Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

His head rested against the table leg and he looked back and saw blood dripping down the wood. That did bother him, though. He was resting against a disgusting amount of his niece’s boyfriend’s blood. He leaned forward and got to his feet.

  He walked over toward me and he and Frank lifted me up and off the hook. When my feet hit the ground, I wanted to fall over, but they held me up until I regained my strength to walk.

  “What’re you doing here? How did you know we were here?” I asked Frank.

  “I didn’t. Reggie and I were walking and I heard his screams.” He pointed to Zach.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “Thank you.” I was going to hug him but realized my arms were still tied.

  “Let me get something,” Zach said. “Thank you, Frank.” He patted Frank on the shoulder and walked over to find some scissors to cut my hands free. His hands were still tied together, too. He managed much better than I had.

  He handed the scissors over to Frank and soon his hands were free, too.

  “Where is Reggie?” I panicked.

  “It’s okay. He’s fine. He is hiding out in the brush.”

  “There may be more of them,” Zach said. “We should get going. Go get Reggie and we’ll go.”

  “They’re not coming with us, Zach,” I reminded him. “But thank you for coming back. Looks like God heard my quick prayers.”

  “Jesus.” Zach rolled his eyes.

  “If it is alright with you guys, we’ll be coming back with you,” Frank said with a smile. “I was so stuck on doing what was best for Reggie that I never thought to ask what he wanted. He feels safe with you guys. He wants us to stay.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

  “There is more good news,” Frank said.

  “What’s that?” Zach asked.

  “As I was walking up on the shed, I saw they have a couple of cars out back. And a lot of gas cans off to the side. Full gas cans.”

  “I’m very glad you came back,” I said to him. “You alright?” I asked Zach. I was expecting him to be shaken and upset after seeing what happened to Bryce.

  “Yeah, let’s get a move on. Go get Reggie,” he said. He was the first one to walk out of the shed.

  He never even looked back to Bryce or gave us any indication that he was thinking about him. Even though he did it all the time, it always surprised me when he showed no emotion. He was robotic. He was a machine.

  19

  Jack Scoville

  T he two houses that we were split up into and told would be our new homes were right across the street from each other. While I lived in one house with Haylea and Heather, and I use the word lived very loosely, I was over at Emily’s house just as often it seemed like. I ran back and forth like a messenger but never had any messages to give.

  I walked through the front door of my supposed home and had one foot on the stairs to go up and relax before I heard a noise in the kitchen. I wasn’t in survival mode anymore. Back in WTIX or before we got to 7-1, if I heard a noise I would be put on full alert and get ready to attack whatever it was.

  This place was already making me soft. I easily assumed that it was Heather or Haylea in the kitchen. I didn’t want to become soft. I didn’t want that killer instinct and that survival mode to just disappear. We needed it. We were going to need to stay the way the world had shaped us or else we’d die. Living inside the walls of a cookie cutter existence was going to get us killed.

  I thought for a moment about going up, but instead, I moved toward the kitchen to see who it was. The short walk from the stairs to the kitchen was down a small hallway with walls covered in art. I guess they couldn’t have put pictures on the walls with people framed inside, it would have been weird to live in a house with other people on the walls. So, instead, they put art up. Flowers, nature scenes, parks, and random paint splatters covered the walls of my new…home.

  Haylea was in the kitchen making a sandwich. Some of us were feeling too at home already. Heather and Kylie were acting like this was going to be our homes for the rest of our lives. They acted like we hadn’t just spent weeks stranded in the middle of nowhere fighting for our lives.

  Haylea wasn’t fully there, yet, but she was getting close. I could see that she still had some reservations about District 7-1 and Glen and the rest of the people inside these walls. Without Kurt, I was afraid she was going to give up and become comfortable sitting around and living out a fantasy life in a fake world.

  “Hey,” I said to her calmly so I wouldn’t startle her.

  “Hey, yourself,” she said. “You hungry?” I shrugged my shoulders. “When is the last time you ate?” When I didn’t respond she finished, “Sit down. Eat something.”

  I did what she said, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. She wasn’t wrong, though. It had been a while since I last ate and even when I did eat, it was small portions as if I was still focusing on rationing our food forgetting I lived inside an unexplainable world that now had endless resources.

  “You doing okay?” I asked her. She nodded and placed a turkey sandwich on a paper towel in front of me. She asked me if I wanted milk and I laughed. I wasn’t a third grader. “No, I’m okay.”

  I watched her turn back around to the sandwich fixings and continue making her own sandwich. She lathered the bread with too much mayo, dropped on a couple of slices of cheese, and finished with turkey and tomato. She turned back to me and bite off a huge chunk of sandwich and smiled through her chewing.

  “Are you okay? You didn’t answer me.”

  She nodded. She took another bite before she finished chewing her previous enormous bite.

  “My God.”

  “What?” she asked with a full mouth.

  “You’re disgusting,” I said with a smirk. She rolled her eyes and then continued to eat the rest of her sandwich. She didn’t say anything. She never did answer my question, but I wasn’t going to ask her a third time. She heard me the first two.

