"Well not tonight for sure." My father looked sternly at me. He'd known me long enough to realize that getting a straight answer out of me could be damn near infuriating. "A couple of weeks," I told him.
"How are you planning on finding her?"
"That's never really been much of a problem. To tell you the truth, I'll just venture out and I can almost guarantee she'll take care of the rest."
He squeezed my knee and got up painfully. "I'm going to bed Michael. I love you."
"I love you too, Dad." I stayed another hour staring into the fire, trying to make some sort of contact with Tommy. My only reward was a blossoming headache.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - JOURNAL ENTRY 29 - 
The dismality of my mood did not lighten with the breaking of dawn. The shingles that my sister was going to try to pass off as French toast were not going to make matters any better. She somehow made them smell like steaming broccoli mixed with liver. I had to get out. I went into the garage, thankful that my father had kept my skates hanging up where I had left them. The peacefulness of being out on the ice was exactly what my soul needed. I grabbed my hockey stick and a couple of pucks and headed out to the pond, a mere 50 yards away.
It was cold but not nearly as frigid as Ron's house had been the night before. I was halfway to the edge of the ice, my head down checking my footing, when Gary scared the hell out of me.
"Going to do some skating, little brother?" I did a complete 360 looking for him. "Up here."
I looked up. He was about 15 feet high in a tree with a deluxe model hunter's stand. It was actually a pretty neat set up. It had a chair, a canopy roof, wind break walls all around and it must have even had a small heater in there too because he looked pretty toasty. I think I even saw a curing sleeve of meat, maybe salami. It was more a small tree house than a stand.
"Nice set up. You got heat in there?"
"Sort of, the Coleman lamp I've got running keeps it nice in here. Better than the house, that's for sure."
We both said "cheap bastard" at the same time. Who it was directed at was common knowledge.
"There enough room to sleep up there?" I asked him. He laughed, but I was serious.
"Have fun Mike, haven't seen anything around here you need to be worried about. There's some deer on the other side of the pond but I haven't been able to get a clear shot at them."
"You don't mind if I skate? I don't want to scare them away."
"No, enjoy yourself, a couple of days ago I shoveled off a hockey rink."
"Sweet, thanks." I trudged on through the snow. My fingers froze as I laced up my skates. "Why has no one ever created Velcro laces for skates? Another million dollar idea I'll never be able to bring to fruition now." I said sourly.
"You say something?" my brother shouted. I had forgot how easily sound could travel over the pond. I shook my head in the negative.
The weather was crisp and had a bite to it, not like a grizzly bear mind you, more like a pissed off weasel. It was invigorating. Pulling the cold air deep into my lungs was somehow refreshing. I'll say this for the apocalypse, the air had gotten a lot cleaner since man's machinations no longer wheeled and spun. I could feel Gary's gaze on me for a while. Really wasn't a whole bunch else to look at, and then even I must have become boring because he started to belt out his rendition of 'Sister Christian' while listening to what appeared to be an ancient Walkman by the bulky look of it.
"Might as well get an old reel to reel," I muttered to myself as I finally finished lacing my skates. I dropped the puck on the ice, grabbed my stick and just flat out enjoyed the feeling of cool air sliding across my face as I glided on the ice. The sound of my blades cutting across the frozen water was interrupted only by my occasional less than stellar slap shots and Gary's high-pitched tone deaf crooning. It sounded like he was halfway through 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns and Roses, but I wouldn't attest to that fact in court. When I said aloud "Good thing American Idol can't hear this," I immediately wished I hadn't. That one malignant thought spiraled into thoughts about the host, Ryan Seacrest, and then right back to Tommy.
The thought of the kid missing and most likely with Eliza brought me to a complete halt. It also saved my life. I had been concentrating so hard on my skating and puck control I had not even checked my surroundings. Four zombies dressed like hunters were almost halfway across the pond. They had entered from across the other side. Their pace was hampered somewhat by the snow but they were now less than 25 feet away.
They had come upwind from me so that I could not smell them. My hope was that it was an unintentional coincidence, not that I had come across many of those lately. I quickly patted down my pockets. No gun. I absolutely could not believe my stupidity. It was just that I had come home, I should be safe, I shouldn't have to wear a gun constantly. Having a gun in the outside world had been such a necessity not having one was akin to a mother going to a grocery store with her infant and not bringing a diaper bag, who does that? "Only the ill prepared," I said aloud. "Yeah but without a diaper bag you only have a fussy smelly baby, without a gun you have death. Talbot, stop talking to yourself." Yep, I said that aloud.
Plan B: Get Gary's attention, he had a 30-30 and from this range it should be pretty easy pickings. I shouted until my throat felt like I had swallowed fish bones, but Gary was looking in the complete opposite direction down the access road and now singing some horrible nightmare equivalent of 'Every Rose Has a Thorn'. I made a snowball but unless I had a slingshot or Dwight Evan's arm (the star outfielder for the Red Sox in the 70's) I was never going to be able to hit him. The lead zombie had just entered onto the rink from the opposite corner. He immediately slipped and fell on his head. Somehow I didn't think a concussion was going to stop him.
"GARY!!!" I reached way down for that and put everything into it from my Marine Corps years. I would be sucking down Sucrets for three days to pay for that scream but it was worth it.
There must have been a lull on Gary's mix cassette (yes it was a cassette) because he turned to see where the offending noise had come from.
"Zombies!" he screamed, his headphones still on.
"You think?"
"What?" he screamed again.
I motioned for him to take off the headphones.
"Oh sorry!" he screamed again. "Zombies," he said in a much more conversational tone with the ear gear off.
All four zombies had made it onto the shoveled ice. Their progress was greatly impeded but it would only be a matter of time. Gary lifted his rifle up, from this angle the barrel looked like a cannon.
"Umm, I'd rather you waited until I moved," I yelled, a little too late. His first round blew one of my pucks up.
"Was that your puck?"
"Are you kidding me!" I yelled at him.
"Bet I couldn't do that again if I tried."
"I really wish you wouldn't."
The sound of the shot reverberating through the woods brought some reinforcements from the Talbot clan. I had begun to punch holes through the snow with my skate laden feet. The zombies were halfway across the rink by this time. I was in no immediate danger of being caught but I honestly didn't want to dull my blades by walking on the ground. Trivial matter, sure I know that, but when's the next time I'm going to be able to take them down to the hardware store to get them sharpened?
Gary's next shot splintered the lead zombie's head in two. "Hell of a shot!" I yelled, getting away from the killing rink.
"Can't stand zombies, Mike!" he yelled back.
"I got that," I said, giving him the thumbs up.
My dad was on the porch watching, a look of concern on his face; the illusion of peace had been shattered.
My nephew Mark asked his dad, my brother Ron, something and then headed down to the edge of the pond with his gun. Looked like a .22 long rifle caliber. It's a relatively high velocity round but it is used mostly for small game. Now I'm not saying I'd want to get shot with one, I was just wondering how effective it would be against men. Travis and Justin immediately followed with much heavier calibers.