"He swings,” Easter answered bluntly.
"What if we don’t go?" Travis asked. “He's my brother.”
"You will all suffer the same fate as Eliza's pet,” Easter said, motioning to Mutton to round us up.
"Then just leaving is out of the question?" I tried one more time.
"I would no sooner let loose a scorpion in a baby's crib and hope it did not strike,” Easter said over his shoulder as he walked away.
"That’s a ‘no’ then?" I asked. Mutton smacked me upside the head.
"Should have left when you had the chance, veil walker. I've never seen Easter give anyone the chance to go with a taint of darkness in them.” He shoved me forward but not menacingly.
"Well that's me, always the uninvited guest, first to come, last to leave.”
"Boy, are you sure that you’re right in the head?" Mutton asked.
"He's my brother,” Gary said. “He's always been a little like this.” Travis nodded in agreement.
Mutton looked us over. “Really wish you three hadn’t come this way,” he said, not including Justin who was now being led in a different direction. “He’ll be fine for now, Easter will do what he promised, but after…"
He let it lie.
We were driven back down the off ramp and within a few minutes we came to a stone building structure with a large ornate sign that read ‘Robert E. Lee Middle School .’ I looked over at Mutton.
He shrugged, "It's our town hall slash prison slash housing. It's easily defendable, all of the windows have metal grating over them.” I understood defendable. We were led up the two first floors. We passed the gamut of human suffering, from hollow eyed victims to the sunken defeated. This was the last harbor in which their drowned souls could seek refuge. Some would recover, some would fade away. Mutton opened a locked door which led us up a small set of wooden steps. At the top was another door and I didn’t need the sign to realize this was the supply closet, it smelled of bleach and mimeograph solution. It was a very nostalgic smell and it instantly brought me back to my grade school days when the biggest drama of the day was when Billy Allen stole my lunch dessert. I should have kicked his ass.
"Go on up now,” Mutton motioned. “Don’t cause any trouble and none will be brought to you.” "Mutton…” I started. “Umm…?"
"The name is Talisker,” Mutton/Talisker said.
"Talisker, who is Easter Evans?" I asked. I truly expected to hear how the man was the second coming of Christ himself wrapped around a crap load of Praise Be to Jesus and maybe a Can I Get a Witness, with a side dose of some serious pontification.
"He used to work within these walls,” He answered me. “Before the wrath of God was unleashed.” I could understand a principal taking charge in a moment of crisis, it was almost a natural progression in lieu of any other formal type of government.
"He was the janitor,” Talisker finished up, completely shattering my thought process. The look on my face must have been amusing, “Yup, that's pretty much what we thought at first. But the man had an uncanny ability to organize us when everything was falling apart.” I momentarily thought of Jed. Would I even be here now if it wasn't for that man?
"Easter fought house to house to gather the pious,” Talisker continued. “My first words to the crazy old man covered in blood on my doorstep were ‘Fuck Off.’ He smiled and told me that he thought I'd say that. Then he placed his hand on my chest and my doubt and worries disappeared. I grabbed my wife and kid and we've been here ever since. My house burned down that night. If not for Easter, my family would be dead,” The stoic Talisker looked away for a second as he composed himself, “Seventy-seven houses we fought our way to before the zombies got so thick I swear we could have stepped on their heads to get back here. I won’t say that the zombies made a path when Easter Evans walked towards them, but it seems to me that they really wanted to be somewhere else when he was around. Unfortunately, his influence only spread so far and the rest of us had to fight our way back. Some fell, most lived. None of us would have made it though if not for Easter. He's a good man that just might have been elevated to greatness due to the end of times.” "What of the three people we came across that were swinging from a highway sign?" I asked Talisker, looking for some sort of weakness in the armor he had placed protectively around Easter's character.
"The Bowdoin brothers, always were petty thieves. Mostly shoplifting and vandalism. I believe that one of them did time for stealing a car, nothing overly serious though.” "Did they not fit into Easter's view of a Utopian society?"
Talisker did not rise to the bait, if he even noted it at all. “About a month ago, Easter came to me and told me to get three strong men with tight mouths. We had an errand to perform. I didn't question the man. We drove a couple of miles out of town. When he told me to park and that we'd walk from there, I shut the truck off and got out. A mile later we were on the front porch of the Bowdoins’ run-down house. “Take them alive,” he told us, “they must atone for what they have done. They must first face God before they are eternally damned.” I was scared, I had no idea what we were getting into. Easter had turned around and was looking up to the sky, his bible clenched in his hands. Tears streamed down his face. I kicked the door in, probably could have leaned on it and it would have broken open it was so termite infested. Damn near fell into the living room but I recovered quick enough. The first of the Bowdoins, Les, came running from the kitchen. He had no drawers on, but so far no law had been broken as far as I could tell. How a man wants to dress or not in his own home is no concern of mine. Felt somewhat bad as I used the butt of my gun to drop him to the ground.” Talisker's full tone, easy demeanor and his honesty made for a very captivating story.
"And then his other two brothers, Donny and Lyle, came running from the kitchen. But the funny thing, at least that was what I thought then, I'd change my mind soon enough, was they were also without trousers. I was thinking that it just wasn't warm enough to be running around like that, and I mean technically we were still at war. Who the hell wants to get caught with their talliwacker hanging out?"
I laughed, I agreed. “When I die I want it to be with a gun in my hand, not my penis.”
"I like you Mike,” Talisker chuckled.
"How does everyone know my name?"
Talisker continued on with his narrative, disregarding my question altogether. “The three guys with me quickly rounded up the other two brothers. Easter told them to 'make them unconscious, that they did not deserve to see the light of God's day.’ Donny almost died that day when the black flashlight Red was carrying crashed down on the top of his skull. His legs flopped around like a puppet controlled by a palsy victim. The batteries flew out as the metal casing ruptured from the assault. 'Alive!' Easter shouted at Red and then Easter placed his hand on the man's head. Now, I'm not saying he healed Donny, but those legs stopped flopping around. What came next was the worst thing I had ever seen in my life.” "Talisker, I don't think I want to know.”
"You don’t want to know,” He answered honestly, “But I can see it in your eyes, why am I blindly following a man who a few months ago was barely making a living wiping up kiddy puke in the cafeteria and cleaning toilets, so now I'm telling you. There was a boy, maybe seven, maybe eight, too tough to tell. They had him tied to the stove and they were using that boy in ways that go against all the laws of man, nature, and the Bible.” Talisker began to cry now, silent tears leaking down his face unnoticed. “And in between them taking their turns on the boy, they would burn him. It looked to be mostly grease; the boy was just all burned skin and blood. He died in my arms the second I released his bonds, almost as if he had been waiting for sweet release. I cried more that day, I believe, than I have my entire life. Even as my hands bled as I dug the grave, I cried. I wept the entire walk back to the truck and almost the entire ride into town. Easter calmed my tortured soul as we headed home. He said some things can never be forgotten, and they shouldn't. But there comes a time when we need to move on, that God had told him we have more to do. I have a heaviness that I will hold in my heart until the good Lord takes me from this life and lets me enter into the next, but for now I will do all that it takes to rid the world of the blackness that has descended among us.” "Damn, Talisker.” What argument did I have against the man at this point?