Zombie Theorem (Book 2): The Siege by James Wallace Read Free Book Online

you would never be man enough to stand up when needed. But you proved me wrong when you were saving those men. On the battlefield, I was seeing a different man than I had met back at the station. You were forged in battle and came out the other side one of us,” Apache finished by kissing my cheek and sitting down next to me. Then the flood started, and I had to put my face in my hands. Since this whole damn thing started, I easily get overwhelmed with emotions.
    “Boss, I watched you go from being a mild man, to a leader, to a man of action. I would be completely comfortable calling you a hero,” Brian threw in his feelings on the matter.
    I was at my end at this point. I never did well with praise. I blurted out, “Enough of this guys. I am doing what I think is right and trying not to let anyone down. I don’t want to be a leader or a hero. I just want to get to Julie and help keep you all alive. Then when all is said and done, maybe help with taking down those Initiative assholes. Whatever happens between now and then is fate.” I sat back and breathed deep trying to calm down.
    Kuppers stood quickly, throwing his MRE onto the ground and pointed his finger at me. “Fuck fate, son! Fate is something you blame your failure on because you didn’t try hard enough. You are a warrior, and we make our own damn fate. You reach down and do what it takes because no deity is going to step in and take care of you. The minute you decided to live, instead of lying down and dying trapped in that goddamn tower, is the day you gave up on fate.” He picked up his MRE packaging and stood there looking down at us. “All of you listen up! Cupcake and Brian have watch tonight for fours hours, then Apache and Doc. Rest of you, police your area and get to your rack. We have a long day of walking in front of us tomorrow.” He turned and walked over to his tent, unzipped it, and climbed in. Vic followed, since they were sharing. No reason for everyone to have their own tonight. Apache stood and stretched her back, then took Angel’s hand, and they went off to bed in their shared tent. That left me and Brian sharing, Doc and Cupcake sharing, so Senshi was lucky and had his own. Except that he stored the extra equipment in with him.
    I climbed into our tent, removed my boots, and slid into my sleeping bag. I lay there, exhausted, but my mind would not stop thinking about what everyone had said. I knew I wasn’t the same guy. I’ve fought that internal fight already. The question that I had was, “If I am not that same guy from a week ago, then who am I?” No matter how much I lay there and thought about that, I could not answer it. Would Julie recognize this man? Could she love who I was becoming? I felt like I was losing a game that I didn’t even know I was playing. Does that make sense? Sleep took forever. It forced me to torture myself for answers I could not find.
    Ever since those vivid dreams of Angel, I had not dreamed again. I woke up being pressed against the outer material of my tent by the Sasquatch himself. I wriggled out of my sleeping bag, grabbed my boots and emerged from the tent into an early pre-dawn day. Vic was awake sitting on the ground with his back against a small boulder overlooking the pond smoking a cigarette. I walked over and smiled down at him. He slid over, giving up some of his rock. I eased myself down and took the offered space for my back. We sat there, passing a cigarette back and forth. No words spoken. We watched the first sign of light creeping over the mountains, igniting the sky into reds and oranges. I felt an ease come over me, the first since all this shit broke. “Thinking about your wife?” I finally broke the silence.
    “Thinking about Julie?” Vic asked back.
    “Touché,” I laughed softly. Then I came back to reality and felt the stress pushing my shoulders down once again as it climbed onto my back like that proverbial bitch of a monkey. “I haven’t seen her in so long Vic.