Mark Tufo - The End Has Come and Gone

Eliza looked over to Tomas who never betrayed anything, but the proof was in my unwillingness to die.

“I fear, my pet, that the rules to the game have been changed,” Eliza said.

“What does that mean?” he asked her.

“It means that Michael has cheated and as such our agreement is void,” Eliza said.

“Not true, Eliza,” I said to her. “You said I could not accept help from anyone on this side. You said absolutely nothing about help from your side.”

Eliza was trying to find a loophole in her agreement. I could see the machinations working behind her black eyes. “Very well,” was her grudging response.

Durgan was being unbelievably slow on the uptake of this new information. He could take as long as he desired. I wasn’t waiting for him to figure it out. I swung a roundhouse that started somewhere south of Detroit and struck him flush in the nose. Blood blew in a circle away from the impact. His eyes immediately flooded with tears as he dropped down to his knees.

“Yeah!” BT shouted.

With my other arm I hooked an uppercut that shattered all of Durgan’s front teeth, pieces of which intermingled with the growing puddle of blood pooling on the roof. Durgan began to sag forward. I kneed him in his already destroyed nose; shards of bone drilled into my knee as the impact also drove pieces up into his brain casing.

“Ris ran’t ree happenin,” Durgan said through a jumble of broken teeth.

“Oh, I assure you it is,” I said, punching him in the back of the head as he began to pitch forward.

Durgan was face first on the ground, his ass still up in the air. It was a comical pose but it contained no humor in it.

“This is for Jed,” I said as I reared back and kicked him square in the ribs. At least two snapped as he fell onto his side. “This is for shooting me!” as I kicked him flush in the stomach. The force of the strike rolled him over onto his back, a gale of wind fused with blood expelled from his mouth. “This is for Jen!” I said kicking him in his junk. I thought Jen would appreciate that, being the man hater that she was. I got a sick sort of satisfaction out of that.

“This is for the little kids at Carol’s house!” I cried, bringing my heel up.

“Talbot!” my wife yelled.

I wavered in midair.

“That’s enough! He’s done.”

He should have been dead, he really should have, but we weren’t playing by the same rules any more. As if to prove my point, Durgan began to stir. In a few more minutes he’d probably be fine and I wouldn’t be able to surprise him twice.

“He’s got no choice,” BT told Tracy as she turned her back on the horrific scenario.

I brought the heel of my boot down on the bridge of Durgan’s nose. His skull snapped like a fragile egg, blood and brain matter splayed out across the ground.

“You’re next Eliza!” I yelled, grinding my gore soaked boot even deeper into the recess of what once housed Durgan’s mad melon.

At some point during the fracas, Eliza had left the rooftop unnoticed, taking her zombies with her.

Eliza and Tomas - Interlude

“You play a dangerous game Tomas,” Eliza said, her anger running deep through her blackened vitality.

“I did nothing more than make an even fight,” Tomas said.

“With our sworn enemy!” Eliza shrieked.

“No Sister, he is your sworn enemy,” Tomas said evenly.

Eliza took a step back and took a moment to compose herself, even more angered that she had allowed her emotions to show. Emotions were for the weak-willed humans, not for her!

“To what end, Tomas, did you empower Michael?”

“I have my reasons, Eliza. It is not all a loss Sister, you have the Blood Locket in your possession now.”

“Yes, there is that,” she said, fingering the pendant that she now had safely tucked in her bodice. “We will not stray far from each other come the future. I do not trust what reasons you possess. I do not believe that we are walking the same pathways,”

Tomas smiled and walked away.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE – Talbot Journal Entry 16

The Group

The congratulations and celebrations were brief, mostly out of necessity but partly because I didn’t much feel like it. I had just crushed a man’s skull with my boot. I had trained for it a hundred times in the Marine Corps but had never actually done it. I don’t think I’d ever get over that sensation of the initial impact as my leg shimmied ever so slightly as my heel came in contact with his bone. The impact as his body first resisted and then accepted, from hard outer shell to soft meat. I can say it was Durgan for the rest of my life, but it was still one of the most singular disgusting things I had ever done. Why am I still feeling guilt? I don’t have a soul to stain.

If I thought Marta didn’t like me before, now it was personal. She was yelling at Alex just because he wanted to come over and talk to me. I really couldn’t blame her. I didn’t really want to be with myself just now.

“So what now?” Brian asked me.

“I’m going home,” I told him as I walked away.

“He wants to know if there’s room,” Cindy clarified.

“Cindy, I don’t know if that’s what I want to do,” Perla said. “I mean, if we had never come across them, Jack would still be alive.” She started to cry again.

“Mike, I cannot thank you enough for what you sacrificed and what you have done,” Alex said as he finally broke free from Marta.

“I did what I had to do,” I told him.

“No Mike, you went above and beyond what you had to do. I will never forget this, my friend,” Alex said, his eyes watering.

“I can’t see man tears right now Alex. Please tell me you just sat on your keys or something.”

Alex quickly wiped any evidence away, but the red-rimmed eyes told a different story.

“Mike, we’re not coming with you,” Alex said sadly.

I didn’t need psychic powers to see that coming. Marta was about twenty feet away going ballistic that he was even in my presence. I really wanted to look in a mirror to see if I had sprouted horns or something, maybe my skin was beginning to look brick oven red. I don’t think my feet were becoming cloven, but I couldn’t really see them and I wasn’t touching my right boot any time soon, gray-black matter still clung to them in wet clumps. I was trailing pieces of Durgan’s memories behind me.

Mrs. Deneaux came up and handed me another cigarette which I gratefully took. “I think maybe I’ll ride the rest of this out with you,” she said in her smoke ravaged voice.

My luck was getting better and better!

BT grabbed my shoulders and steered me away from the crowd. “How you doing my man?” he asked, truly concerned

“How does ‘stepped on crap’ sound?” I asked him.

“A lot like Durgan,” he said with a small laugh.

“Man, I didn’t even mean it like that. I guess I walked into that.”

“Literally.”

“This is supposed to be a serious talk, isn’t it.”

“I’m sorry, I’m still pretty hopped up,” he said looking down at me. “So, the original question still stands.”

“Pretty scared, big man. Everything I did I always weighed against how it would fly when I finally got to the Gates. Now I don’t have to answer to anyone. Nobody should have that kind of power, least of all me.”