Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

  “What do you want, Elyse? I’m working. Could you get out of here?”

  “Seriously? That’s how you treat an old friend?”

  “We aren’t friends, Elyse. Come on, seriously. Just go. I’m not doing this right now.”

  “Scott.” She stopped and looked around. She put her finger on the edge of the desk and dragged it around as she walked behind the desk. I got out of the way. She looked at the monitors by the desk and now knew that we weren’t alone.

  “Elyse. Please leave.”

  “That hurts my feelings, Scott.” She gently touched the leather of the chair and pulled it back. She smiled and then helped herself to my chair. “It hurts my feeling that you don’t think we’re friends.

  I couldn’t say anything. She didn’t’ listen. She had a block on her ears and nothing would transmit to her brain. Which may have explained why she wasn’t thinking sane anymore either. She stared at me and then she started to slowly spread her legs.

  “Of course, we’re friends, Scott. You were inside of me.” Her smile felt like knives in my side. “Right?”

  “Elyse!” I shouted. I waited and calmed myself. I couldn’t scream without Zach hearing. “Please leave.” I looked over at the door.

  “Oh. That’s it.”

  “What?”

  “You’re expecting a visitor today?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Is Sarah coming by today? Maybe bringing you some lunch? Maybe bringing some dessert? Or do you already have the dessert for her? Something she can really wrap her lips around?”

  “Elyse, I’m begging you. Please get the fuck out!” I shouted a bit that time.

  “No, Scott. Now until you tell me where we are at with our agreement. Tell me. And then I’ll leave.”

  “Where are we? We are nowhere. You’re out of your mind. I’m not doing anything for you.”

  “I’ve seen Sarah,” she said. She stood up and as she walked around the desk, so did I to the other side. “I haven’t talked to her. Yet. But I have seen her from the other side of the street and have seen you talking to her. She’s very pretty. Seems like a good girl. Are you sure you want her to find out the truth?

  “I’m done. Get out of here.” I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the door. She fought me off before I could get her out.

  “Look at that. I knew you couldn’t resist touching me again. Does it feel good?”

  “Get out,” I repeated.

  She reached out and tried to grab me below the belt, but I jumped back. I grabbed her arm, but again she pushed me back.

  “Tough guy act. I’m okay with the tough guy act. And here is mine. You’ve got one week, Scott. If you don’t do what I’ve asked of you by the end of the week, I’m telling Sarah what you did. Let’s see how that goes over.”

  She exited the building on her own two feet. If it was anyone else, I probably would have thrown them out, but I couldn’t touch her. There was nothing I could do to her. If I touched her, she’d frame me for raping her again. If I yelled at her, somebody would hear it. She had me in the palm of her hands. I was in a lose-lose situation. And there was no way she wasn’t going to win.

  29

  Haylea Meyers

  A ny well-developed security system had layers. That was what made a highly rated security system so great. What happens if the window sensor stops working? What happens if the alarm doesn’t go off? What happens if the motion sensor isn’t activated by movement?

  Whenever aspect of the system was working, nobody ever worried about being robbed or having their home broken into. There was no way to beat a multilayered system. There was no way to get around it.

  District 7-1 was a well-developed, multilayered system. There were fences around the entire perimeter. There were guards patrolling those fences. There were gates on the roads where guards also were stationed. There were guards walking throughout the town and radios kept everybody in contact.

  There was also the Hub. The Hub was where I’d spent the last fifteen days working. I was surveillance. I was the one responsible for keeping an eye on everything going on in the town. I could switch from camera to camera and monitor to monitor. If somebody radioed in that there was a possible breach or disturbance in one of the sections of the community, I could simply push the button to activate that camera and check it out.

  Glen chose me because of my familiarity with television equipment, monitors, cameras, and the switchboard of it all. I’m sure once Kurt was feeling better, he’d ask Kurt to work in the Hub as well. This was Kurt’s expertise right here. I was more used to being in front of the camera, but District 7-1 didn’t really need a reporter.

  I enjoyed working down here. Well, maybe not exactly down in the Hub, but I did enjoy working again. The work we did at WTIX was not exactly work, it was surviving. This was closer to normal.

  We didn’t get paid in money, but it was a job. If I didn’t do it, or somebody else didn’t’ do their job, the District wouldn’t run efficiently. I understood that. We all understood that. Everyone except Jack.

  I was worried that when Kurt was finally able to move around that he would side more with Jack than he would the rest of us. I hoped he would just jump right in and be another cog on the wheel.

  District 7-1 was a good place. I could see that and if Jack left, it would bend us as a group. If Kurt left, I think it would break us.

  The camera rotated through its normal progression of perimeter shots. I had to double take at the top left monitor. I stopped the rotation and clicked back a few shots.

  There was a pack of stragglers approaching one of the fences. There didn’t appear to be too many, not more than four or five, but nobody was patrolling the fence.

  I rolled my chair over to the side table. The Hub wasn’t too big. It was about the size of a small office or a small conference room for a small company.

