Zombie Fallout | Book 14 | The Trembling Path Read online

  “You’re not planning on doing anything rash, are you?” The colonel must have been able to see it in my eyes.

  “More rash than letting the majority of the base perish? No, I don’t think I’ll be doing anything quite that rash.”

  “I don’t believe you quite understand what is happening here.”

  “At its ideal, the role of the military is to protect its citizens. I realize, in our history, there have been some cloudy conflicts, some waged for less than patriotic reasons. But the underlying reason has always been to protect the lives of our people and our way of life.”

  “There’s a precedence here, Captain.”

  “Oh, do tell. Please inform the ignorant grunt with some verbal grandiosity.”

  “The Constitution does not impose a general duty upon the police or other government officials to protect individual persons from harm, even when they know harm will occur.”

  “Will the sound of those words drown out the screams of the people being slaughtered when you try to sleep?”

  The colonel said nothing. I was wracking my brain, trying to make sure this was not a depthless sinkhole we went down. I’d heard that statement; I understood it to a degree, even if I didn’t wholeheartedly agree. Where it took a sour turn was at the end of that statement, which the colonel had cleverly omitted.

  “You do know that ruling also goes on to state that the government only has a duty to protect persons in custody, right? I remember when I first came across that; I was, like, well isn’t that shitty. Screw the victim—they’re on their own—but oh, the douche-nozzle criminal they caught is completely protected. Kind of the standard, back in the day, wouldn’t you say? Criminals always seemed to have more rights. But let me back away from that anger-inducing area. The people here, behind a steel wall we built, I would go so far as to say they are under our custody. How about you?”

  “This has always been a military installation, first and foremost. A place to strike out and defeat our enemy when the chance arose. If we try to save everyone, we will lose everything.”

  “I…I can’t have this conversation. Your mind is made up. I’m just here so you can try and convince me.”

  “I can order you.”

  “I mean, you could. No one or nothing stopping you from ordering me.”

  “Take this before you leave. Share it with those you trust, then burn it.” He reached into his desk, grabbed a manilla folder, again stamped with bold red lettering, Top Secret. He stood and handed it over.

  I think I only took it due to the reflexive action of grabbing something because it was being offered. I thought about not accepting, or maybe taking it and dropping it back down on his desk and telling him to stuff it in an orifice of his choice. In the end, I clutched it like a newborn will its parent’s finger, having absolutely no idea what it was doing, only that it was hard-wired in its mind to do so.

  “You all right, Captain?” my driver asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I’d since tucked the folder away and wanted to tell him, 'Yeah, I’ve seen ghosts, plenty of them.’ They were all around us; they just didn’t know they were spectral quite yet.

  The driver dropped me off. In my mic, I told my squad to meet me on the main floor in five. Kirby and Rose were grinning like Cheshire cats when I came inside.

  “Going to love this, sir,” Kirby said, pulling out a small remote. He pressed a button, and the theme song to a famous purple dinosaur roiled out from Deneaux’s door.

  “That’s pretty cruel and unusual punishment. I love it.” BT had come downstairs.

  “I also have a remote, but mine makes a much louder sound. Deneaux is wired to a proximity vest. She tries to leave this area, boom. She pisses me off, boom. She tries to take it off…”

  “Boom. Yeah, we get it,” Kirby told her.

  “You look like shit, Mike,” Gary said.

  “We’ve got a problem.” I spent the next half hour laying it out.

  EPILOGUE - OBSERVATIONS

  “I’ve got another theory about women. Or, I guess more of an insight.” I cocked my head, thinking. “Definitely insight.”

  “Great. I’ve been wondering when I would get treated to another one of your fantastical observations,” BT sighed.

  “Hear me out,” I told him.

  “You always say that, and you always pull this intuition shit when I can’t get away.”

  “We’re on guard duty; what the hell else are you going to do?”

  “Enjoy the night in silence would be my first choice.”

  “Like that’s going to happen,” I told him.

  “You are an exhausting human being. The more time I spend with you, the more I try and figure out how Tracy does it. Were you by any chance the black sheep of your family?”

  “Eyebrows,” I countered.

  “Eyebrows. Really? That’s your opening salvo? I notice you didn’t answer my question. Oh, get on with yourself. You’re practically humming with the want to tell me.”

  “I’ve got another theory about why women get so mad sometimes.”

