Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

  “Uh, Ryan. He had to go help, but he said we needed to stay here.”

  “I knew it,” Jack said. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “They’re coming after us. They want to get us all in the same place and they’re going to attack us like they did before.” Jack ran over to the windows and started looking for something to happen outside. The alarm was deafening.

  “Jack, stop!” Emily said.

  “No. That’s not true!” Haylea uttered.

  I sat off to the side wondering why he thought that. These people were good. They treated me with respect, gave me a good job, and believed I could be a helpful addition to the security team. Is that crazy? Was I really a good fit for the security team? Or was it all a plan to drop my guard?

  Was Jack right? Glen didn’t give me a radio or a gun or any kind of equipment or tools the other security members had. Were they just messing with me? I think Jack was right. They were just trying to get us all into one area so they could kill us.

  “I’m not waiting around to find out.” Jack darted past us and ran to the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Emily asked.

  “Stay right here. I’m going to get my gun. Something is coming.”

  Jack opened the door and the sound from the alarm blasted in the open space even louder. He slammed it closed and I could see him sprinting across the street to the other house. I stood there and waited patiently with the others.

  I didn’t move a muscle or say a word. I wasn’t sure what to think. Even if I had an opinion to share, I was not with the right crowd to share it.

  24

  Kurt Elkins

  I t felt like it was just yesterday we were running through the woods from the District 7-1 security army. Actually, it was just yesterday. Well, two days ago, but still. And this time we were running away from a few of them, but we were actually running right toward the rest of them. We were sprinting toward the town and the rest of the people in uniform that probably outnumbered us 50-4.

  I ran side by side with Zach. He was a few steps ahead of me because I kept turning around to make sure Frank and Reggie were still with me. Frank needed a break from carrying him so they were moving slower than us. They were moving slower than I would have liked.

  “You have royally screwed us here, Zach,” I said.

  When I spoke, we all stopped. It was as if words, any words, were the signal to stop running, but really, I just stopped because Zach stopped and Frank and Reggie stopped because we stopped.

  “What?” Zach kept his eyes looking ahead of us.

  “I said you screwed us. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “What were you thinking? What are you doing trusting these people? That guy was for backup.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” I said. I waved him off and started sucking in air.

  “They were going to kill us. He was calling the rest of the army!”

  “If they wanted to kill us, they would have killed us already,” Frank spoke up. “They had assault rifles. All three of them had machine guns. If they wanted us dead, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

  “Dad,” Reggie said softly.

  “What is it?” Frank bent over to his level.

  “We’re here.” He pointed off to the side and there was a clearing in the woods where we could see the town.

  “Shit. Get down,” I said.

  We all hunched down and huddled together. The streets looked empty except for a few guards running and driving by. The siren must have been a sign to get into their houses.

  “Right there,” Zach said. He pointed off to the right.

  “What?”

  “Look.” We looked over at a small building off to the side. “That is a jail.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I know what a jail looks like. If they’re alive, I’m sure they’re keeping them in those cells.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. We stared at each other for a minute. I think he knew that I didn’t want to play any more games or for him to go rogue anymore.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Let’s go. Stay low.”

  We stayed low but picked up the pace. We moved passed the bushes, the leaves, and the trees and came out of the woods into the clearing. We stayed close together and moved as one unit until we made it to the jailhouse. We pressed ourselves up against the wall.

  “One of two things is going to happen,” Zach said. We tried to stay quiet but had to speak over the never-ending siren.

  “Both bad, right?” I asked.

  “Well.” He nodded. “I’m guessing this place is going to be empty. With the siren going off, I’m sure everyone in the military unit was sent to some sort of battle station.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “Or, because our people may be in here and they know we’d check here, the place is going to be overrun with guards and we’re dead.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No. And if this place is empty, it probably means that our people aren’t even in here.”

  “So, both situations are bad.”

  “Yeah.” Zach shrugged his shoulders. “Shall we?”

  We walked around to the front of the building and snuck in when nobody was around. It was not a big place. We walked right through the front doors and already had run into a soldier.

  Zach didn’t both to pull his gun. Perhaps he was listening to me and wasn’t going to kill anybody else. Or he may have just realized he didn’t need a gun. He stretched out both of his arms and had his hands on the guard before the guard even saw us. Zach was able to turn the guy’s body and wrap his arm under the guard’s chin.

  He delivered two strong blows with his forearm to the guard’s chest. He punched him once in the kidney and then squeezed until the guard fell unconsciously to the ground.

  “Look around. Be careful,” Zach said.

  There was a small room off to the side. A little kitchen that I popped my head into, but there was nowhere to go inside of it. There was nobody in it. I watched Zach look around the front office, but again, there wasn’t anywhere to go. There was only one long hallway off to the side so we took that. Frank and Reggie stayed back in the office to be lookouts.

  In the back of the hall was the holding cells. There were two of them across from each other, but only one was occupied. It was occupied by Darren Kendrick.