  The place had ten monitors on the far wall that would rotate through all the cameras. There was a giant switchboard in front of the monitors to control the screens and the cameras.

  The rest of the Hub was filled with cords, old equipment, extra equipment, and a closet off to the side that was locked.

  On the small table with the equipment was the last place I put the radio. Or was it? I couldn’t remember seeing it and it wasn’t on the table, but somebody needed to be made aware of the stragglers.

  I rolled in a circle and the radio was on the floor next to where I was sitting the whole time. I forgot that I put it down next to me.

  I rolled back and picked up the radio. I made sure it was on the right channel, channel 2, and made sure the volume was turned up.

  “This is Hub Officer calling patrol,” I said. I stepped up and walked over to the wall. There was a cheat sheet of what to say and who to say it to.

  “This is patrol,” said the lead guard.

  When the Hub called patrol, the lead guard would answer, and then I, or whoever was in the Hub, would give more details directions and locations, and the lead guard would make sure the information was received.

  It was a horrible strategy that made the lead guard the middle man. If we just cut him out, it would save time communicating with the person or persons needed. Maybe that’ll be something I bring up to Glen at the next meeting. Did we even have meetings?

  “Patrol, there is a possible disturbance in section three. Be advised, hostile dead approaching.” Hostile dead. Zombies. Stragglers. Hostile dead sounded too military-like. It sounded too scientific. Another suggestion going in the suggestion box.

  “Copy that. Section three patrol, do you read?”

  “Copy that, Patrol Lead. Confirming hostile dead. In pursuit. Confirmation, Hub,” said a third guard who would be inspecting the stragglers.

  “Confirmation,” I said. The cheat sheet helped out a lot.

  I headed back over to the monitor and set the radio back down next to the chair where I would forget about it and the person who was going to be relieving me any second would ge
t mad at me. I set it down next to the chair.

  My replacement was walking through the door as I finished that thought. It was Ryan. He was the one who came and spoke to me about Kurt. He usually didn’t work down in the Hub. He was a patrolman. He looked concerned and rattled.

  “Haylea,” he said right after he closed the door.

  “Ryan, what are you doing down here? You never work the Hub.”

  “I switched with a guy. It’s nice to get out of the heat every now and then.”

  “Right.” I looked at him and he seemed nervous about something. “Are you alright?” I asked him.

  “I wanted to talk to you. How’s Kurt?”

  “He’s doing better. Will probably be up moving in a few days. Is everything okay with you? You seem frazzled.”

  “Good. Good. And you’re planning on leaving after that, right?”

  “What? No, we’re not.”

  “Haylea, we need to get out of here.”

  “What?”

  He walked around me over to the monitors and looked at them as if the monitors were watching us and not the other way around.

  “I told all of this to Kurt. I told him this place wasn’t safe and that we needed to get the hell out of here. He didn’t tell you any of this?”

  “No, he hasn’t spoken much since he was shot in the chest. Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

  “I figured he would talk to you. This place is dangerous. It isn’t what you think it is. Jesus, I don’t even think it is what I think it is. We need to get out of here. Anybody that you want from your group, we need to talk to them. We need to get out.”

  “Why, Ryan? This place seems pretty great. What’s your worry?”

  “I don’t know. Kendrick is—”

  “Kendrick,” I interrupted. “Isn’t he in the jail cell? Glen arrested him. There’s nothing more to worry about. Right? You’re not worried about Glen, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. Glen is good. He’s someone we can trust, as far as I know, but…a lot of the guys followed Kendrick pretty blindly. If Kendrick stays in jail much longer, people might not be okay with it.”

  “Okay with it? Look what he did to us. People aren’t going to take his side.”

  “I don’t know, Haylea. I just think maybe this is something we all need to discuss when Kurt is feeling up to it.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss, Ryan.” I made sure I had my things, which was a water bottle and a half-eaten apple. “I think you need to figure out what exactly is bothering you and deal with it. You’re trying to tell me something, but you’re not saying anything. I’m sorry. We’re staying here.”

  “Haylea, come on.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I waved to him and left him alone in the Hub. I realized that he wasn’t looking for a way out of the heat. He switched shifts so that he could get that time alone with me and talk. I wasn’t sure how to react to that. I wanted to believe him, but for the last twenty days, things had been really good.

  I was pretty positive that we weren’t going to be leaving District 7-1. That was home.

  30

  Kurt Elkins

  E verybody knows that the tortoise ended up beating the hare. The moral that patience and efficiency outduel speed and arrogance. No matter what that story taught you, though, I couldn’t beat any hare in a race. At the speed I was moving, I wouldn’t even beat the tortoise.

  It was the first time I’d gotten up out of bed without any assistance. Usually, Emily or Haylea was there to help lift me from the bed and then would walk me to the bathroom or just down the hall and back to get some exercise and work my legs.

  I hadn’t been down the stairs yet. If Emily knew I was doing this, she’d probably put another two bullets in my chest. Haylea…I didn’t even want to think about what she would have done to me.

  After five minutes of sitting up in bed, five minutes walking down the hall and what seemed like ten minutes just to get down the stairs, I was finally in the kitchen.

