Eliza walked away looking more pissed then usual which Kong found hard to believe. He turned to Tomas.
“They are broadcasting a signal that interferes with the physiology of the zombies.”
“Like the vials?” he asked.
“No, better,” Tomas said with a hint of a smile.
“That’s fucking brilliant,” Kong said, turning back to the house he could no longer see due to the density of the woods. He wondered what other surprises they had in store. “You obviously care for your sister, I can see that, but you cannot hide the fact that you also care for the well-being of the Talbots. What’s your story?” Kong asked.
“I do not think that either of us has enough life left in us for me to recount that,” Tomas said sadly and walked to catch up with his sister.
Kong had two vampires, if he was to believe what Eliza told him—and he had no reason not to—around seventy men, and close to fifteen thousand zombies on his side against one house full of mostly women and children, and he thought that he had chosen poorly. “Well it’s a shitty bed, but I made it. Might as well lie in it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Mike Journal Entry 18
“She’s getting bold,” BT said as I came back in the door.
“Our little girl is growing up,” I told him, wiping a mock tear away from my eye.
“Should have put her over my knee a few more times,” he said, following me into the room. “What’s she doing?”
“I’m thinking trying to figure out why her zombies aren’t eating us yet,” I told him.
“I didn’t know she cared.”
“Don’t worry, she doesn’t.”
“Any ideas?”
“Really?” Tracy asked BT. “You really want an unsolicited idea from Mike?”
“At least it’s entertaining,” BT told her.
I wanted to join in the reverie, but I could feel time slipping through our fingers. “She has us pretty buttoned up here with the zombies and the guards, but she’s not going to wait us out. Eliza isn’t much on patience.”
“What are you thinking?” my dad asked.
“She has every tactical advantage right now. She’s going to try and find a tank or rocket launchers or a damn Harrier Jet. We’ve got to stop her before that happens.”
“You’re kidding, right?” BT asked. “I merely asked you for an idea…not an overabundance of ways to get killed.”
“BT, you should know better, man. All of my ideas are laced with an overabundance of ways to die.”
“I know,” he said, sitting down heavily. “When do we go?”
“Are you serious? Are you that devoid of short-term memory that you cannot remember what happened the last time you went on the offensive against Eliza?” Tracy was shrieking.
If I thought Eliza was mad at me when I had given her the finger, I had yet to see Tracy’s ire when I told her of my next great adventure. She definitely raised the anger bar. I think I was going to get my slogan trademarked: Michael Talbot, bringing hate and discontent to women everywhere for forty-plus years.
“I could crank up the outage on the frequency modulator,” Mad Jack piped up.
“Okay.” I answered, trying to figure out where he was going with it. Lord knew I’d had enough practice with John the Tripper I should have been able to figure him out, although that wasn’t a fair comparison. MJ was logic based, John was acid based.
“Well that would mean more power was going out,” he added.
“I get that, but to what end?” I asked.
“Mad Jack, you said that putting out too much power could fry the components,” Ron said with concern.
“I did say that,” Mad Jack pronounced.
“How could someone that snorted, inhaled or smoked enough drugs to finance a cartel sound as similar to someone that graduated the top of his class at MIT?” I demanded, throwing my hands in the air. “Ron? Help me out here, man. I don’t speak genius.”
“Relax, Mike, he usually has so much going on in his head, he doesn’t know what he’s told us or what he’s thinking. He’ll get there in a minute.”
The cursory minute passed. We were all waiting for some more information that was not coming. Mad Jack was pacing the room, and it looked like he was about to leave before Ron stopped him.
“MJ?”
“I need some more transistors,” Mad Jack told him as if that explained everything.
“Okay, we all get that you want to put more power through the modulator. The
“
I had stopped watching
Ron tried Psych 101 on MJ. “The reason for increasing power to the frequency modulator that disrupts the thought patterns of the zombies is?”
“Nice…he phrased it as a question,” Gary said, smacking my arm to make sure that I was watching the riveting action.
“To drive the zombies back, thus obscuring our vial-laden exit from the armed guards,” Mad Jack retorted.
Now all of a sudden it was a riveting conversation. “That’s brilliant,” I said aloud.
“I know,” Mad Jack said.
“But you’re not thinking escape, are you, Mike?” Tracy asked.
“Where would we run to that she wouldn’t find us? Where could we run that was more secure? Where could we run that was as well supplied? Where—”
“I get it,” she lashed out.
“Plus I have someone waiting in a truck out there that I need to bring into the fold.”
“What? Who?” came the myriad of questions.
I quickly explained where I had discovered Azile and how I had rescued her. I somehow failed to tell them that she had driven the majority of the way back because she was better at it than me, it must have slipped my mind.
“You just left her out there?” Tracy accused me.
“You know, I wasn’t all that sure I was going to make it back here. I figured she was safer in the truck,” I said, defending myself.
“You need to go get her,” Tracy said.
“I know that, dear. But it’s not like I can just walk out the door and do that now, is it?”
“Don’t you get condescending with me.”
“Ooh look, the finger should be coming out any second,” BT said to Gary.
“I don’t know why you’re so smug,” Tracy said, turning her wrath to the big man. “You’re going out there to help him.”
“Me?” BT begged off. “I always have to pull his scrawny ass out of a scrape.”
“And that’s exactly why you and I are going with him.”
“Oh no,” BT and I said simultaneously.
“I’m used to saving his ass, I can’t be looking out for you, too,” BT shouted.