  He was lying on the cot and barely noticed we were in the room. The siren was drowning out the sounds of our footsteps. He must have sensed he wasn’t alone and tilted his chin down to look at us. When he saw us, he leaned up slowly. He wasn’t panicked or scared to see us standing there. He was actually quite calm.

  “They’re not here,” Zach said.

  “No. They’re not.” I stared at Kendrick. I was looking into the eyes of Nick’s murderer. The man that shot up our bus. Kendrick was the reason I wasn’t with my fiancé.

  “Kurt. Come on,” Zach said to me. He pushed me in the back. “Don’t break your own rule.”

  “You saying you don’t want to kill this guy after what he did to us?” Seeing Kendrick was like flipping a light switch on in me. I had no intention of hurting anyone. I just wanted to find my family and friends and then get out of here, but once I saw him, a rage was ignited.

  “Kurt. Kurt, I’ve been doing this a very long time. Trust me. Killing him is the easy way out.” Zach meant what he was saying. I could feel that. I looked deep into his eyes. “Let him rot.”

  I nodded. I wanted to leave, but instead, I walked closer to the cell and leaned in so that Kendrick could hear me.

  “I swear to God if I don’t find her, I’m coming back here and I’m going to kill you.”

  He smiled. The son of a bitch smiled at me.

  “Open the door,” Kendrick said. “Come on.” He egged me on. He wanted to settle things right then.

  “If I don’t find her,” I said.

  I left it at that and le
ft the cell before he, or my own mind, convinced me to open the door and rip his heart out.

  “Zach. Kurt,” Frank said as we came back out to the front office. “He’s waking up.”

  I was a step or two ahead of Zach, but when Frank said that he turned on the boosters and got to the guard just as he was opening his eyes. Zach grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close.

  “Where are they?” Zach asked.

  “What?”

  “Hey!” Zach smacked him in the face. “Where the hell are they?”

  “Who!”

  “Look at me.” Zach waited until the guard’s eyes focused on him. “Do we look familiar? We were on the bus. Where are our people?”

  “They’re staying in one of the houses. Two of them.”

  “Where? What houses?” I asked.

  “Where are they!?” Zach yelled.

  “21 and 22,” he said.

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

  “Where are they?!” Zack was almost louder than the siren going off.

  “There! Look!” The guard pointed to a map on the wall.

  I walked over and looked at it. All of the buildings were numbered, but I had no idea what I was looking at.

  “Get up. You’re taking us there,” Zach told the guard.

  He pulled him to his wobbly feet and pushed him to the front door. We looked out at the cars and jeep in front of the jail. The guard told us the jeep keys were on the desk. I picked them up and the five of us quickly piled into the jeep and headed off to find the rest of our family.

  25

  Haylea Meyers

  I looked out the window and waited. There was nobody coming. Jack was gone and I was stuck in the house with no answers. Emily paced around the kitchen talking about Jack and Elyse and was beginning to freak out. Heather was beyond terrified. She was crying and would occasionally cry out something like “why aren’t they doing anything” but I didn’t know who or what she meant.

  I watched Scott sitting at the kitchen table tapping his fingers down. He was in deep thought. I could see his eyes moving and his lips were in the middle of a silent conversation. I looked him up and down. He was wearing a uniform that Jack had asked about earlier.

  “Scott.” I walked toward the back of the house to him. “What is that uniform?”

  “What? Now? You want to talk about this now?”

  “Yes, I do. What is it?”

  “Glen,” he started. Heather looked over at the mention of his name. “Glen offered me a job on the security team.”

  “You’re a member of the damn army they have outside?”

  “Yeah. Kinda crazy, huh?”

  “It’s nuts.”

  “Clearly they have no idea who you really are,” Emily said from the side.

  “Actually, they do.” He smiled but wiped it away pretty quickly. “I told Glen everything.”

  “And he still offered you the job? To be security? To protect people?”

  “Yeah, he did,” Scott spoke proudly.

  “Well, he’s a fucking idiot,” Emily said.

  “Shut the hell up, Emily!” Heather jumped to her feet. “You know nothing about him!”

  “I know enough. Now.” Emily shook her head in disbelief.

  “Oh, please. You think you are so much better than us,” Heather said.

  “Better than him. Yes, I am better than him.” Emily pointed at Scott.

  “Can we not do this right now,” I said. The siren drowned me out.

  “No! Better than all of us! You think you’re so fucking great! Newsflash, Emily, it isn’t all about you! Your own daughter can’t stand you!”

  “Shut up, Heather!” I yelled in Emily’s defense. Heather had no idea what was going on and was about to say something she wouldn’t be able to take back.

  “What? It’s true. We all know it is true. And the only thing you can do about it is cry and run into Jack’s arms!”

  Just like clockwork, the door flew open and Jack ran back into the house. He closed the door behind him. He walked quickly to us and handed me a gun.

  “They’re coming,” Jack said.

  “What?” I looked around the house as if people were already inside.

  “They’re coming. Stay in here and no matter what, do not come outside.”

