Stonewall had slain many aliens and chased off uncountable hordes of monsters in the years since donning a General’s uniform, but he could not fight the man’s tears.
As thin streaks traced down his cheek, he felt the strong grip of Woody Ross on his shoulder, then the slender form of Kristy Kaufman as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. Then Benny and Dustin completed the warm wall of affection and strength around their General.
They stood there, together, their hearts melded to his in a tender silence broken only by the sobs of a man named Garrett McAllister…
…He sat on a pile of cinderblocks outside what had once been his home, and stared into space as the others gathered around.
“I was a man of many… passions,” he licked his lips but his eyes did not blink nor waver. “Many of these passions were easily obtained from a bottle. I really did not care which bottle it was, as long as my passion was satiated. And it was not for me to question why. After all, for a life so lacking in adventure and so rooted in the routine, what was wrong with seeking a little passion now and then?”
Wind blew through the trees surrounding the long-dead trailer park. Leaves rustled. Litter bounced across the streets like tumbleweeds in a desert.
“When the good Lord decided to pass judgment on humanity, I was busy indulging my passions at a tavern. Indulging quite heavily. I recall a rather nasty brouhaha, one which required the local constable to intercede. Therefore, my dear friends, when fate knocked on my door I was not home to answer, in that I was in the custody of that constable who did not take kindly to being struck.”
Garrett paused. After several seconds, he blinked and regained his train of thought.
“Where was I? Oh, yes. When fate knocked at my door, the task of answering fell upon my wife and my children. It seems that if fate could not have me that day, it would take them.”
Stonewall’s friends glanced around the neighborhood. Whatever hostile ‘fate’ sent to knock on McAllister’s door, it performed its destruction with efficient brutality, leaving almost no home in the park untouched.
“With all that was afoot that momentous morning, the good constable saw it in his kindness to allow me my leave. Indeed, he encouraged me to-in not so many words-to see to my family’s safety. Of course, by the time I found my way home, fate had already claimed its prize.”
Kristy tried, “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“That is where you are quite mistaken. I could have died. I could have died with my children. Had I managed to do at least that, then I would have done something of consequence for them. As it is, my record as a paternal guardian and as…as a husband…well,” he licked his lips but found little saliva there. “Suffice to say that a recounting of my history in such capacities would show that I was, to say the least, ‘lacking’. In the end, they died very much as they lived; without their father.”
Garrett glanced at them quickly, as if hastily fulfilling an obligation for eye contact. Those eyes then found the ground.
“As you are quite aware, destruction came to this Earth in many forms, and the manner in which people faced that destruction came in many forms as well. I witnessed acts as cowardly and as selfish as I had been guilty of in my neglect for my family, but fate showed me the best, as well. I watched from a distance as a police officer protected a mother and her child. With the last bullet expended from his pistol, he grappled a monster twice his size. It cost him his life.
“I saw a woman ram her car into a giant beast as it assaulted traffic when she might have lived longer had she driven off. As I snuck through the parking lot of a retirement village, I witnessed a teen age boy run into a burning building under assault from fire-breathing insects to rescue an elderly man, perhaps his own grandfather although equally as likely a stranger.
“I saw so much that day, that as I look back, it was as if a higher power granted me a tour of the human soul; as if Virgil took my arm and guided me through the inferno.
“So yes, I saw the best, but also the worst. For every police officer protecting a family there was a scoundrel using the chaos as an opportunity to ravish a woman, or loot a store of wares. Imagine that, stealing a television in the midst of the Apocalypse! What absurdity.
“I saw, in others, my shortcomings. As everything fell apart, I realized how small a man I was, and how utterly worthless to anyone around me.”
He wiped his brow.
Kristy Kaufman said, “That’s the old world, General. None of that matters now. Forget the past.”
“How kind of you to say, but I remember the past. I hold on to it, you understand.”
He clutched the fabric of his uniform above his heart.
“I begged my way onto a pick up truck heading south to Florence, where a cousin lived. I hoped to connect with a family I had distanced myself from, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to redeem myself. I failed in that regard, but as I roamed the streets, I saw a group of what we now call ‘Ghouls’ attacking a neighborhood. I felt certain I would soon perish, and for the last act of a despicable life, I desired to die for someone else.
“A car burned on the street, I can still smell its foul smoke. Through a thick plume of that smoke, I saw a trio of those Ghouls charge through the front door of a home, and I am certain I heard a scream at that point, perhaps a woman or maybe a child. Regardless, I stormed to the rescue with nothing other than my bare hands. I did not expect that my fists would be any match for the claws and teeth of those animals, but absolution-not victory-remained my priority.
“I found that this was no ordinary home. It was, in fact, the ‘War Between the States’ museum. In the lobby, I found the three Ghouls. I also found at my feet, a toppled display case, smashed open and its contents strewn on the floor. Something like ‘swords of the confederacy’ or the like.
“I never held a sword in my life, and this example did not appear particularly sharp. Nonetheless, I dispatched the three beasts, I am still not sure exactly how. It felt as if providence guided my blows. When I searched the museum, I found no trace of damsels in distress; perhaps I imagined the scream.
“Regardless, I left the building, sword in hand, and sought to send as many monsters to their doom as possible before they could end my suffering. Opportunities for such a glorious death abound for I saw at least nine, maybe ten of the things attacking persons trapped in cars and swarming homes.”
He turned to his friends and told them, “I killed all of them, without suffering a single scratch on my person. I was tired and worn and with each moment I expected to die. My only thought was that I would die fighting; that I would die with some manner of dignity, the way a good southern gentleman faces his fate. You must understand that the odds would have been stacked against me even if I carried a machine gun as a weapon, let alone an ancient sword with a dull blade.
“When it was over, a father thanked me for saving his family trapped in their overturned minivan. He said, ‘God bless you.’ I wondered if God would ever do such a thing.”
“You saved all those people,” Kristy said. “You redeemed yourself.”
“No, my dear, the balance sheet in my soul is still red; many markers for a life wasted remain to be paid. Nonetheless, I should have died that day. The life I lead now is borrowed time and I shall put it to good ends. In a way, it is a dream of what I wish I had been before. Therefore, I embrace it fully. I take all that was good from my southern heritage and carry it into this new world, leaving behind the bad including the lazy, dead parts of the man who failed his family. This is who I must be, from now until the day fate comes to collect its due. Until then I shall be the person I should have been when destiny knocked on my door and I failed to answer.”
Grandpa Trump took JB by the hand and the two strolled off along the hospital corridor with Tyr the Elkhound pacing behind protectively. Dr. Maple closed the office door behind them and turned to speak with the boy’s parents.