Mark Tufo - The End ....

I thought the contortions she put Durgan's face through were going to make his skin split like an overripe banana. Eliza did not do well when her authority was questioned.

"I mean if that piece of shit is here." I said motioning to her host body. "Then you must be close." The wheels in my head were threatening to spin off their axle. "It is light out though, does that whole vampire in the sun thing hold merit? At Lowe's it was daylight, but you looked way more like a zombie back then. Is there any chance I could find you before tonight and drive a stake into your shriveled black heart?"

"Enough!" she screamed. "I have listened to your ranting for entirely too long. Tomas or your family, Michael, you decide." With that she left Durgan. He fell forward a few inches as Eliza released him, then his eyes cleared and looked up at me. "I'll be back, Talbot." He started the snow mobile and gunned the engine heading straight for me. I rolled to my side and grabbed the K-Bar strapped to my ankle. As Durgan passed, I used his momentum and dragged my blade across his left calf. A small smile of satisfaction crept across my face as a crimson blossom spread out from the wound. His only acknowledgement was to open the throttle faster so he could leave quicker.

"Tommy is family," I told his/her retreating back. I dusted myself off and headed back to the barn.

"What's he want?" BT asked, as I wiped my blade off in the snow.

"He said something about making a trade for some blackberry preserves and a bushel of crab apples."

"You're not funny."

"Yeah, well neither is the alternative. They want Tommy. We need to get the hummer fueled and get the hell out of here before tonight."

"Dammit, I guess that means we aren't going to finish those beers then. Did you get hurt?" BT asked, finally noticing the blotch of red in the snow.

"Not mine, his. And no, unfortunately it wasn't a fatal blow."

"Good."

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"Because I want to do it myself."

Within an hour, we had ransacked the house for whatever might turn up as useful. It was a woefully pathetic yield. I was happy to find that the hummer actually had seat covers. I guess now that I'm thinking about it, they were designed to be removed and replaced if an occupant was to expire in there. Well that's a macabre thought. Not much, but some of the previous tenant's remains had seeped through. This was quickly fixed with a throw rug I pilfered from the upstairs bathroom.

I filled the hummer up to brimming with fuel. With the help of Tommy, Travis and Justin (I actually delegated) we put the half full remaining drum in the trunk.

"The first couple of hundred miles are going to suck," I said aloud.

Justin looked over at me, waiting for me to finish.

"The trunk isn't going to shut, gonna be as cold as Eliza's sn…." I stopped when Tracy was approaching with some boxes of food. "Uh, hi Hon."

"You've got that look of just getting caught in the cookie jar thing going on," she stared at me suspiciously. I shrugged. "Help me with these and drag your mind out of whatever gutter it's wriggling around in."

A few more back and forths and the hummer was as full as it was going to get and still hold occupants. I helped Carol into the front so she would be closest to the heat, wrapped her in a few blankets and then was halfway back to the house to get Henry when Tracy called from the front door.

"You seen Tommy?"

It was an innocent enough question, so then why did my bowels seize up? "No I…" I honestly couldn't remember the last time. Sure, he had helped with the barrel but when? We had been bustling around so much. There had been so much activity I didn't stop to take stock. "Get Travis and Justin!" I yelled.

"What?" Tracy asked concerned. She wasn't nearly as alarmed as I was. I was halfway around the eastward side of the house looking for any tracks that led away.

Justin and Travis ran up to me, alert for signs of trouble but not seeing any. "What's up Dad?" Travis asked, checking that the shotgun was loaded.

"I want you and Justin to go completely around this house look for any foot tracks that lead away. I think Tommy left and I want to catch him before he does anything stupid."

Travis went clockwise, Justin counter. I went back to the hummer where the snow was trampled down and tried to find a fresh set of tracks away from the vehicle. BT got wind of what was going on and went up to the barn to look. When the boys and BT all came back to me and shook their heads in the negative I went up to where I met Durgan and Eliza to see if the boy had followed my steps out there and then proceeded on.

I even got Henry into the fray. I figured he might not be a bloodhound and wouldn't be able to track a person, but the dog loved food and Tommy was a walking mini-mart. My heart was racing. I had once lost sight of Travis in a Target when he was about 5. Those thirty seconds had damn near made my heart explode. I was now up to about forty-five minutes of that sensation and I did not see a cessation in the near future. "TOMMY!" I screamed. It came out a mixture of tortured bereavement and soul wrenching sadness.

"Mike," Tracy said, placing her hand on my shoulder and handing me a foil packet. "I found this on the ground behind the hummer."

Tommy had written a note with a magic marker on an empty Pop-Tart packet. 'Dear Mr. Dad. I have gone to Lizzie. Please do not try and stop me.' I turned the packet over and inside out hoping there was more to it than just that. There had to be. Lives don't just end like this.

I knew Eliza had lied. Tommy was trying to save us all, at the expense of himself. For not the last time in this saga, I dropped to my knees and cupped my face in my hands. Tears of rage and sorrow poured through my fingers. BT stood in the snow next to me with a look of confounded anguish. Tracy rested against my back, her tears soaking into my jacket. The kids were lost in their own thoughts. Even Henry felt the pain of the loss, he howled like a Bassett Hound, something he had never done before and something I hoped he never had to do again.

Time was irrelevant. I could only mark passage by the frozen tears that had fallen to the ground. Nicole, or maybe it was Justin, hell, it might even have been Tracy, helped me to my feet. For a moment or two I twisted out of the haze of loss only because of the pain my locked knees caused when I attempted to use them. Someone put me behind the wheel of the hummer and maybe even started it. For a good four hours someone else that looked like me drove on that cold desolate roadway but it wasn't me. Someone that could almost be my twin was even nice enough to refill the tank and toss the 55-gallon drum out of the trunk. I would have to send them a Thank You letter later on. Jed and Jen's deaths had hit hard. I thought it could not get worse than when Brendon was killed, but this…this was intolerable. The emotional pain had forced me out of myself. I was on autopilot. Every time I thought of his smiling face trying to hand me some ungodly disgusting flavor of Pop-Tart, I would start to cry again. Unlike previous times, I didn't care who saw me. I was living but I wasn't alive.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - TOMMY'S DISAPPEARANCE -

Tomas had heard everything his sister had told Mr. Dad. He had no doubts that she would follow through with her threats. Lizzie was not one for idle intimidation; he had witnessed firsthand the depths her cruelty could take. Tomas could not watch another family he loved be killed merely for the sinister amusement of Lizzie.

He would stop this here and now. He would willingly give himself up to her, and before he would allow her to do to him whatever she needed to survive, he would make her promise that she would not harm the Talbots, ever. She would listen to him. She was his sister after all. With that thought in his head Tommy waited for his best chance to get away undetected. Tommy possessed more than a few of the powers his sister did and in all likelihood many more. Tommy could have walked away in plain sight and not been detected if he knew how to control it. As it was, he waited until everyone was in the house before he walked over the iced tracks the humvee had made coming up the driveway yesterday morning.