“Mike, can you step outside?” Jed asked. I had never seen him so downtrodden. The guards tensed for action. Bear had padded up beside me and was bristling. A low menacing growl issued from him. One of the guards began to move his hands towards his sidearm; he was nervous. Couldn’t say I blamed him.
I laid my hand on Bear’s neck, “It’s all right, boy.” The growling stopped, but the menacing posture didn’t. I brushed by Tracy, giving her arm a small squeeze. “I’ll be back,” I said to her.
I opened the door, and was facing my small escort party. “Turn around, please,” one of the guards demanded. I was going to protest. I have a thing about authority but Tracy was rattled enough, I didn’t figure she needed to see me get beat down too.
I felt the cold steel of the handcuffs close around my wrists, not for the first time, but it was the worst time.
“Where are you taking him, Jed?” Tracy nearly sobbed.
“The holding cell down at the clubhouse.” From his demeanor, Jed must have witnessed firsthand the scene at Fritz’ house. I could tell he fundamentally agreed with my handling of the situation, but laws were laws.
The walk to the clubhouse was silent. I waited until I was in my ‘cell’ and the guards had gone before I talked with Jed.
“He was a piece of shit, Jed!”
“I know Talbot, I went over there. But you killed him, you broke into his house and killed the man.”
“But he had kidnapped and was raping…” I stopped. What did it matter what he was doing to a zombie? If it had been a human girl I would be paraded around as a hero. “How bad is it Jed?”
Jed’s head bowed, “A council was being set up to deal with Durgan and now they’ll be hearing your case too. Talbot, they’re talking about Capital Punishment.”
My head snapped up. I wanted to scream to the heavens. “Oh that’s fair, my life for that piece of shit. I saw his set-up, this wasn’t the first time.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Jed solemnly answered. “We checked out the whole basement. He had a ‘trophy room’ full of pictures and other things,” Jed shuddered, “of all his other victims.”
“They weren’t all zombies, right?” I grasped.
“Not by a long shot.” Jed looked a little green around the gills.
“But that’s not going to help me?” I asked downcast. Jed just shook his head.
“I’ll be back in a little bit with some food.”
“Don’t sweat it, it’ll be a long time before I’m ready to eat again.”
“Me too,” Jed said as he retreated out of the holding area.
“Welcome to Shangri-La,” Durgan said, as he sat up on his makeshift bed, then stood up with the assistance of a crutch.
“Oh this day just keeps getting better and better,” I answered sarcastically. When I turned around I was face to belly button with one of the biggest men I had ever seen in my life. Even with only one leg he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, easily.
“It looks like I’m going to make good on that promise I made,” his voice boomed from above.
“What’s that? Not wearing white after Labor Day?”
“No, you little fuck, killing you!”
Did he think it was necessary to clarify himself? I saw no choice. My Marine Corps training clicked on. I pivoted sideways and struck out with my right foot as hard as was humanly possible and was rewarded with the audible pop of Durgan’s only knee being crushed backward. He fell in a heap. The only thing worse than Fritz’ thumping techno music were the shrieking wails of Durgan in blind blistering pain.
The expletives he issued forth, while colorful, are too long and complicated for this narrative. Suffice it to say he left nothing to the imagination. He even had the audacity to include my grandmother in some of the more long-winded diatribes. If Durgan was going to kill me now, he was going to have to start at my ankles. I hopped up onto the now empty bunk and watched detachedly as a medical team came in and took him away. I rolled over and immediately went to sleep. It had been a long day and I was bushed.
Who ordered the Molotov cocktails, nobody knows. This is a small fact that will be forever lost in the annals of human history, should there be any humans to bear witness. Was it the result of some bored guards or the initiative of a defense tribunal? It doesn’t matter, the result would have been the same no matter who pulled the trigger. It was common knowledge the brain of the infected had to be destroyed in order to stop the zombie, what was not known was what effect fire would have. Could a zombie be cooked to the point where they would be inoperative? Somebody decided to find out. The result was disastrous.
