Tony
They say the first bullet fired is never the last. When the walker in front had its forehead shattered into two, Tony prayed it would be. Alas, his plea trickled imperceptibly into the pastel sky above.
Shots flawed the brief equilibrium. Gravel sparked into the air, scattering Dana in its flinty splinters.
The dogs emerged from behind the house, circling the scene.
'He'll come back… they always do.'
The girl just peered into the black road. It seemed a long while before she replied. 'He won't.' She drew a blade from her belt. A single deep breath was all it took for it to come dripping out of the boys' forehead.
'He won't'.
From behind, the dark, towering figure of Joseph stepped in behind her. A pistol hung loosely in his grip. He held it up, point blank to her crown.
She turned, the boys head in her lap. 'Do it.'
He lowered the gun and swallowed hard.
I could see the plain fear Joseph bore.
Slowly, he dropped the pistol. It was the only sound.
The hands that now hung at his side came together, and he slipped two wedding rings off his finger.
His breath was long, tired. Then he turned and threw them off into oblivion
He watched as life crashed around him.
Tory retreated back into the house, tugging Dana along with her. The girls' legs trailed limply along the street, into the house. Tony walked behind. It felt like he had forgotten how to run. The dogs just padded around him as the bullets slowed. At the doorway, he turned and looked out. Men were already filing up the streets. Ten, fifteen, more. He couldn't tell.
Then the wooden door was shut in front of him. It was far too quiet in the room. Dana stared helplessly through Tory, who shook her violently, gave up, and slid to the floor, back against the lounge.
The window gave view to the encroaching host. Turning the corner.
Smiling at the house, one man signaled to the others.
Tony spun and walked through the room, through the kitchen. He stepped into the small backyard, littered with a child's dusty toys mingled with the corpse of his mother.
He walked out into the centre, where she lay. The dogs licked at her heels.
His legs buckled beneath him, and he found himself kneeling.
'Mum.'
'Tony' he thought he heard her reply.
'I'm frightened mum.'
'So are they.'
'How do you know?'
'Because you're still alive.'
'What do you mean?' he asked.
'The world is dead, my child. All must fear the living. You are alive, Tony. Let them fear you...'
He looked into the cold, dissolving sockets of her eyes. Kissed her on the forehead.
A hand gripped him on the shoulder, tighter than ever he'd felt before. Then a fist came crashing into his temple and he rolled across the grass. The dogs bayed and leapt about.
From the corner of his vision, Tony saw men charging into the yard, five or six at least.
'Let them.' Tony whispered. His hand gripped a ski pole on his back and ripped it out, slicing across the devil's face. The impact half ripped his eye out and left a gash running from scalp to chin. In moments, the second pole was out, and he had whipped the man onto the ground beside his mother. The next took a barb to the throat, before the shaft came tearing down and he collapsed.
A bullet crashed into the fence behind. Everyone stopped moving. A man-mountain stepped into the yard, holding Dana and Tory by the hair at his sides.
The crowd parted for him.
Tony set his jaw sternly and rushed forward. Someone tried to reach out for him, he plunged a needle through their boot.
Squealing in fury he swung his ski poles high, bringing them down on… Nothing. It jarred agonizingly. They laughed. Everyone.
Tony hung his head low, sweat dripping from his slick hair. He twisted, seeing the faces. His hand arced up and cast one of the stakes. It quivered in the brief wind, then crashed through a man's chest.
Tony dove on top of his body and picked a shard of corrugated fencing off the grass, plunging it into the monster's face, again and again and again. It felt like a thousand hands dragged him away. There was no more laughter from his audience… Only fear.
'Those rings aren't yours.' Tony growled as he was plunged down in front of The Mountain.
'What?' He asked, curiously cocking his head to the side.
'The walker you sent us, their mother.' He nodded towards the girls, 'Her fingers were torn and bloody, but where the band would lay was raw to the bone. One ring's bloody, the other remains as gold as the day it slipped on. Where's Joseph?'
The Mountain laughed deep in his chest. Then slowed and look at Tony, intrigued by his hypothesis.
'You know, that's a very interesting notion. That one would, even in such a hell beaten land as this, remain intrigued by such… human provision.'
