance, they hadn’t yielded. He saw Eliza’s car rolling towards the men in his rearview mirror before he turned and lost sight.

***

Eliza stepped out, her black leather high heeled boot cracking into the gravel of the parking lot. “I will require my vials back,” Eliza stated as she approached the men.

Detrick, one of the first drivers to come on with Kong spoke up. “See. Mistress,” he said, taking his Mack Trucks hat off and wringing it in his hands, “we sort of felt like maybe we had earned them with all the hard work we’ve done for you.”

“Is Michael Talbot and his family dead?” Eliza asked arching an eyebrow.

“Well, and that’s another thing, this Talbot family and his kin…they haven’t done anything to us. Isn’t that right?” he asked the other four men who looked like they would all rather be receiving hot lava enemas at the moment than being under the scrutiny of Eliza’s gaze.

“Is it not enough that they have wronged me?” she asked almost sweetly.

“We don’t have to take this shit from an itty bitty little girl,” one of the newer drivers, Lonnie, stated. “My rig is a fucking paperweight now just because I didn’t have a full tank of gas. I’ve given all I’m going to give, and if this stupid vial does half of what all you scared fucks says it does, I will consider it payment for my fuel. Now you’re all bowing to this?” he asked pointing to Eliza.

Tommy was shaking his head back and forth as he watched the exchange. Eliza was wearing a bemused smile.

“Mistress, he’s new. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about and doesn’t speak for all of us,” Detrick replied.

“Fuck you, man,” Lonnie said. “We were just having this conversation before she came over, and if I remember correctly, you said something about how you’d like to bend her over your fender.” Detrick looked like he’d swallowed a living fish, his body was quivering. “In fact, I’m not so sure this vial is adequate payment.” Lonnie approached Eliza and broke into her personal space. He was looking down at her threateningly. “Look, even her pussy brother’s not coming to her aid.” He pointed to the Chevy.

“Don’t, Lonnie,” Detrick said, at first stepping closer, but then stepping back when Eliza looked over to him.

“Why? She’s so fine, maybe Lonnie junior can put a smile on that frozen face,” Lonnie said with a leer.

“Would men be able to think at all if they didn’t have their manhood?” Eliza asked Detrick. “You pull that scrawny little worm out that you call ‘Lonnie Jr.’ and I will tear it from your body.”

Lonnie faltered for a moment. “Come on, guys, we can all have her,” he said, all of a sudden feeling like he needed back up.

“Mistress, we just want to go on our way, your fight is not ours,” Detrick said, handing her his vial back.

The three other men who had been hanging back followed suit with Detrick.

“Fine, you bunch of women!” Lonnie yelled at the group. “It’s your lucky day,” he said, pointing to Eliza, “but I’m keeping the damned vial.” He turned and began to walk away.

“I get the vial back, Detrick, or none of you leave this parking lot alive,” Eliza told him coolly.

Detrick had seen enough of her work to know that this was no idle threat. “Stop him,” he told the other three.

It was a minor scuffle, but within a minute, Lonnie’s vial was sitting in the palm of Eliza’s hand.

“We’re free to go now?” Detrick asked.

Eliza didn’t answer as she headed back to the car.

“You’re truly letting them go?” Tomas asked incredulously. His question was answered before the reverberations in the air flow stopped. A group of a dozen or so speeders came through a row of hedges some fifty yards away from the departing men.

It was Detrick who noticed them first. He alerted the rest of the group and then looked back to Eliza’s car before he started running in the opposite direction.

“Let’s go,” Eliza told Tomas.

“You could have let them live,” Tomas said to her as he watched three zombies drag down Lonnie.

The rest of the zombies stopped until they were gently urged to keep chasing down their victims by Eliza.

“You do know at some point you will need humans to repopulate so that you can feed, right?” Tomas asked Eliza.

“Yes, but this is so much more fun than merely letting them go,” Eliza replied.

Tomas sped up to catch the convoy as they were heading down the highway.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mike Journal Entry 12

We traveled for a few miles. I didn’t say too much, only grunting when we came across a small river. I had Azile stop so that I could clean up. I got behind the truck and stripped down, hoping that I could find something to replace my crusted clothes. It wasn’t going to happen. I hopped in, the river was about as warm as I was expecting it to be, which meant I was taking in small sharp breathes as the ice cold daggers of water rolled over my body. I had the clothes I was using secured under a rock a few feet down stream from me.

“I’m washing up in a river in New Jersey,” I said as got down as low as I could. The water was only about two feet deep, so I was nearly in the prone position. Chunks of debris were flowing off of me, I chose to ignore them. I spent at least twenty minutes cleaning myself and another ten getting my clothes into somewhat respectable condition. Well this wasn’t a Tide commercial, and my whites were never going to be clean again. I was not thrilled with the idea of putting them back on wet and probably would have waited until they were dry if I was still with John, but I didn’t think it was fair to expose Azile to that kind of trauma. I laughed at my thought.

“You know I’m not a prude,” Azile told me when I squished onto my seat.

“Well I didn’t, but I am,” I told her back.

“You’re going to catch your death of cold like that.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice if that was how I had to worry about dying?” I asked her, looking wistfully out the window.

“I guess it would be,” she said as she got the truck moving.

***

“Oh what now!” Azile said as she slammed her fist off the dashboard; the truck was losing power. “Whatever was wrong last night, I think is showing up again.”

“Can’t you fix it?” I asked her, my mood had not rebounded quite yet.

“Do I look like a master mechanic?” she asked.

I looked over at her. “I thought all truckers were. Isn’t that part of the job?”

“Have you used a stove?”

“What kind of question is that? And yes, to answer it, I have.”

“Does that make you a master chef? How about that writing in your journal?”

“I get it, I get it. And yes, I’ve written a lot in my journal…and ‘no’ that doesn’t make me a literary genius.”

We were finally back in Massachusetts; we had made decent time down the Mass Pike and had just got onto 495 which skirted around Boston. My fear had been getting back on route 95 and potentially running into Eliza on the open road. That hadn’t worked out so well the first time and I was in no mood to revisit it, although right now that didn’t look like it was going to be a problem.