The first cocktail was served three hours after I was incarcerated. The guard had the presence of mind to realize that a bottle lofted into the air would have great difficulty finding open ground upon which to shatter and spread its fuel. At one time in his life, the guard had been a pitcher and a Triple A prospect for a minor league team. A drinking problem had nipped any chances of a pro career in the bud. He called upon all his skills to deliver an old Budweiser bottle at ninety-three miles per hour into the unsuspecting skull of a zombie. Ironically, had it been measured it would have been discovered the zombie was sixty feet six inches away. The zombie fell hard, its skull crushed beyond repair, but it had held together long enough to shatter the bottle and let the accelerant spread to seven or eight of his best zombie friends. The effect was immediate. The zombies burned quietly, the crackling of skin and hair reminiscent of a cold winter night and reading a good book curled up on the couch by the roaring hearth. Because of the crowded conditions, the fire rapidly spread among the besiegers, but the desired outcome of disbursement was not what happened. Again, maybe history would have the luxury of discerning the truth, but the immediate was not concerned with the future. Instead of tucking tail and running away, the milling zombies coalesced and began pushing, pushing into the barrier that kept them away from their desired prize. The guards could only watch on with increasing alarm as the first couple of rows of zombies were quite literally pressed into nonexistence from the pressures being exerted on them. Zombies were erupting like eggs left too long in a microwave. Sheets of viscous bodily fluids flew high in the air. Nearby personnel were covered in the gore; more than one lost their respective lunches.
Between the crushing force of the zombies and the retaining wall, something had to give. Reinforcement two by fours creaked and groaned under the added pressure, and cracks began to manifest near knotholes. Boards began to pop with the sound as loud as rifle shots, first one and then a cacophony of explosions. Guns fired wildly trying to stem the tide of the onslaught, but like trying to bale water out of a sinking ship with a thimble, it was too late. Many realizing the end was near took off for their homes. Some stood in shock watching as hairline fissures began to form in the seemingly indestructible wall before them. Some of the residents rallied together, the air trembled with the cumulative shots being fired. The effect was like one continuous clap of thunder.
CHAPTER 24 
Journal Entry - 21
I had been dreaming a particularly vivid dream before I was so rudely interrupted. The sound of booming thunder had cut through all semblances of sleep. I had no sooner come to full consciousness when the klaxon of alarm erupted. All hell was breaking loose, although at the time I had no idea how close to reality I was. I was trying my best to look out the window and find the source of the clamor, but the angle wasn’t right. Unless the problem was in the pool I wasn’t going to find out much information this way.
“Talbot, get your ass over here!” Jed was yelling from the locked door, fumbling frantically with the keys trying to find the right one.
Flashbacks of every horror movie I had ever seen ran through my mind. You know the part where the person that is about to die fumbles with his or her keys, giving the monster in the flick the needed time to catch up with and dispatch the lowest paid actor in the movie. As I neared the door I could see the tremors in Jed’s hands, and this wasn’t the advancing age palsy either; this was the full-blown San Andreas type.
“Jed, take a deep breath, breathe for a sec,” I said to him, trying to instill a calm in him that I wasn’t even feeling, and I wasn’t even sure what was going on. Jed looked up at me, and my heart sank. His face couldn’t even be considered ashen, transparent was a better descriptive, I could see every blue vein perfectly etched in his features.
“Jed, what’s going on?” I asked in alarm.
“The end Talbot, the end,” he answered sadly.
I had never seen him so resigned. I wasn’t so sure now that I wanted him to open that door, maybe I could just ride it out right here. That was an option I didn’t have the luxury of exploring. The lock rattled open, and Jed jerked the door open.
“Get home Talbot,” Jed said without much inflection. Jed might not be a zombie, but he was dying inside.
“What about the trial?” I had to ask. I didn’t want attempted escape added to my offenses.
