"You cannot be serious, Tomas. You would give up eternity for a mortal and his family?"

"You will have a seat next to mine," the priest said. As he waved his hand, an image of Tomas sitting next to him atop the tortured souls of the d.a.m.ned showed on the far wall.

"You are a fool, Tomas!" Eliza shouted.

"Is he, my daughter?" The priest turned into Eliza's father. "I offer him true immortality, to rule alongside me."

"We are immortal, Deceiver!" Eliza spat.

"Ah, now you lie, my child. To be immortal implies that you do not have the ability to die...which I most a.s.suredly guarantee you that you do. I have waited patiently for you to join me. I have set aside such wondrous things for the two of us. If He is helping to facilitate that, then I may have to thank Him." Eliza's father turned back into the form of the priest.

The echoes of the Destroyer's laughter could still be heard as Eliza recanted her invocation.

"Did that go as planned, dear sister?" Tomas asked as he stepped out of the tomb. Her response was icy silence as they got back in the car.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

Mike Journal Entry 11 Azile drove the truck like the pro she was, getting us through some rough patches of choked traffic jams mostly unscathed. We saw the occasional zombie, but with food so scarce, they were going to stasis mode more and more. We only had one run in of any sort while we were on the road: two motorcyclists who looked like they'd seen better days rolled up alongside us.

One pulled out a large caliber pistol and waved it around, making sure that I saw it. I started laughing my a.s.s off as I raised my M-240. He veered off so hard that I thought he was going to flip his bike. I saw him waving his partner off as they both stopped.

"What'd they want?" Azile asked with some concern.

"I guess they just wanted to say hi," I told her.

"You do know that the M-16 is a much easier weapon to handle don't you?" she asked.

"Don't take this away from me, Azile. When am I ever going to be able to walk around with a machinegun again?" I asked her back.

"Have it your way," she replied.

"Just like Burger King," John said. "Although that's not always the case. I once asked them for McDonald's french fries with my Whopper, because their fries taste like used socks and the kid behind the counter called me a hippie and maybe if I didn't have tin foil on my head that I would realize what burger joint I was in. I knew where I was," John said as if he needed to defend himself to us. "BK has better hamburgers and Mickey Ds has better french fries. Is it too much to ask to have the both of them together?"

I nodded in agreement. I couldn't even remember how many times I'd had that exact thought. I sincerely hoped there weren't too many more thoughts John and I shared in common.

"Did you ask for extra pickles?"

"Pickles give you whooping cough. Everybody knows that," he informed me.

I looked over to Azile for confirmation to see if he was speaking the truth, she shook her head slightly.

It was a couple of hours later when Azile spoke, at some point I had dozed off. "Now what?" she asked as she reached across John and shook my shoulder.

I brought the machinegun up rapidly only to notice that the truck was idling and I was looking at the 'Welcome to Philadelphia' sign.

"John...what now, buddy?" I asked him. He was staring at the sign also, although I wasn't sure if he was cognitively registering it.

"We get Stephanie!" he said excitedly.

"Philly is a pretty big place, Trip, any idea where we should start?" I asked him.

"Are you kidding me?" Azile shot out. "The stoner doesn't even know which direction to go? How are we going to find her? We can't waste our time on a wild goose chase!" Her voice was raising and I think she was approaching flip-out.

"Azile...Azile," I said more forcibly when she didn't listen the first time.

John's eyes were wet. "I know she's still alive," he said with dejection.

"I know, we'll find her," I told him, giving Azile a healthy dose of stink eye over his shoulder.

"We don't have time for this, Mike," she told me much more softly. "Your family is in danger."

"So is his," I told her.

"Eliza will get away," she said resting her head on the steering wheel.

"You haven't met the Talbots yet, they're not just going to roll over and allow her to do as she wants. We've got some time."

"If you say so, chief," Azile surrendered. "Where to then?"

"She owns the Courtyard in downtown Philadelphia," John stated.

"You mean works there?" Azile asked for clarification.

"No, John and the missus are loaded. If he says 'own' he means it."

"Let's start there. Do you have an address?" she asked him.

"To where?" John asked her back.

"The hotel."

"You think she's there?" John asked against hope.

"You got a better place to start...I'm all ears," Azile told him.

"Your ears are actually quite small," he told her as he looked at the side of her head.

"What?" she asked.

"And she called me the stoner."

"It's an expression. John." I tried to head off the next five minutes of explanations.

"It's a stupid one," he mumbled.

"Do you know your way around Philly?" I asked Azile.

"Do you?" she shot back.

"You're the truck driver." I said it as if that meant she should know the entire United States.

"I'm sorry, I'm just a little on edge. Eliza has me wound up," she explained.

"That's fine, I've known her for a lot less time and she has me in knots. John gave me the address. Twenty-one North Juniper Street."

She gave me the look that it was still a long shot. I sympathized, I did, but we were still going to give it a go.

"Check the glove box, Horatio had an Atlas," Azile said, pointing to the dash. Not sure if I could have missed it even if I looked through John's eyes. d.a.m.n thing was the size of an overhead compartment on an airplane-and not one of those little shuttle crafts either.

Traffic got thicker the closer we got to downtown, but like nearly everywhere else, the virus had hit so suddenly and with such force that most folks were caught completely off-guard. A couple of times, the truck bounced as Azile had to push her way through a particularly nasty snarl and the resulting noise would invariably bring a zombie or two to check out the noise.

"I wonder how many sleepers are in the city?" Azile asked, looking up at some of the huge skysc.r.a.pers I shuddered thinking about them. "You've run into them, too?"