  I didn’t have time to say anything else. He pushed the gun into my hands and then walked back to the front door. He had another gun tucked behind his shirt and took it out. He looked back to me, or so I thought. He nodded to Emily and then ran out of the house and closed the door behind him.

  The four of us sprinted to the front of the house and looked out the window. A jeep was speeding down the street and pulling up on Jack fast. Without warning, Jack started firing at the jeep. He didn’t try to protect himself. He walked right at the jeep with his arm stretched out and fired with every step. We could hear the gunshots over the siren, but they sounded soft.

  “He’s got a death wish,” Scott said from behind us.

  The jeep stopped. Jack ran out of bullets, but he still kept running toward the jeep. He was about fifteen feet away when he stopped running. He stared at the jeep for a minute and then put his hands on his head. I couldn’t hear over the sirens or from inside the house, but Jack started screaming.

  There was a feeling in my gut that something horrible had just happened. I felt like butterflies were flapping around my stomach but that they were on their last leg. Like they were running out of oxygen. The flaps were slow and weak and then they just stopped.

  Frank and Reggie were in the jeep. They were in the back. They stood up and stepped out of the jeep. Frank started waving over to Jack.

  “It’s them!” I shouted.

  I tossed the gun to Emily and pushed Heather out of the way. I sprinted out of the house and down the steps. I ran as fast as I could down the street and toward them. Jack was walking closer to the jeep and then opened the passenger door. He looked over to me and started shaking his head.

  I slowed down. I was nervous that it was a trap and Jack was telling me to turn around and run away, but he wasn’t.

  Jack reached in and pulled the passenger from the car. Zach jumped out from the back, too and was yelling at the driver. I didn’t know who the driver was. It was one of the guards of District 7-1, but he pulled out a radio and started talking into it.

  Zach sprinted around the side and started helping Jack pull the passenger out carefully. It was Kurt. I smiled and ran faster, but the closer I got the worse I realized it was.

  There were bullet holes in the windshield. Several of them. Jack hit the jeep right on target.

  I leaned over him and Kurt was lying on the ground with two bullet holes in his chest. I fell on top of him and started screaming for him. Jack tried to hold me back as Zach ripped open his shirt and started giving him chest compressions. He was pushing right into the wounds.

  “I didn’t know,” Jack said in my ear as he held me back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  I fought off his hold and pushed Zach back. I dropped my head onto his chest and then held Kurt’s face. I screamed at him to wake up. I yelled at the very top of my voice, but my fiancé was not waking up. He was bleeding profusely and was not conscious.

  The sirens muffled my screams. I could barely hear the screams in my own head. I fell backward into Jack’s arms and must have blacked out. My screams were so loud that the energy it took to make them knocked me unconscious. What I could see what blurry, but the vision of lying next to my dead fiancé was the last thing I remembered.

  26

  Jack Scoville

  21 days later- Day 50

  When the sun is coming up, it is an amazing feeling to sit back and let the newness of the day wash over. To really sit still and know that when the sun rises, there are endless possibilities to excite us, or to bring us joy, or to sadden us. A new day could mean the best day of our life. The sun rising could ruin us. No matter what happened the last time we saw the sun, th
is was going to be a brand-new experience.

  I was already halfway through a warming beer when I saw the first sparks of sunlight. I wasn’t starting the day with a drink, I was just finishing the night with a few. It wasn’t my fault that the night seemed to race by. I was drinking beer in the morning. Who cares?

  I knew several people who cared. They were getting sick of me doing the same thing over and over again. I was sick of them. I was so sick and tired of them. District 7-1 looked the same no matter how many times that damn sun arose on its quiet landscape. The houses were the same, the roads were the same, but the people, the people were different.

  My people were different. They were fitting in. They were getting comfortable. They were working jobs, meeting new people, and living like the world was back together. My world had fallen apart.

  About twenty days ago I shot a man. It wasn’t the first time I’d shot somebody and it wasn’t going to be the last, but this one stuck with me. I’d killed a few people not too long ago. It actually caused some problems in my ranks. Cam, and…I couldn’t remember the other kids. That’s how much it bothered me.

  Kurt was somebody I had grown close to. Were we friends? I wouldn’t say that. We were more like business acquaintances. We worked together. Our job was to survive every day and to keep the people around us safe.

  Actually, we were more like competing businesses more than we were working for the same company. We butted heads, we got into arguments, we stole each other’s’ business. We were in competition every second of the day.

  And through that competition, we developed a pretty strong bond. I would have killed for him. His fiancé was becoming a friend. They were two people I knew I could count on.

  How do I repay him? I shoot him twice in the chest. Twice. In the chest. After a couple of the most grueling days I’m sure he’d been through, he finally made it back to District 7-1, and back to his wife. And I shot him.

  He was recuperating. The people around me sprang into action pretty quickly. Emily did her thing like she’d done so many times before. District 7-1 had better equipment then WTIX ever had. Emily was able to save him before he ever got close to dying.