Zombie Fallout 8: An Old Beginning (35 page)

“Truck!” Travis said, pointing up to an approaching overpass.

“Military.” BT’s eyebrows furrowed.

Henry was barking now.

“Stop the truck,” Tracy told BT.

He’d taken over the duties after Tracy had nearly driven off the road while she was wiping her tearing eyes for the fortieth time. Tracy struggled to check her weapon with Henry in her lap. With the truck stopped and confidence high that she was ready to fire if need be
, she opened the truck door. Henry gingerly, but quickly, found his way down, although Tracy did her best to stop him. He ran about fifty feet further down the roadway, then proceeded to sit on his butt, look up at the overpass and bark.

***

“Henry?” I was seeing the dog I was just having a hard time confirming the reality of it. Alcohol hangover can give you a sort of disconnect from reality as you recover.

“BT’s in the driver’s seat,” Porkchop said, but I was already running to the cloverleaf so I could get down to the roadway. It was not easy running in fireman gear.

***

“Is that Tommy waving to us?” Tracy asked, shielding her eyes. “And…and Porkchop, I think.” She had exited the truck along with everyone else. “What are they doing?”

“Fast roping, it’s a way to exit a helicopter quickly,” Trip explained. “I used to have clients do this from time to time, and not always because they had to.”

Tracy gasped as Porkchop came over the guardrail and headed down. Travis and Justin had gone up to greet them. Tommy came down next.

***

I was running
for all I was worth. When I came down off that spiral of roadway, I was nearly dizzy. Then my eyes found Tracy. Any discomfort or hangover was blazed away as I picked her up and swung her around.

“We have got to keep meeting like this,” she said as she stroked the side of my face and kissed me even as we twirled.

Henry was barking in excitement, BT was grinning, my boys were walking back to me with Tommy and Porkchop (I don’t know how they beat me down). Gary was crying. Trip, I think, was tripping (if the way he was chasing an imaginary butterfly was any clue) with Stephanie in tow. She waved quickly before resuming her guardian duties.

“Good to see you!” Dennis said.

I hadn’t been this happy since maybe the day I got married, or the birth of each of my kids, or maybe even the day Henry allowed me to adopt him. The world right this very fucking second was a sparkling jewel and I loved it. Even if Deneaux was still out there, even if a Yeti-like animal was roaming around, and especially even if a Vampire tribunal was coming. Right fucking now, everything was fine and I was going to savor each and every second of it, even if it was damned.

Epilogue 1

Tommy and I had a brief respite. The lab wasn’t necessarily the best place to have a heartfelt conversation, but if I’d learned one thing it was this. We might not get another chance. Simple as that. Death hovered around the living like it never had before. Sure we’re all born knowing what the inevitable outcome is, but we’d never had it so violently thrust in our faces before. If Death got paid by the collection of souls, then he had indeed become a very wealthy entity. Maybe some good could come from this—maybe he’d just retire to an island in the Bahamas, sipping Mojitos with little umbrellas in them. If nothing else, it was a semi-comforting thought.

“I’m ready to answer your questions, Mr. T.”

“Huh?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling. Chunks of ceiling tiles were clinging to their supports, defying gravity to the last. Some not so successfully if the area we had to clear out to sit down was any indication. The ape had done some serious damage during his stay.

“Questions. I know you have them.”

“I don’t even know where to start, Tommy. I mean…I guess I’d like to know why you were using Ryan Seacrest as a spirit guide or maybe not. Wait, I’ve got it. How many Talbots have you been in contact with?”

“All of them.”

I sat up, the ceiling tiles suddenly losing their luster. “All of them? Over the last five hundred years? How is that even possible? And why?”

“You realize it’s impolite to ask questions one on top of the other, right?” He was smiling.

“Yes, because my biggest concern is being polite. How long have you known me?”

“Longer than you know.”

“Wait, what?” You mean even before the zombies came?”

“I first saw you the day after you were born.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Nope. When you were born, there was a mix-up in the nursery.”

“Wait, let me try to understand what you’re saying. So either I’m not really a Talbot, or I almost got to go home with a different family and live a semi-normal life away from the craziness that comes along with being a Talbot?”

“You nearly went home with the Murphy
’s.”

“I could have been Irish? Weird.”

“They would have treated you well enough, however, in all likelihood you would have died at the age of twenty-two.”