"Bathroom break." She blushed. "Found a gas station, walked in and I saw a big ma.s.s of them. I figured they had been killed and stacked. Didn't think too much about it...I mean, the stink was horrendous, but I had to go so bad even that didn't matter at the moment. Felt a little bad for the next pa.s.ser-by when I realized the water didn't flush when I was done. That was the least of my problems, though, I heard stuff going on in the next room...figured it was rats. I'm not a fan of rats, but they don't scare me, so I peeked my head in and I saw zombie after zombie peeling itself away from that congealed ma.s.s of whatever it was."

"They are creating some sort of secretion that keeps them safe while they are in hibernation. I would imagine it also has some nutrients involved," John said, gla.s.sy eyed.

"I don't know how he does it," I said aloud to Azile's question before she could voice it. I pulled out the atlas and first found Pennsylvania and then checked out the Philadelphia insert. "It looks like we're about three or so miles away," I said as I got my orientation within the city. "You've got a left coming up."

"Mike, I don't really like this," Azile said as she was swiveling her head back and forth.

And I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I wasn't a fan of the city either-and not just because they were Phillies AND Eagles fans here and in its heyday the city had been anything BUT the city of brotherly love. Philadelphians couldn't stand outsiders...or themselves for that matter. It was claustrophobic; the streets were getting smaller and narrower the closer to the center we got. It was a shortcoming of all major cities on the eastern seaboard, they had been settled at a time when horses and carts dominated and those paths were made from the natural game trails of the deer and Indians before them. They were never built with the thought of a semi driving around.

"It does feel like it's closing in," I said as I put the muzzle of the gun on the frame of the truck door.

She looked over and nodded, her eyes big, she looked a lot like the scared kid that she was. "We could get in a lot of trouble real quickly, and with the noise this rig makes, I think that will happen sooner rather than later." Almost on cue, air released from the drums letting out a large squelching sound.

Then it began, zombies just started to pour into the street. One moment the intersection ahead of us had an overturned cab and a burned minivan, and the next it was filling rapidly with running zombies that were coming out of the buildings on both sides.

"Shoot them, Mike," Azile said with an edge to her voice. The truck was slowing down.

"I can't really shoot it straight ahead unless I take out the windshield."

"Don't do that!" she shouted as if I were truly contemplating it-although I kind of was. "Stick it out the window!"

"I won't be able to hold it steady enough. It's a machinegun and it's got a ton of kick."

"Would the M-16 have been a better choice now?" she asked sarcastically.

"Do all women get together in a big annual rally and figure out how they can bust our b.a.l.l.s better?" I asked as I pulled the muzzle in and quickly rolled the windows up before our guests arrived.

"Oh this is bad," John said as he looked like he finally realized what was happening. "Is there a parade? This is really going to delay us getting to Stephanie's hotel."

If we can get there at all, buddy, I thought.

"A f.u.c.king parade, are you kidding me?" Azile said as the first zombie slammed into the truck's grille.

"See any floats?" John asked as he craned his head around.

"Not one of those kinds of parades, John," I told him as I was trying to figure out how to best use my heavy paperweight.

"Must be a demonstration, they look kind of p.i.s.sed. They mad about Viet Nam?" he asked me solemnly.

"That's probably it," I told him.

"Why do you coddle him like that?" Azile asked hotly. "He needs to know what's going on or he's going to get us killed!"

"Hey, John, I'm going to talk about you as if you're not here, you okay with that?" I asked as I put my hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. He nodded in reply. "On some level he knows exactly what's going on," I said, looking up from John to Azile while I left my hand on John's shoulder. "This is his way of dealing with it. Who am I to tell him it's wrong? h.e.l.l, I wish I were with him, his is an infinitely better world. And this man that 'will get us killed' like you said, has saved my life twice!" I accidently on purpose left out the part about me having to rescue him because he thought a couple of zombies were line jumpers for Grateful Dead concert tickets, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "This is also the same guy who figured out how to block out Eliza's mind transmissions."

"Fine," issued forth reluctantly from Azile's mouth, but it was not difficult to see that she was not happy about it.

John was reaching over me heading for the door.

"Where you going, buddy?" I asked him.

"Philly cheese steak, I'm starving."

"Yeah I'm hungry, too, but I'm not thinking this is the best time."

"No, no, it's the best time. All the street cart vendors come out for the parades."

"See!" Azile said, throwing her hands up in the air.

"What's your solution, Azile? Are you tough enough on the inside to sacrifice him?" I shot back.

"If he ever puts my life in danger I'll-"

"Stop!" I told her. "Don't say something you'll regret or force me into a decision I don't want to make."

She turned to face forward; the set of her jaw told me she was straining to hold back a litany of words best left out of this journal.

The truck was starting to jostle around as an increasing number of zombies made our acquaintance and still more were coming. I know it's wrong, I'm not so far removed from reality to know my thoughts aren't politically correct, but the image I got of all those zombies around the truck was of those late night commercials that beg for money. You know the ones where the Red Cross truck pulls up into the village and the people all run to the truck for their allotment of food? Unfortunately, in this case, we were the food.

"Can you drive forward?" I asked Azile.

"This is a truck not a tank," she replied as we looked over the expanding sea of dead.

"You guys need to find something to wad up and stick in your ears."

"Fireworks?" John asked. I thought I might have caught a glint of fear in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a stoned countenance.

"Close enough," I told him as I pulled back the charging mechanism.