Mark Tufo - The End ....

Justin pulled me behind him and pressed the both of us uncomfortably hard up against the body of the truck.

"What the hell are you doing? Even if I piss myself I'll be damned if I watch you die first."

"What?"

"Did I say that out loud?"

"Just shut up." Justin whispered. A few speeders had come around the back of the truck. I wriggled to break free of Justin's pinning. "Stop, this might work." He said out the corner of his mouth.

"Might?" I hate 'might'.

Two speeders ran right up to us, every fiber of my being fought for action a war raged in my skull, run! Fight! Puke! Sex! (oops, my bad, errant thought).

The nearest zombie sniffed around Justin, its eyes opaque and its mouth hanging open, small maggots wriggling in the meat-infested mouth. This one looked like he liked to gnaw on bones, its teeth were all jagged and in some serious need of dental care. The smell that emanated from his mouth was death incarnate. I can't even begin to describe that odor. If you found my first journal, I talked about carrying fresh Henry shit in a plastic bag around your nose, that would now be what you used to try and diffuse halitosis Hal's breath.

Justin flinched as the zombie licked up the side of his face. What would I do once that lick turned to a bite? Justin's screams would cripple me. The zombie kept licking though, up the side of his face and over to his left ear, where I was now eye to eye with this thing. It paused hesitantly, still licking Justin, but now its nose went into hyper action. He was sniffing around like Henry would be when I'm hiding a peanut butter treat in my fist. Henry knows it's there because he can smell it, he just can't see it. Then it dawned on me what was going on, Justin was somehow hiding us 'in plain sight'! See, this still could be a movie set! I'm holding onto that.

The confusion was evident, the zombie wanted to do what zombies do, 'eat' but Eliza held sway and by default Justin was able to bend a piece of that to his will. Rivulets of sweat were pouring down Justin's face. The exertion he was spending was burning through him like a wildfire. Halitosis Hal greedily licked up the fluids like it was the fountain of youth. Justin was burning like a furnace. I was soaked through and through and 'no' it wasn't because I had let my bladder get the better of me.

Distant screams off to our right perked Hal's interest. He took one long soul searching look into my eyes and ran to his dinner bell. Like that, the spell was over. The other zombies completely lost interest in us, as if Hal was their leader and if he didn't think we were worth eating than neither did they. Justin collapsed, the only reason I was able to keep him from hitting the deck was that I was almost meshed completely with him.

"Holy shit Justin, what just happened?" I asked him as I gently helped him to the ground. Zombies streamed past us, paying us no more attention than if we were a plate of brussel sprouts at a chocolate bar.

"I…I'm not a hundred percent sure, I sort of told the zombie that we worked for Eliza."

"Not that I'm complaining but why didn't Hal…"

"Hal?"

"That zombie, why didn't he eat me?" Ideas were popping up in my head.

"I was screaming in my head to him that you didn’t exist."

"He bought that?"

"Well he is a zombie, Dad, I don’t think he could even get a job at the post office."

"Again back to the whole this is awesome 'but' part."

"Why aren’t we still under attack?" Justin asked.

"Sure, I mean maybe we weren't on Hal's fine dining experience."

"Hal?" Justin shook his head.

"Forget him." It was surreal to be having this conversation, actually any conversation, as hundreds, maybe thousands of zombies ambled on past us.

"Dad, best I can tell you is that they have an almost herd mentality. Where the leader goes the rest follow."

Idea number one popped in my head. "Can you do this thing." I asked pointing to his head. "Again, and get the whole family out?"

"I don’t think so." He said dejectedly. "If that zombie had stayed a few seconds longer I wouldn't have been able to hold him off."

I shivered knowing I had been that close to having my eyeball eaten out, or possibly my nose removed in a teeth-filled vise.

"I'd never be able to hide you all." A small tear of frustration coursed down his face.

"Justin, you just saved our ass, you did great. Can you get up?"

"You there! What are you two doing?" An authoritative voice shouted.

I had been so intent on using Justin's newfound powers I failed to realize that the zombies had gone on by. (Please don’t ask for a clearer explanation than that. I know it's difficult to believe that I could somehow miss the small fact that dead people who loved to feast on the living who were within biting distance had gone by without my noticing.) My first priority was to the collective safety of the Talbots and Company, all else was secondary. Still survival relies heavily on quick thinking.

"He's been shot!" I shouted.

"Leave him." The voice shouted, sounding impatient that someone had had the audacity to get wounded.

"He's my brother, I can't just leave him." I shouted back.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Justin whispered.

"Fake that you're wounded. I'll tell you what I'm doing after it's over."

"Ow, ooh, ah this hurts so much!" Justin moaned.

"Tone it down a bit, not looking for an Emmy." I slowly reached my right hand down to my ankle.

"Fine!" The insurgent said, clearly getting closer. I didn't look up to watch his approach. I was fearful that he would suspect my ruse and shoot us both where we were, me down on my haunches and Justin half sitting up and in my arms. Out of the corner of my eye I could see our discarded cammies, could he? The sun was blocked as the man came in to get a closer look. "Where's he shot? I don’t see any blood."

"Funny thing." I said as I launched up from my kneeling position. My K-Bar slid effortlessly into his Adam's apple. The angle of the blade pierced his jugular and went up and through his tongue. There was some small resistance as it burst through his upper palate and then into his brain. A look of shock and betrayal was lined on the man's features as I helped him down much as I had Justin only moments earlier. The man had expired long before I was able to pull my blade out. A strong suction was followed by an audible pop. Only Justin's retching disturbed the quiet morning.

"You going to be alright?" I asked Justin, looking around to see if anyone had witnessed this event. I wiped my blade on the man's jacket. A glint off his chest brought my attention to center, a tickle in my head fused into thought. A tiny vial no bigger than a push tack was attached to a thin chain that hung from the man's neck. A pin-prick amount of red fluid swam lazily within. "What do you think that is?" I asked Justin. He still appeared to be varying between a yellow and greenish hue.

"Please tell me you're not into trophies, Dad?"

Justin couldn't bring himself to look at the dead man. Killing the dead is one thing. We're just finishing what nature had intended all along. Killing a living breathing man, that was an unnatural act. It violated all that should be sacred. I wouldn't lose much sleep, if any, over this piece of shit. He had chosen his fate the moment he hooked up with Eliza. Who in their right mind aligns with the living dead and the undead and doesn't expect a bad ending? That's just piss poor planning on his part if you ask me.

I ripped the chain off the guy and held it in front of Justin's eyes. Probably should have wiped some of the guy's blood off first though. The quickly thickening blood hung in long dangles before releasing from the chain links and striking softly into the not so pristine snow. Justin was rapidly going for a complete disgorging.