  I looked down at the sandwich that she had so kindly made for me and didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t like tomato. I gently lifted it up from both sides as if I wasn’t careful and everything would fall out of it.

  I brought it to my lips and before biting, I took a long whiff of it. The tomatoes took up most of the scent, but I was going to power through it and just eat it. Eating was fuel and it had been ever since the first straggler attacked. It had been a long time since I was able to worry about what I did or didn’t like.

  I took a small bite, small compared to the size of bites Haylea was engulfing on the other side of the kitchen. I started to chew and looked down at the inside of the sandwich. There was, again, too much mayo, and cheese, and turkey, and tomato. It was a simple sandwich but a thing of beauty. Something that didn’t fit into the world we’d grown accustomed too anymore.

  I swallowed what was in my mouth a few chomps too early and felt a rock slide down my throat. I couldn’t take it anymore, though. I clutched the rest of the sandwich in my right hand and threw it against the wall with perfect pitcher form.

  It was either the throw or the yawp I let out when throwing it that got Haylea’s attention. She wasn’t startled or didn’t say anything to me. She just stared at me and waited for me to take a moment. I paced in a circle, collected my thoughts, and then leaned on the counter that she herself was leaning on.

  “This is ridiculous, Haylea,” I said. She still waited until I gave her something concrete. “We can’t keep doing this. We can’t stay here.”

  “Jack, not this again.”

  “Haylea, something about this place isn’t right. These people are lying to us. They are keeping us here whether we believe it or not. Staying here isn’t our choice. We have no choice.”

  “Based on what? Where are you coming up with this make-believe story?”

  “Based on what? Based on what they did to us! They shot at us. They killed some of us and now we’re living next door to them and sleeping in their bed and eating their
food.”

  “So, what do you want, Jack? What do you want to do? What should we do? Leave?”

  “Yes. We need to leave before something worse happens.”

  “Like what? You think they’re going to kill us in our sleep or blow up our house when we’re all bundled up inside on Movie Night?”

  “I don’t know, Haylea. I didn’t trust them when we first got here and look what happened.”

  “And Glen got rid of that guy. He’s locked up.”

  “And who the fuck is Glen?”

  “What?” Haylea had a cup of coffee off to the side. She grabbed it and sipped from it. She put it in the microwave and warmed it up.

  “Who is this Glen guy? Why is he leading them? Why is he in charge? Why aren’t we finding this shit out? Let’s not even bring attention to the fact that this whole fucking town couldn’t have sprouted up overnight.”

  “There are a lot of people here. They could have all pitched in and helped build this place.”

  “The walls, the security, the houses, the supplies, the random hierarchy of authority? All overnight? It isn’t possible, Haylea. We need to start asking questions.”

  “Well, which is it, Jack? Ask questions or leave?” She took the coffee back out and by her expression, it was warmed to her liking.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I looked at the countertops and couldn’t believe how nice the granite was. It reminded me of the old countertops in my apartment. I missed that apartment.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. I took a deep breath. “I know how badly you want to stick around and wait for Kurt. Believe me, Haylea, I want him to be alive, I really do. I just don’t know how long we can wait.”

  “We don’t have to wait long,” she said. “I am, though. I’m going to wait as long as it takes. Until he is back or until I know…”

  “Right,” I interrupted. She didn’t need to finish that thought.

  The front door opened at the same time Emily was knocking on it. We sure were comfortable walking through each other’s front doors. I wasn’t complaining, though. I was doing it, too.

  “Hey, guys. Is it alright?” I waved her over and smiled at Haylea. “What are you guys talking about?”

  Haylea looked at me. Our eyes locked for a minute long enough as if we both gave the okay to allow Emily into our conversation. The truth was that I wasn’t going to keep her out of it by any means, but I needed to know Haylea felt comfortable bringing her in.

  “Jack wants to leave,” Haylea said coldly.

  “Hey,” I said to her. “That’s not it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emily asked him.

  “I don’t want to just leave. I just want us to talk about it.”

  “Talk about what?” Haylea asked with her eyebrows high on her forehead.

  “I want to…”

  “You want to talk about…” Haylea egged.

  “I think we need to discuss the possibility of…”

  “Of what?” Emily asked.

  “Of leaving,” I finally said.

  “Why? What’s going on?” Emily asked. Haylea smiled and pulled out a kitchen table chair and sat down.

  “I just don’t feel comfortable here. What the hell is here? What is this place? I just feel like we need to be asking the right questions. Fuck, I’d settle for us asking the wrong questions, but nobody is. Nobody is asking any damn questions and we are living in a town that sprouted up overnight and nobody seems to give a damn how that is possible.”

  “Relax, babe,” Emily said. She put her hands on mine and the moment we were lost in each other’s touch was brief.

  “Babe,” Haylea said from her chair.

  “Oh, be a grownup,” I teased her. She smiled. It wasn’t something we were going to go public with, Emily and I, but it was also not something we were going to keep hidden. It was going to be a natural relationship and those that didn’t like it…too damn bad. I could see Haylea was going to be just fine with it.

  “Speaking of being a grownup,” Emily said. She let go of my hand and walked around me. “I owe you an apology for what I said yesterday.”