Tony didn't break his transfixing gaze as his arms were pulled back oppressively behind him.
'Give him the Rabbit.'
A kid took off through the house. Moments later, a car door was kicked open and Joseph was carried in over a shoulder.
Dana screamed when she saw her father, wriggling her head and shoulders, trying to break the hold. Her aggressor twisted his grip on her hair.
Tony was released as Joseph was tossed onto the ground.
'You'll kill him, boy. It's the least he deserves.'
'He's done nothing to you!' Tory screamed.
Joseph pulled himself up into Tony's ear. 'Please boy, do it.'
Tony swallowed and searched the ground for courage.
'I murdered his daughter… in the beginning.' The father coughed and turned to Tory. Tears molded his eyes.
'They were climbing her legs. Clawing at her eyes. So I…I.'
'That's not murder, it's mercy.' Tony whispered back.
'I shot her'
'With what?'
'A pistol'
'Where?' Tony asked.
Joseph turned once more to face Tory. She smiled sadly from the corner of her lips. Then tucked her hand inside her black bomber-jacket.
Click.
Then the smoke and flame erupted. Bullets struck out. Bodies were thrown off their feet and cracked the earth.
The Mountain ruptured her skull with a crunch of his knee. Dana struck back as he forgot her and broke his left kneecap with a fist. He collapsed, all seven-foot, down onto one knee. Tory then split the side of his head with an elbow. Gore flew across Dana.
He was struck by shock, his eyes wide, as Tony helped pull Joseph to his ragged feet. The father lifted the bat beside him and stood hunched in front his captor.
'Murderer.' The Mountain spat.
It was a long time as he watched him. The bat swung slowly back and forth.
Tory fired off shot after shot, until the torn and beaten company was reduced to begging for life.
It was silent as the two men stood paralyzed.
The bat tapped the ground as it fell.
The Mountain dropped his grip on the girls. They scrambled out from beneath him.
The life seemed to come hissing out of his breath.
'Leave now.' Joseph whispered to the remnants of survivors as he turned. Bodies littered the grass. An old man stood up, releasing Tony's dogs.
He nodded, 'Thank you.'
A mother raced forward, holding her murdered son.
'Leave him, Marianne.' She turned and looked back in horror at the aged man.
He waved his hand to come.
She looked from him to the Mountain.
Then kissed her son on the forehead and they all moved out, ambling like stricken vagrants in their frayed and worn-out clothing.
Slowly, the dead would rise.
Joseph turned to the monster behind. In front, two golden wedding rings lay side-by-side, one still wobbling on the ground. Joseph reached down; slipping them on, then kicked the bat. It rolled to The Mountain.
'These are your people. You could not protect them. I only hope you have better luck with yourself.'
The man ground his teeth.
And Tony, Joseph, Tory and Dana loped from the house.
The keys were locked hard in the mangled door of the RV. But soon they left the community behind. The road lead deep into the bands of Ochre, Crimson and the thickening blue of the final lights before the moon gave way to a heavenly body of stars.
Days on the road are long and slow. A constant of getting out, moving broken cars, broken bodies. Hacking at the dead.
The RV was stocked with cans of soup. At first they'd swallowed everything they could, before they started noticing how little they had to last.
Joseph recovered slowly, mostly he lay on the single bed at the back, sleeping and eating.
By night, faces haunted the cabin, some dimly lit by the flicker of the lights in Atlanta. They stalked down the road together, a haunting parade.
Dana skirted the city, and came through into a dark overpass that scurried down into the skyscrapers. She pulled to a stop at the side of the road. Tory was half asleep at the table behind.
She checked the windows, locked those that weren't already. Then latched the door behind her as she climbed to the roof. She had one of her father's clubs as she sat with her legs dangling over the side, waiting till midnight when she swapped with Tory.
Dana stepped out in the morning to find her sister's club on the ground and one legs hanging limply down over the window.
She almost screamed when Tory sat up straight, hair a cobweb of strands. She yawned absurdly wide. 'Oh, hey Dana.'
In reply, she simply walked away, mouth ajar in speechless shock.
Soon, everyone was back in the vehicle and they roared down the road into the tree line.
Joseph cleared his throat at the back of the room. 'Take it easy, there could be plenty of walkers out here on the edge.'