“War? Or was I saving someone?”

“Slipped on ice and fell into a culvert.”

“Really, that’s it? Was I at least saving someone when it happened.”

“You were trying to recover a cd you’d dropped.”

“A compact disc? I died for a compact disc? Was it at least
Widespread Panic?”

“A Celtic Christmas.”

“I give up.”

Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “It was an easy enough fix. I just switched the tags on the beds and no one was the wiser.”

Now I felt somewhat guilty that baby Murphy died in a culvert some twenty or so years ago. “The Murphy’s…how did they take their son’s death?” I needed to know.

“Oh, he was much more cautious than you, he was nowhere near the culvert that day. He grew up to be a pretty successful broker.”

“That’s good, I guess.” I wanted to know how Murphy, my near half-brother, made out. Odds were it wasn’t good. Tommy wasn’t clarifying, and as far as I was concerned, the man had already cheated death once. I was going to let it stay like that. “Why though? I mean…I know why your sister was tied to us, I get that, but what could you possibly hope to achieve by interfering?”

“When I was a child back in what is now Germany, Lizzie and I realized that I’d been cursed with the gift of foresight. She did everything she could to keep that a secret from our father, but I didn’t have all my wits. I think a lot of that had to do with how many ‘realities’ lived in my head. I couldn’t keep them
all straight. At first, my father thought I was mentally challenged, although those weren’t his exact words. Then, when I started predicting the weather or when this or that person was going to die or get married, he thought differently. Possessed is what he said. I think he would have killed me for either offense. But then he would have had to tell the other villagers why he’d done it, and he didn’t want his good name…” he nearly spat that out, “…dragged through the mud by having sired a dummy or a demon.”

“I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you growing up.”

“It was as close to a living hell as can be achieved on this plane. And even that miserable existence paled in comparison to what Lizzie went through. Being a dirt-poor peasant back then was horrible enough, add in that she was a female to an abusive, uncaring father. And even though she was going through all this, she still took on the brunt of punishment my father meant to dole out to me. You have to see why I did what I did in the hopes I could one day get her back.”

I did and I didn’t. The Eliza he’d known had long ago departed to parts unknown. What remained was an evil that dwarfed anything her father, a mere mortal, could have aspired to. She was responsible for the deaths of thousands and that was before the zombie apocalypse. Her existence as a human was rife with misery and for that I was despondent. The moment she accepted Victor Talbot’s bite
, she’d gone on a crusade to eradicate all humanity. Guilty, innocent, young, old—it made no difference to her. Everything that wasn’t her, was the enemy, plain and simple.

“Your silence is very telling, Mr. T.”

“I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t know Lizzie, I only knew Eliza. It is tough to feel compassion for someone who has a personal vendetta against everybody you love, including myself.”

“I can understand that. Can you understand the guilt I felt about her?”

“Guilt? For what?”

“I didn’t protect her like she protected me.” He was near to tears.

“Tommy,” I said as I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t think you were in any position to help. You were…what? Like eight years old, right? Your father was the real curse in your family, it was his actions and his alone that spawned what your Lizzie was to become. We can only hope that he is paying for his past sins.”

“He is,”
Tommy said with such certainty a shiver went up my spine. I sort of wanted to know how he knew the whereabouts of his father but the larger and wiser part of me refrained. “I’m sorry.” Tommy started anew after he collected himself and his thoughts. “I’ve strayed a bit from where we started.”

“That’s probably because you’ve known me for way too long.”

Tommy smiled, and I’d swear it was like someone had turned on a hundred watt bulb in that dingy, dirty place. Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Who wanted to see the rats that could potentially be scurrying in the corners?

“The Talbots. Why did I follow the Talbots? At first, it was because of Victor. He was the key. All the legends I could dig up said that if I killed him, Lizzie would become human again.”

“And what of you?”

“I would have stayed in my half-vampire state. A life in near eternity without her would be a small price to pay to have her back for that short span of human life.”

Again I got a heavy ripple that rode through me. Most times I just simply could forget that I would long survive all I held dear. There just wasn’t much time for reflection; simple survival took up the majority of my existence. That was a good thing, no, that was a great thing. Thinking that I could potentially go eons without those I loved was unfathomable. I’m pretty sure most times my feeble mind couldn’t even conceive of the concept. Tommy thankfully ripped me from thoughts that would have invariably spiraled down to despair and depression.