  “Emily.”

  “No, I owe you that. I am so sorry for what I said to you about Kurt.”

  “It’s okay, Emily.” Haylea stood up and the two of them embraced in an apologetic hug. “I’m sorry for what I said to you, too. It doesn’t matter what is going on. It wasn’t my place to get in the middle of that.”

  “Thank you, but you were right. It is never easy for a mother to hear somebody say something is wrong with your kid, but you were right. I’m worried about her.”

  “It’s okay. You’ll figure it out. We’ll help any way that we can. Elyse is going to be fine.”

  There was another knock on the door and I half expected the thing to just open up and another intrusive friend of ours to burst into the kitchen and get involved in our problems. I couldn’t believe I just said friend. These people were my friends now.

  Nobody came through. Instead, there was another knock and a patient person calling from the other side of the door. I shrugged my shoulders and walked to answer it. I could hear Emily and Haylea’s footsteps not too far behind.

  The devil you don’t know being worse than the devil you do know is an accurate phrase. But when I opened the door to see Scott standing there, I would have much rather been dealing with a devil I didn’t know.

  “Hey, Jack,” he said confidently as if I wouldn’t have been in my rights to just deck him right then and there.

  “What do you want, Scott?” He was in a pair of dress slacks and a stupid shirt with his name on it. “Why are you wearing that stupid outfit?”

  “Well,” he said.

  “Actually, I don’t care. What do you want?” I asked.

  “I need to see Heather.”

  “Why?”

  “It is sort of official business, so if I could just speak with her.”

  “Official business? Get the fuck out of here, Scott. I’m not doing this with you.” I stepped out onto the front porch and he took a few steps away from me.

  “Come on, man. I need to see her. Just go get her.”

  “No,” I said.

  “What’s going on?” Heather asked. She had come down the stairs and snooped in on the conversation without any of us knowing.

  “Nothing, Heather. Go on back upstairs,” Emily said.

  “Heather!” called Scott. “Glen sent me. He’d like to have lunch with you.”

  I reached out to shut him up, but it was too late. She’d heard the message and was already over the moon.

  “Really?” She was glowing.

  “Really. Are you free for lunch?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Just give me ten minutes to change.”

  “Of course. Take your time.”

  I looked at Scott and it didn’t care what uniforms he was wearing or what place we were living in, the smug look on his face was never going to change. Before he could say another word, I closed the door on him.

  “Heather, what are you doing?” Emily asked. I cautiously stepped to them, but I wasn’t going to get into what was undeniably going to break out into a fight.

  “What? Glen was really nice? Plus, he is the boss of the place, right?” She raised and lowered her eyebrows several times.

  “What about Nick?” Emily asked trying to sound comforting but came off as anything but.

  “Nick? Fuck you, Emily,” Heather responded. She walked up two stairs back to her room before turning to me and saying, “What about Sam?”

  She shot Emily one last look before sprinting up the stairs like an angry child.

  Damn, that hurt.

  20

  Kurt Elkins

  W e stopped the car about half a mile from the entrance. The sun was at its highest point and the road we were on was a straight shot. There was nowhere to hide. By this point, the guards at the gate had already seen us and were waiting for us. There was a possibility they had already called
for backup.

  It wasn’t the same gate we’d pulled up in the first night in the bus, but I still had the same feeling of dread in my gut. Staring down the long road, filled with potholes and all, and looking at the gate put a pit in my stomach. I thought about Nick. I could still hear the crack of every bullet puncturing the side of the bus. I could still hear that fatal shot to Nick.

  I wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” Frank asked from the backseat.

  “We don’t have any other choice,” I said to him.

  I sat in the driver’s seat and Zach sat next to me. We both stared forward at the gate as if we were waiting for it to magically get closer. Really, we were just eyeing it up. We were measuring the distance and the area around us until we were ready to go.

  “We talk to them, we tell them who we are and who we are here to see.”

  “And hopefully they don’t shoot us in the faces,” Zach interrupted.

  “Hey,” Frank said. He smacked Zach on the shoulder. Luckily, Reggie was asleep, but Frank never was too cautious with the things he heard.

  “Hopefully,” I said, though. Zach had a point. “Well, let’s go.”

  I turned the car off and opened my door.

  “What are you doing?” Zach asked. “You’re not driving up there?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Why not?” Frank asked him.

  I almost closed my door to finish the conversation, but I didn’t want to give the guards at the gate any reason to doubt us. What if they saw my door open, and then immediately saw it close? They might have thought we were trying to pull something on them. That is the last thing I need them thinking.

  “I don’t want to give these people any reason to think we are dangerous. They don’t know what we have in this car, what weapons we might have. So, we walk up to them. We show them that we mean no harm and that we are unarmed.”

  “I’m not leaving my gun in this car, Kurt,” Zach said.

  “I’m not either,” I said. “But I’m not going to hide it that we have them, either.”

  I stepped out of the car and leaned my seat forward so the others could get out from the back. Zach stepped out of the car slowly and didn’t take his eyes away from what lied ahead. I leaned forward to help Frank.