It was eerily quiet for a good half hour, before they crossed over a slope and far ahead a lonely walker stood in the middle of the road.
'Dana…' Tory whispered.
Then she saw, it was holding a pistol by its' side.
'That's no walker.' Joseph stepped in beside Tory, sitting down at the table.
'What do I do?' Dana squealed.
Joseph stared at the pistol in the man's grasp- no; he was little more than a teenager. 'Keep going, he'll move.'
They crept closer; Dana sped up, trying to frighten him.
Tory slid her pistol across the table; Joseph pushed a magazine in and cocked it.
Within 50 meters and still he didn't move. Just staring at Dana with a cold-blooded glare.
25 meters, and he dropped his pistol.
10, he raised his hands.
5 meters, and all hell broke loose.
The window of the door shattered into splinters. It blew towards Dana, arcing up as a bullet shot through the debris.
The boy slammed into the RV, his head whipped against the windshield, sending blood hailing on the glass like a deluge of rain.
By the time he was hit, Dana already had a bullet lodged in her skull. Joseph watched as her body twisted in the seatbelt, her head hanging loosely forward.
Tory leapt into action, taking the steering wheel just as the RV slid right. Pushing in beside Dana she thrust down on the brakes. The whole vehicle lurched forward and halted in mid-movement.
Joseph walked heavily down the three stairs, opened the door and stepped out. It was searing hot in the middle of the road, be he didn't seem to notice, just crouched down, sobbing into his palms.
A girl stepped out of the woodland, a rifle over her shoulder. She sat down, leaning against the pale yellow front of the RV, holding the boy in her arms.
In the cabin, Tory just shook her sister violently. A small, lanky body jumped down from the bunk bed. Somewhere, in the middle of all hell, they'd forgotten Tony. He'd lay there, one of the dogs under his arm. He'd been reading some book about baseball stars of the 20th century. He'd found it in a cupboard.
As he hit the ground, the other two hounds emerged from nowhere in particular.
He looked curiously at Tory shaking her sister, screaming. Then jumped down into the sweltering day. He acknowledged Joseph's crying body, then walked slowly out in front.
The girl held her head low. Hands covered in her friend's blood.
Then the boy looked up, and Tony felt the child's life slipping away.
'He'll come back… they always do.' Tony whispered.
The girl just peered into the black road. It seemed a long while before she replied. 'He won't.' She drew a blade from her belt. A single deep breath was all it took for it to come dripping out of the boys' forehead.
'He won't'.
From behind, the dark, towering figure of Joseph stepped in behind her. A pistol hung loosely in his grip. He held it up, point blank to her crown.
She turned, the boys head in her lap. 'Do it.'
He lowered the gun and swallowed hard.
I could see the plain fear Joseph bore.
Slowly, he dropped the pistol. It was the only sound.
The hands that now hung at his side came together, and he slipped two wedding rings off his finger.
His breath was long, tired. Then he turned and threw them off into oblivion.
He left the woman he once loved far behind in the middle of a dark gravel abyss.
'It is finished, Tory.' Joseph coughed and turned away.
'It's impossible out here. We'll have you with us. We've both seen more death then any should ever have to. What is done is past.' Tory said.
Tony stared hard at the girl. 'No, she won't come.'
'I can't' she whispered.
Everyone stood silently on the road. A brief wind had picked up and the girl's dark hair blew across her face.
Tony, Joseph and Tory trudged inside. The pistol remained in their place.
The girl stood up and dragged her friend to the side. The blood stained RV rattled as the engine moaned.
Tony ran to the rear as the vehicle started its ascent back into anonymity.
Joseph put his hand on Tony's shoulder, and they watched as the girl stared off down the road at them. Then, little more than a dark silhouette in the glaring sun that hovered unforgiving over the metropolis, she took hold of the pistol. And started off down the road, more than a walker, but less than a human…
"...a hero of the game is born not through sheer talent, nor is it purely an attitude. But, rather, a legend is arguably born when they are faced with adversity and show the talent to survive this. Hence, in such a situation the audience breeds his attitude. The player may then breathe off that. Or he can suffocate by it."
From: Baseball Stars of the 20th Century
Richard Reynolds ( T.C, New Jersey, 2003)