'Til Death Do Us Part

nearly as selfless an act as we would have ourselves believe.”

“What?” Gary said, looking up from his shoes to Tracy’s hard set of features.

“Taking the place of someone we love. It’s not all we think it is, any of us would do it in a heartbeat. Oh, I guess partly because we’d like that other person to be safe, but you know what the bigger part of the equation is?” Gary was looking at her wonderingly. “It’s so we’re not left behind to harbor the guilt, the what-ifs, and the pain of moving on without the person we love. How much easier would it be to just be in the void of death? No feelings, no pain, no remorse, and especially no guilt,” she said as she propped Gary’s dropping face with her hand.

“He was my brother,” Gary sobbed.

“He was my everything,” Tracy said solemnly. “And I hold not one shred of blame against you Gary…not one. So if I don’t, you shouldn’t either. Do you understand?”

He nodded. “Thank you, Tracy. Mike was a lucky man.”

“I like to think so.”

Gary walked away. Tracy thought his spirits may have been improved. She couldn’t truly tell, though, because she was sobbing.

***

Justin had been watching the exchange between his mother and his uncle from the window in the living room. He was still having a difficult time coming to grips that his father had passed; and now, whether he wanted it or not, he was now the man of the house. It was not a responsibility he felt he was quite ready for or one in which he felt qualified. Especially since he had just recently started to hear the siren call of Eliza in the deepest recesses of his mind.

She was tugging on the folds of his being. At first it was so subtle that he thought it was merely an echo of possession, but he could no longer deny it, whatever was happening was increasing. It had gone from a ghost feeling to a feathery light touch and he was not of the ilk to believe it would subside.

“Easter Evans was a sham,” he said aloud as he absently rubbed his forehead, referring back to the man in Virginia that had supposedly exercised his demons. “She was just biding her time. She made it look like she was gone, and now she’s going to use me to kill the rest of my family. Well I’m not going to fucking let her!” His thoughts were not nearly as convinced.

Travis had been by the entrance to the living room about to tell his brother that their Uncle Ron needed their help with one of the fences. He had wondered who Justin was talking to, and when he peeked in and realized it was only himself, he had for some reason not let himself be known. Travis had noticed that his instincts had been amped up since the zombies came and he was heeding their advice now to not be seen.

Eliza’s back, Travis thought as Justin was talking. He was wondering how long Justin would take to come to that realization and if he would ever tell the rest of the group. He quickly left when Justin stopped speaking. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought. At least as long as he didn’t say it aloud his mother couldn’t berate him for it.

***

“Would you believe me if I told you I don’t have a shred of evidence but that I know Eliza is on her way?” Travis said to his uncle who was seated on his small backhoe.

“No evidence?” Ron asked.

“Not so much as a napkin with a lipstick stain.”

“And you’re sure of it?”

“I am, Uncle Ron.”

“Any chance you could tell me why you believe that?”

“I could, but I have my reasons not to right now.” Basically I want to see how long it takes my brother to raise the flag. The longer it takes him to warn us the less I’m going to trust him.

Ron held his nephew’s gaze for a few moments, looking for any seeds of doubt in the young man’s face, when he was satisfied there were none he spoke. “How long?”

“Not as long as we want. Other than that, I don’t have any answers.”

“Not very forthcoming are you?” Ron asked. “Fine, we’ll play this your way for now, but eventually we’ll have to talk. Where’s your brother?”

“Damn I knew I forgot to do something.”

***

“You alright, dad?” Lyndsey asked her father.

He was standing in his living room holding a portrait of his family they had taken at Sears. His wife Mary had dragged him out because they were having a sale on the pictures. It had taken over an hour to get his four boys still enough to get proper clothes on them and get their hair combed, but that still paled to the two hours his princess Lyndsey had taken primping her eight-year-old self.

He turned to his daughter with the $4.99 portrait in his hand. “When I look at this picture, I can only see black exes where I should see your mom, Glenn, and Mike’s faces.”

“Oh, dad,” Lyndsey said as she came in to be next to her father.

“And I can’t help but wonder who the next black ex will descend on. It is against the nature of the universe for a parent to watch their children die, yet two of mine have passed and I have not even been able to bury either one. Where is the justice in that?”

Lyndsey had a myriad of platitudes, ‘It’ll be okay, we’ll make it, hang on, live to fight another day’ but they were just hollow words. They had no meaning beyond the airwaves they pushed with the sound of them. She did what she could to console her father.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mike Journal Entry 9

“What the fuck is that?” I asked, but not really to John. He was sleeping, and hard if the line of drool extending down his chin was to be used as an indicator. Down off the highway was a truck rest area, replete with a service station and greasy spoon restaurant. That was not the interesting part. Had I known just how close I was to Eliza, I would have just whipped a U-turn and headed to parts unknown. The truck stop was full, I mean packed with trucks.

The owners of this particular spot had probably never seen so many customers at any one time, and my bet was they weren’t even around to enjoy it anymore. The place was bustling, and for some unfathomable reason I had to see why—never quite understood that need in me to be exposed to unnecessary risks. I pulled the car off the highway and down a slight embankment that was actually a little steeper than I had figured. I looked to my right and back up the incline wondering if the Gremlin was going to have enough power or traction to get us back on the roadway.

“One issue at a time,” I told my non-multitasking self. I then looked over at John, ‘take him?’ or ‘don’t take him?’ I ran through the question a good half dozen times, the majority of reasons why I would take him revolved around the fact of leaving someone sleeping by the side of the road was just kind of shitty. And if he awoke, would he know what was going on? Or where he was? If he started ambling around, I’d never find him. Taking him into a possible hostile situation was no bargain either.

“Fuck,” I moaned, there was no good answer unless I just started the car back up and drove off, no harm, no foul. I got out of the car quietly, making sure I pocketed the keys; John driving off without me would not be good. A gust of wind pulled the door from my hand, the door slammed shut. I silently cursed and peeked my head in through the window. John hadn’t stirred, if anything, it looked like he had settled down even more.