Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

  “Holy shit. Another tequila, please.”

  “Sarah.” Ryan stood up from his stool and reached out over the bar to her. “We need to show him. Now.”

  She took a long moment before responding. It was a long moment in which she did not pour me another shot. She didn’t do anything. And I just sat there staring at the bottle across the bar.

  “Are you sure about this?” Sarah asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  They walked me upstairs to Scott’s place. It was the perfect little apartment. I continued to be jealous of his living situation.

  They sat me down and pointed me in the direction of the television. Sarah opened up a far cabinet, and then pulled the baseboard out from the bottom. She reached down and pulled out a small box. Inside the box was a bunch of notes, receipt looking pieces of paper, and then a flash drive at the bottom.

  She closed the box and plugged the flash drive into the side of the TV. After skipping a few videos that all appeared to be home recordings, she stopped at one. She turned the volume up and looked over to us.

  “Make sure you pay attention,” Ryan said. He nodded to her and she pressed play.

  The video started with Glen sitting at his desk. He was leaning forward as he pressed record on the camera he was sitting in front of, my guess was that it was his desktop computer.

  “Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Glen Fuller. It is October 1997. This is the first video which will be a series of videos, tests, and experiments that will be further known as Operation Cure All. I will refer to this from here on out as OCA. Currently, we are in Washington D.C. beginning the first stages of Beta testing. Locations are being scouted and research is being done on the technological advances that are to come. We are still years, maybe decades, away from executing OCA, but as of today, we are fully funded. This is a great achievement. We are fully funded and are officially cleared to move forward. When I sent this video in, know that there is no turning back.”

  The video froze of Glen reaching back toward the camera. Ryan watched me as if I was supposed to have some sort of reaction to what I’d just seen. The problem was I didn’t know what the hell I’d just seen.

  “What the hell was that? What am I watching?” I asked.

  “There’s more. Sarah play the next one,” Ryan said.

  When she skipped forward to the next file, I glanced at the corner of the screen to see that what we’d just watched was only video number eight. We were about to watch number nine. It was nine out of one hundred and thirty-seven videos.

  37

  Haylea Meyers

  K urt was sometimes a man of romance, not all the time, but he did have his moments. He also wasn’t the kind of guy to only pull out all of the stops on Valentine’s Day. He believed in doing romantic things, or kind gestures, every now and then and totally believed in the excuse of ‘just because.’

  When I got out of the shower, he’d surprised me by clearing the house out, cooking a small meal, and popping open a bottle of champagne. When I asked him why he did it all, his response was simple.

  “Just because.”

  We sat down and tried to have a normal conversation, but it wasn’t the easiest of things to do anymore. We’d spent what seemed like forever on the run from stragglers and people who wanted to kill us, that sitting down for a nice dinner was foreign to us. We hadn’t been on a romantic date since our last anniversary the year before.

  The conversation continued to steer back to how he was feeling, or what were we going to do about this place.

  Normal everyday conversations about weather or sports, or gossip from things we saw on Facebook weren’t ever going to happen again.

  “Things might change, though,” I said.

  “You think?”

  “When you’re feeling better and are able to get out of the house more, you’ll see.”

  “You like this place, huh?”

  “I’m still deciding. I think Jack really did a number on me. He keeps talking about leaving and that this place is dangerous.”

  “Do you believe him?” Kurt asked. He sipped from his merlot.

  “No, but that’s the thing. Every time I’ve seen him, it is all he talks about. Emily told me he’s been talking her ears off about that. After a while, even the most ridiculous can become believable if you hear it enough.”

  “Well, put that stuff aside. Trying to forget what Jack is saying, what do you think? About this place, the people. Do you think this is a place we can stay?”

  “I think it is?”

  “Really?” He needed more convincing.

  “Really. We’ve been here for almost a month and the only mishap was the first night with Kendrick and then with…” I stopped. What was the polite way of talking about Jack shooting Kurt?

  “You know,” I finished. “Other than those two nights, things have been calm. They’ve been almost what normal used to feel like.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t we want to live as normal as we could.”

  “It isn’t too boring?” Kurt asked. I could tell that he only somewhat felt that way. He was playing devil’s advocate. He was trying to think of every outcome or scenario and made sure we considered it.

  “Boring is okay. We don’t need to fight for our survival or be on the run from zombies. We don’t need to run around in fear looking for the next bit of crumbs to eat. Yes, this place just being here is weird.”

  “It’s almost unexplainable,” he jumped in.

  “It is. But should we care? It’s here. It’s safe. Who cares how the job gets done as long as it is done, right?”

  Kurt chewed some bread and looked around the kitchen. He glanced over at the TV that was turned off and listened to the soft jazz music we had playing.

  “This isn’t exactly the kind of house I’d buy for myself.”

  “But it is a house,” I said.

  “And the food—”

  “It’s food. It’s good. We didn’t have to catch it or scavenge for it.”

  “You’ve got a rebuttal for everything, don’t you?”