  Glen was sitting patiently at the kitchen table. He had helped himself to a cup of coffee. I didn’t care. Even if I was offended that he helped himself, could I really be that offended? The man owned everything.

  “My God, Kurt. Should you be doing that?” he asked. He shot from his seat and came over to my side. He didn’t reach out to help me but he stayed close in case I did go down.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just don’t tell Emily or Haylea or else I won’t be so fine.”

  “In the little time I’ve known those two, I think they’d kill the messenger, too in this instance.”

  “You might be right about that.”

  I made it to the counter and pulled the stool out. After looking at it, though, I decided to stay standing for a while longer. I didn’t want to go down just to have to work that hard again to stand up. Plus, maybe Emily and Haylea would forgive me if I said I wanted to get a little exercise.

  “First of all, I want to apologize that I wasn’t able to get here sooner, Kurt. It should be my, well job is the wrong word, but it should be me welcoming you to the community, so I’m sorry. I thought it important you get some rest.”

  “No, I understand. No apology necessary. The fact that this place even exists and I could heal up in a bed instead of on a concrete floor is more than enough.”

  “I am sure that Emily has been taking care of you, but if there is anything you need that she hasn’t been able to find you or whatever the reason, don’t hesitate to let me know. I want to make sure you are fully taken care of. All of your people from WTIX, that is.”

  “What happened to Kendrick?” I asked. He sat back down and took a sip of his coffee.

  “I hope you understand that what happened to your people and all of those that were hurt—”

  “Killed, Glen. Kendrick killed some of my people.”

  “Yes, I know. Kurt, I had nothing to do with that. When I found out about that, I hope you know that I took care of it.”

  “How? How did you take care of it?” I asked again.

  “Kendrick is still under investigation right now.”

  “Under investigation? What the hell does that mean? Where is he?”

  “It’s okay, Kurt. Captain Kendrick is and has been in one of our jail cells for the last month. And until we figure out what we’re going to do with him, that is where he is going to stay. He was, by no means, operating under the order or command of District 7-1 and myself. He went rogue. What he did was indefensible.”

  “So, why the hell is he still here?”

  “Excuse me?” Glen’s cup was touching his lips, but he set it down before taking a sip.

  “Why do you still have him here?”

  “What are you suggesting I do with him, Kurt? He’s locked up. He is nobody’s problem anymore.”

  “He’s still alive. That’s a big fucking problem for me.”

  “So, I should just, what? Kill him?” Glen asked and seemed really unsure of what I was going to answer with even though the answer should have been very expected.

  “Yes. Kill him. He attacked my people, shot up our bus. He killed my friend from point blank range. He is a murderer. Kill him.”

  “He is. But I am not a murderer, Kurt. I will not kill the man.”

  “Then banish him. Get him the hell out of here.”

  “Banishing him means killing him. One man cannot survive out there on his own.”

  “Are you kidding me, man? You want my people to feel comfortable you want to welcome me with open arms yet those open arms are coddling and protecting a God damn murderer.”

  “I will not justify killing another man. No matter what that man has done. That is not the kind of place I have built. I know you had to live outside the laws of morality out there on your own, but we have rebuilt civilization here, Kurt and I will not murder anyone.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I pulled the stool back out and lowered myself slowly.

  “Even civilization had the de
ath penalty, Glen.”

  “Kurt. I will not kill him.”

  “So, he rots in a jail cell?”

  “Until we can come to another arrangement, yes.”

  “Another arrangement? So, until you release him on good behavior? That’s the problem with your system, Glen. It’s just like the old one and the old one fucking collapsed.”

  “The old one collapsed because outsiders came in tried to change the way we did things.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Glen.”

  “I’m making a decision. One that I know this community would stand behind.”

  Haylea came in through the front door and I could see instantly that she had a problem with me being downstairs.

  “What are you doing?” she asked unsurprisingly.

  “I needed to get up,” I said.

  “You walked down the stairs by yourself.” She walked over to me as if I was about to fall.

  “No.” I took a second. “Glen helped me.”

  “That’s right,” he said with no silence to break up.

  “Right,” she said unconvinced.

  “I want to see him, Glen.” I turned back to him. I knew Haylea wasn’t done talking about me being out of bed, but I needed to deal with that later.

  “What? Why?” he asked.

  “See who?” Haylea asked.

  “Kendrick. I need to see Kendrick.”

  “Why? No, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “You can walk me the whole way, I don’t care, but I need to see him.”

  “Kurt, no,” Haylea said. Glen listened.

  “There are a few things I need to get off my chest.”

  Glen spun the coffee mug on the counter. The sound of ceramic on granite was enough to make my ears ring and my brain hurt. He watched both of us with a calmness. Like any confident leader would.

  “Kurt, in a few days, when you’re feeling better—”

  “Let him go,” Haylea interrupted.

  “What’s that?” Glen asked.

  “Really?” I asked her just as shocked as Glen was.

  “Yeah. You should go.”

  “Why are you changing your mind? What’s going on?”