Mark Tufo - The End ....

"I made your favorite," she said, sticking the plate of something under my nose. It even smelled like the aforementioned waste product.

"My favorite what?" I asked seriously.

My sister laughed, thinking that I had just made a joke. Lyndsey had on occasion been known to burn water. She had once made raspberry jello that was green and nearly as hard as a brick. Her husband Steve, unbeknownst to my sister even though everyone else knew, had paid a substantial amount of money for a doctor to write up papers that he suffered from some rare genetic stomach disorder that only allowed him to eat take-out. Her son Jesse while growing up had found multiple sympathetic parents that would feed 'the starving boy' dinner. He had actually worked out a calendar of where he would eat on any given night.

Lyndsey and Steve's dog, Baxter, had suffered for all the discarded meals. He died young and not happy.

BT grabbed a cookie thinking it was the socially acceptable thing to do, and my sister beamed at him. I shook my head frenetically side to side at him, waving my arms over my head, telling him 'no.' It was too late; he brought the thing up to his mouth. My sister was nodding in the affirmative, silently willing him onward. I couldn't watch. I turned away as he nearly chipped a tooth biting down on what might have been a pebble chip. Maybe it was only Formica, that made more sense.

BT shifted it to his stronger back teeth, trying to get some leverage.

I'd had enough. "Lyndsey, I think Steve needs something."

As soon as Lyndsey turned away, BT flung that thing with a flick of his wrist like a skipping stone. It smashed into the wall behind Gambo, who thought we were now under attack as he dropped and rolled. He came back up with his knife at the ready. I put my face in my hands. 'Oh no, what have I got us into.'

Eventually the room quieted down once Gambo realized we weren't under attack and something akin to order was restored. The room quieted as all eyes once again turned to Nicole. She was an adept storyteller and she had left her audience wanting more.

"You want to stay for this?" Ron asked me. "How about a beer?"

Tracy pulled up a chair from the kitchen table and sat next to me so she could grab my hand.

"Any chance you have some Molson?"

Ron looked at me with that 'What do you think? face'. He was a self-made millionaire who lived a frugal life. I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled out a white can that had the word 'Beer' in stark black letters.

He handed me a can of Busch. "I see you're moving up," I told him sarcastically.

"Yeah, when I knew something was really wrong we went to Tozier's (the local grocery store) and damn near emptied it out."

"The end of the world and you couldn't splurge on something a little better?"

"What's wrong with Busch? It cost almost $4.50 a twelve pack."

"Is this a joke? Are you hiding the good stuff?" But I saw the futility in that tactic. Ron wouldn't needlessly spend money on a joke.

"What?" he asked.

I choked four of those things down as Nicole picked up her narrative from the Motel 6 to the Red Neck encounter. She had to stop on more than one occasion as she recounted what had occurred at Carol's homestead. The entire room was wrapped up in her story. This was the direction life was going, when families gathered around for storytelling. No more television or video games. The families that survived would be strengthened by the closeness of doing things the way they had been done in bygone eras.

Nicole had pushed on. In her story we now were at Camp Custer and it was looking like humanity had gained a toe hold; unfortunately it was all a lie. Nicole told of our escape from the camp and then of our time at the Powell farm. I wept silently as she told of Tommy's leaving. Tracy's hand pressed mine more firmly. I was in the grips of a burgeoning buzz as the story wrapped up. There was a collective inhalation as she finished, almost like everyone had forgotten to breathe.

Ron turned to me, not one to ever miss much. "How much time do we have until Eliza finds us?" he asked me directly.

"She's done with us, isn't she?" Carol asked anxiously. "What more could she want? She has her brother."

"That might have been the original intent," Ron answered her. "But she doesn't seem the type to let a transgression slide."

I nodded in assent. "I figure a month and half," I said, alluding to the amount of shots Justin possessed.

"That'll give us plenty of time to shore up some weak spots," my dad added.

"We'll have to get the electric fence up before Spring then," Ron said, thinking more out loud than telling anyone.

"Wait!" I said, standing on my wobbly legs. "You guys don't get it, we can't stay here."

Gary started to protest. "I've already lost one brother, I won't lose another."

"You can't know that," my dad said angrily to Gary. He then turned my way and looked like he was going to ground me. Ron gave me that condescending look that only an older brother can pull off.

"Guys, did you hear Nicole's story? Were you listening? Eliza took out a military base in less than a day, what do you think she'll do here?"

"What are you going to do Mike?" Ron asked. "Keep running? For the rest of your lives? Seems to me Eliza will be able to outlast you if she is what you say she is. No, you'll stay and we'll see this through to the end."

"That's easy for you to say now Ron. But when your family is in peril, what then?"

Ron looked more than a little pissed that I was questioning his authority or his ability to protect us all. "You know, you little pissant, it hasn't been all tea and roses before you got here, we've had our own trials and battles."

"How many Ron? A couple dozen maybe? Any speeders? Did they have a distinct, directed purpose? Were they being single mindedly ordered to end your lives?"

Ron's rage came to the surface. His fists clenched at his sides. He shook his head slowly in the negative. "None of those things, Mike. So what do you propose? Should we just let you, all of you, just walk out of our lives?"

"I will not risk your lives, any of you," I said sweeping my arm across the room, "for ours."

"You already did Mike," my sister said. "The second you walked up that road, we all became involved."

I sat back down defeated, but not beaten. A direct confrontation would not work, but Tommy had shown me how I could take care of this. We would leave when the opportunity presented itself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE -

"Where is he, Tomas?" Eliza asked as she walked around the gurney Tommy was strapped to. Rivulets of blood poured from a half dozen lacerations on his chest and stomach. Tears of pain and fear cascaded down his face. "Come, come, Tomas I will find them soon enough. Once the boy runs out of his poison that blocks me." She spat.

"What did you do to Doc?" Tommy cried.

"Don't concern yourself with him. He has paid for what he has done to me as Michael must," she said as she dragged a fingernail through a particularly deep wound. Tommy screamed. "Now you can save us all some trouble, Tomas. Tell me where he is and I will end his worthless existence. I know you can see him."

Tommy shook his head violently from side to side. "NO!" he screamed in rage.

"Again." Eliza said almost sweetly to Durgan.

The crack of the bullwhip as it sliced through the air at supersonic speed crucified Tommy's flesh as it split it deeply. Blood welled in the newly formed crevice. Tommy's screams pierced the air.

Durgan had worked up a lather of sweat by the time Tommy had finally given Eliza something. Tommy hadn't meant to give her anything, and it wasn't exactly what she had hoped for, but it was a start and it might turn out to be better than what she had originally planned.