  “Is this all women or, more specifically, women that know you? Because I have a theory myself about the latter.”

  “Don’t ruin this for me,” I told him.

  “Go on, Descartes.”

  “More like it,” I muttered.

  “Although, I’m pretty sure he never covered eyebrows.”

  “Maybe he should have. So, I’m in the bathroom.”

  “Mike, you know I hate when you start stories like this. They invariably go sideways in a hurry and then I have the unenviable task of trying to scrub the imagery from my mind.”

  “It’s not like that. I was shaving.”

  “What were you shaving?”

  “My face, you sick bastard! Razor burn on your junk is no joke. And besides, I wouldn’t tell you about that anyway.”

  “You just did.” He sighed again.

  “And oh man, when you cut yourself…ooohh eee! You should see the blood.”

  “Mike!”

  “Dude, keep it down; we’re on guard duty. The idea is to see the enemy before they see us. And maybe let’s lay off the junk talk. I think my sister would be seriously upset to know what goes on in your mind.”

  “Your sister makes these kale chips—utterly disgusting. Singularly the most horrid thing I’ve eaten in my life, and right now, I’d rather be on my couch eating those by the handful than listen to anything else that you’re about to spew forth from your mouth.”

  “You eat those? She gave me a bag…I thought they were coasters. Dropped one once, Chloe grabbed it brought it outside and peed on it. I think she wanted to make sure it was dead.”

  “Coasters, that makes sense. Mike, I chew and chew those things, they, umm, they come out about the same way they went in. Like they re-construct in my stomach.”

  “Like food terminators?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you remember that terminator that looked like liquid silver when it was injured? It would re-form itself. Pretty cool special effects for the time.”

  “And now I have that with me for the rest of my life.”

  “You started it.”

  BT paused for a moment. “Fuck if I didn’t. Hurry up and finish this.”

  “What the hell was I talking about?”

  “If I don’t tell you, can we move on to the peace and quiet phase?”

  “Not a chance. I have this weird rash I’d like you to take a look at.”

  “Eyebrows, you were talking about eyebrows.”

  “Right, right. So, I’m shaving the other night and I look at my eyebrows and I got one or two hairs just kind of doing their own thing like they can’t get in step with the rest. Rebels, anarchists, really.”

  “I wonder where they got that from,” BT interjected.

  I ignored his jibe. “So, I’m holding the razor thinking I can take care of that, and, when I looked down, I saw a pair of tweezers.”

 
“Back to the tweezers again. I think you have an unhealthy fascination with them.”

  I ignored him again, although he was starting to affect the flow of my narrative. I frowned at him, but it was entirely too dark for him to see it.

  “I grabbed the tweezers, which I’m not overly fond of, by the way. Firmly grasped one errant hair and pulled. BT, hand to God, I felt like a lightning bolt had struck me. I dropped the tweezers and was hopping around the bathroom like a chicken on a hotplate.”

  “Now, see, that’s funny because that is exactly how you dance. I never really had an accurate description for it until now.”

  “Dude, I’m not kidding you. It was like my entire body became one giant, enflamed, exposed nerve ending. You ever watch a woman do it? No problem. They sit there for like a half an hour and pull out dozens of the fucking things. It’s savage what they put themselves through, and I think they subsequently turn it on us. I’d be fucking ripped at the world if I had to keep yanking those things out by the roots. I told Tracy, she said I was being a big baby. I’m thinking I might add some extra therapy in to cope with the entire ordeal; definitely going to have to drink more.”

  “Like you need a reason to drink more.”

  “It was my daughter, Nicole.”

  “I know who your daughter is; she’s going to be my niece soon.”

  “Yeah, don’t remind me of that. I hope you don’t take that wrong—I love that we are going to be family officially; I mean, I already consider you a brother, but you know, it’s my sister.”

  “Love you too, buddy.” He hugged my shoulder and shook me about. “What did my niece say? The girl who will be babysitting your sister’s and my love child?”

  “Ass. Anyway, she said beauty is pain. Gotta tell you, being a guy and not caring about that other crap, yeah, I think we lucked out. Funny. If you think about it, women spend hour upon hour fixing themselves up and then are pissed if we don’t notice every tiny detail, but then we get a blanket free pass from them when we haven’t spent more than five minutes getting ready.”

  “Are you done now?”

  “I think I made my point.”

  “Good, they’re coming.”

  “Shit.”

  About the Author

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