Mark Tufo - The End ....

“How many are there?”

“About sixty-four.” He said.

Shit, Justin's dose was one a day, two months was better than no months, although six months would have been better.

Justin was back in minutes. He had grabbed extra scrubs and was making a makeshift backpack to carry his much-needed viral disease management syringes.

“Mr. … Mr. Talbot. I mean Mike.” Porkchop yelled. “We’ve got some squishies.” That was Porkchop's name for the deaders.

I had grabbed the pendants off of the dead and gave one to Doc and Elizabeth and kept the extras. Elizabeth seemed hesitant to accept anything from her would-be attackers.

“Zombie repellant.” I told them. “I strongly encourage everyone who values their flesh intact to hold onto it.”

Doc seemed suspicious at best, but as for obtaining visual proof of its effectiveness, his kids rushed in to see their parents. The reunion was powerful, tearful, joyful and for necessity was exceedingly short.

I went through the doors first. A wall of zombies was coming down the hallway. It looked like the last day of school and everyone was trying to be the first one out for the summer. They were shoulder-to-shoulder width wise across the hallway and asses to elbows deep for the entire length.

I ducked my head back in. "Any other way out?"

"That bad?" Doc asked.

"Bad seems like such a lackadaisical verbiage to use right now. I might go with something more along the lines..."

"Dad." Justin said pointing to the kids.

"Everyone have their vial on them?" I asked.

Head nods dominated the room. I took that as an affirmative.

"What about my patients?" Doc asked.

I looked at him and threw as much compassion into the gesture as I possibly could. They were dead. A battalion of zombies were sweeping down the hallways. Even with our immunity we could not use that as a shield for others. I felt sorry for them, I truly did. I hoped each and every one of them was hooked up to a personal pain dispenser so they could load up before the attack. We could stand and fight and take down a fair number of those approaching but it wouldn't be enough, and in the end the only thing I would have gained would be the death of my family. I had already risked enough. A loving God would see that, a vengeful one would not.

Elizabeth had Rachael smothered in her arms. Porkchop and Blake looked envious. Hell I think we all were, who doesn't want to be wrapped tight in their mother's arms when danger is near. Walking amongst the dead in such tight quarters was soul-rendingly difficult. The ripped open flesh of the dead exposed torn muscle and sinew. Broken arteries and veins stood out at odd angles on some of the more damaged. Occasionally intestines and bowels were dragged and trampled behind the unlucky soul. I wondered if Elizabeth would notice if I scootched Rachael over and sought my own piece of solace in her bosom. Anything resembling breathable air had been completely pushed out of the hallway. Chunks of smell assaulted our nasal cavities. Breathing through one's mouth was equally as bad. It's one thing to smell the dead, it's another to taste them. Blake or Porkchop, it may have been both, sprayed vomit freely, the acidic bile smell was comparatively welcome. Like an island of normalcy, we wove through the sea of zombies, unscathed physically. Mentally, well this was the stuff that a life time worth of nightmares are made of.

When we finally managed to emerge into the daylight, it only improved our vision of hell on earth. We were firmly entrenched within the innards of the dead. Heavy gunfire was coming from the area we needed to get to. The good fight was still being waged but the outcome had been decided the moment someone thought to use 600 ton trucks to attack the camp. Doc was garbed in cammies. The dim watted light of an idea came to mind.

"Doc, sorry but you need to take point. And put your pistol away."

"Mike, I don't like being left in the dark. I'll defer to you because you have military training, but it seems to me we could use all the fire power we can muster right now."

"Doc we've got to time this right, for now, you are our prisoner. In another half mile or so we are going to have to play it the other way."

"Makes sense, but I don't like it."

"That's about the way of most of my plans."

I was thankful that the zombies were heading in the same direction as we were. It made getting to our destination worlds easier. Within ten minutes we were just outside the kill zone. The Marines had set up a final perimeter around the base housing and were not planning on taking any extra ammunition into the afterlife. Zombies were piled six or seven feet high in a miasma of parts, some were still moving but most weren't. We were going to have to find another egress. Even if we thought (which I wasn't) about scaling that assemblage of strewn bodies, there was no guarantee we wouldn't meet the same fate of those we had scaled. We would just be another throng of attackers to a machine gun emplacement.

The zombies had been temporarily thwarted by their extra-dead comrades. It would only be a small lull. Already, the wall of decaying flesh jiggled like an over-tall Jenga tower with two of its base beams removed. I was stuck. This was not how I had envisioned our return, held at bay by our own while completely ignored by the zombies.

"Mike?" Doc asked nervously.

"Thinking, Doc."

"Anything yet?"

"You'll be the second to know."

"No plan then?" he asked.

I knew he was nervous and so was I, but he wasn't helping.

'Hey Mr. … Dad ,' ran through my head so clearly I turned a complete 360 looking for Tommy.

"Tommy, you shouldn't be out here." I yelled. I was concerned for his safety and I thought he might be doing another Rambo stunt like he had back at Little Turtle with the kids' bow and arrow set.

'I'm not out there, I'm in here.'

"Where's here Tommy? I'm going to need a little more information than that."

'In the apartment, where are you?'

"Tommy, you're right here, I can hear you, how is this happening?" I was more than a little confused. Which in itself isn't all that difficult a thing to do.

'We're family now Mr. Dad.'

"Holy crap! You can talk to me in my head? How long have you known?" I asked in amazement.

'As soon as you adopted me, geez don't you know anything?'

I wanted to ask him how in the hell would I know. This kind of thing usually didn't happen to me or any other person for that matter. Sarcasm aside, I asked him if I actually needed to speak or could I think the thoughts. My next concern was how much into my rancid mind could he read. I sometimes didn't like the things that popped in occasionally for an extended visit. I really didn't need anyone else privy to that. I'd check that out later if there was a time in the future.

I screamed in my head, I didn't really know what constituted a conversational tone when communicating telepathically

'TOMMY!!!' I waited as patiently as I could, nothing happened. I barely believed in the paranormal and now I was trying to use it for my own devices. 'TOMMY!!!' I screamed again. My brain hurt from the pressure I was exerting on it as I attempted to project my thoughts outward. Do you remember when you were a kid and had seen Star Wars for the first time? Then you went home after the movie and tried to move everything in sight with the Force? Please tell me I'm not the only one. This was like that, I had no real clue as to what I was trying, I was just trying.

'TOMM..'

'There you are Mr. Dad, why you shouting?'

'I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET A HOLD OF YOU,' I said excitedly with my thoughts.

'Use your inside brain voice Mr. Dad.'