“After she killed Victor, I knew almost the moment she had done it. My visions changed. They’d become more powerful when Eliza changed me, but when she killed Victor, they became more focused as well.”

“On the Talbots?”

“On the Talbots. Someway, somehow, one of the Talbots was going to be involved in a fight for the very survival of man as a species.”

“You didn’t know who?”

“No, my visions don’t work like that. It’s not like watching a television show.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Now you’re the Thought Police? Might as well put me in jail now.”

“Sometimes my ‘sights’ are nothing more than a feeling, other times I catch glimpses of what can potentially happen. At times, it is like someone shattered a mirror, and I can only see shards of what was once reflected, so I have to piece it together as best I can. Then there are the offshoots that can spell disaster if I do not step in. Sometimes, for some reason, I’m shown things that will never come to pass, at least not in the universe I travel in now. And I’m left to wonder if I need to do anything with these sights, are there things I need to do here and now that can prevent or mitigate
them.”

“You manipulate the future? That sounds pretty dangerous, Tommy.”

“I just told you about how I switched you back at birth. Did that not ring a bell within you?”

“Sorry, seemed anecdotal at the time.”

“No, there are times I have to step in because, if I do not, the outcome trends toward disaster.”

“How many times have you done this? I mean step into someone’s life and alter it for them and all around them? And what gives you the right?”

Tommy looked up.

“Really
?! You’re going to use
Him?
Convenient.” I said that last word softly though, just in case it was true.

“It is not easy, this life I have. It has been a heavy burden. I am constantly confronted with apocalyptic scenarios and the many ways that they can come about.”

“Who was your first? Who was the first Talbot’s life you altered?”

“Do you really want me to answer this?”

“It’s my lineage, I think I have a right to know.” I was being obstinate.

“I don’t think you’re going to like how this ends up.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Mr. T, you’re not fully realizing how I ‘see’ things. I am given five to ten second visions and have to piece everything else around them. Sometimes my vision can be decades maybe even centuries in the future. Sometimes they may happen within moments of me seeing them and I have to decide on that limited amount of information how I should act or what I should do or say to those around me.”

“Are you expecting me to change my stance?”

“Not really. I was merely hoping.”

“Okay, so who was the first?”

“Just remember you asked. The first was Linus Talbot.”

“Wait. Linus?”

“Linus Talbot, sort of an obnoxious, loud-mouth drunkard.”

“Glad to, umm, see we’ve evolved away from that.” I coughed. “What? I don’t drink much…anymore.”

“Can I get back to the story?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Linus was a blacksmith’s apprentice outside of what is now Liverpool. He was heading home to his pregnant wife. I’d been shadowing him for three months. I’d seen him involved in different threads throughout my visions. It seemed he was to play an important role in a number of them.” Tommy paused. “I think maybe we should just stop. I don’t think this is such a great idea, and I’m pretty tired.”

“You barely sleep.”

“
That
, you have to remember? Dammit, Mr. T, I really don’t want to do this.”

“It was like five hundred years ago, right?”

“Close enough.”

“I promise I won’t hold a grudge.”

“You’re lying.”

“Your visions tell you that?”

“No, just experience. Okay, Linus was heading home, I did nothing more than steer him away from a particular street.”

“Sounds benign enough. So what would have happened?”

“He would have won a small fortune by that day’s standards playing dice.”

“See my face, Tommy? I’m pretty confused.”

“If he had won that money, his next stop would have been to the tavern where he would have drank away all his winnings and his earnings. He and his wife would have become homeless.”

“Idiot.
No…no I meant Linus. But wait, why didn’t you just let him win and then stop him from going to the tavern?”

Tommy paused. “I...I guess I could have done that. It had not occurred to me at the time.”

The audible slap as I hit my forehead echoed throughout the cavernous laboratory.

“You weren’t there. I had mere moments to make a choice.”

“Okay, okay, let’s move past this part, what happened to Linus?”

“He was run over by a runaway ox-cart two weeks later.”

“What? I thought you said he was somehow involved in getting the best of some great calamity.”

“I never said that. He would have been the cause of it.”

“What the fuck, Tommy?”

“After he lost his home, he would have been living out on the street where he would have gotten bit by a disease-riddled rat. His genome was perfectly aligned to accept the disease where he would have passed it on to half the continent causing what would have become known as the Sharts.”