  “I probably do.” I smiled. “And I know you’re really just doing your due diligence when questioning me and that you want to call this place home…right?”

  Kurt smiled at me. He picked up his glass and held it up across the table. I smiled and started to laugh at what was such a normal gesture. A toast. Make them at dinners, parties, celebrations, anniversaries. Toasts were normal, but seeing him make one now after months of chaos, was a perfect sign that we were coming back down to Earth.

  “To home,” he said with a smirk.

  I picked up my glass and we tapped them together gently. I sipped at my chardonnay and watched him drink his. He liked red and I liked white. It was the perfect measurement of a couple, wasn’t it? Opposites attract. If one person liked red wine and the other liked white wine, it was a match made in heaven.

  “Should you even be drinking right now?” I just thought of the crazy amount of medicine he’d been taking.

  “As long as you don’t tell my doctor.”

  “I won’t. But don’t piss her off, Kurt. It’ll be really hard to find another doctor.”

  “Another doctor like her?” He played along.

  “No. It would be hard to find another doctor.”

  We laughed and finished our wine both on the next sip.

  He looked behind me and it made me turn around. When I turned back, he had a smile on his face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This is a great sized kitchen.”

  “Okay…”

  “Do you want to dance?” He reached his hand out to me.

  “Kurt, you can barely move.”

  “Oh, stop. The medicine helped.” He nodded toward the empty wine glass.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “That’s what you want to hear.”

  “Yes, I would love to dance,” I corrected myself.

  He took my hand, but
I was leading. I was to my feet first and helped him to his. He was moving better, even then this morning, but he was still a step slow. I could still see him wince in pain on every other movement.

  He put his hand on my waist and started to guide me slowly to the music. The jazz was at an upbeat tempo, but we slow danced. It had been a while since I felt the romance between us like I was feeling at that moment. Slow dancing was perfect. It was perfect for the moment, but also was the perfect speed for Kurt.

  The said doctor we were joking about came into the house and we could instantly see the embarrassment across her face for interrupting our moment. At least we weren’t kissing or passionately going at it on the kitchen counter.

  “I’m sorry!” she shrieked.

  “Emily, it’s okay,” Kurt said. He didn’t let go of me, though. He kept dancing.

  “No, I’ll come back later,” she said.

  “Emily. Really.” I stepped back from Kurt so that Emily wouldn’t feel awkward. “What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to check bandages again really quick,” she said shyly.

  “Get to it, doc,” Kurt said. He stepped back and leaned on the kitchen counter.

  Emily walked over to him and she smiled at me, again shyly, feeling horrible that she interrupted our moment. Honestly, I was okay with his because if District 7-1 turned out to be our new home, Kurt and I would have a million more moments in our life that she could interrupt. That was a great thought to look forward to.

  Kurt lifted his shirt up and Emily started pulling the tape back. He squinted when she pulled at his skin, but he smiled at me to make sure I knew he was okay.

  “Emily,” I said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  She stopped and turned to me.

  “I’ve been kind of a bitch the last few weeks ever since…”

  “Since my new boyfriend shot your fiancé?”

  Kurt laughed and then stopped from being in pain. Emily shot him a look as if to tell him never to laugh again.

  “Yeah. That. I’ve been kind of rude to you.”

  “Haylea, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. I haven’t talked to Jack and I’ve been cold with you and I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault this happened and it wasn’t even Jack’s fault. He was trying to protect us.”

  “Really, I appreciate your apology, but it’s okay.”

  “It wasn’t the gunshot that has pulled our group apart, it’s been everything that has happened since. You’ve been a great friend and I’m sorry. I think we need to start pulling this group back together.”

  “I think you’re right.” Emily finished with the bandages and pulled Kurt’s shirt back down. “Friends?”

  We hugged and Kurt nodded a blessing of approval to me from behind her. I smiled at Kurt and squeezed Emily hard before letting her go.

  “Well, I will let you two love birds get back to your evening,” she said.

  Heather came into the house and had Glenn following closely behind her. They had just finished with a date of their own, I guessed.

  “Oh, no!” Heather shrieked now.

  “It’s okay,” Kurt repeated mechanically.

  “No, I’m sorry! I thought you’d be done by now.”

  “We’ll get out of your hair,” Glen said.

  “It’s okay,” I said to them all. I said it kindly but hoped they caught the tone that it would be nice if they left.

  “Guys! Guys!” Kurt shouted. “Wait!” He put his hands up and stepped back. “Over the last couple of months, we’ve sort of become a family. Sure, the reasons why we came together are still tough to swallow even after all this time, but nonetheless, we are a family. And there is something I’d like to do to capture this joy that I think we are all feeling here.”

  I looked around the room and everyone was as confused as I was.

  “Glen,” Kurt continued. “Thank you for welcoming us into this community. It seems like it has been forever since we’ve experienced normal, but this place, the people in it, including yourself, have already given us so much. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome, Kurt,” Glen said. I could see the joy he had that Kurt said that.

  “Now, Haylea.” He turned to me.

  “Huh?”

  “It has been a crazy year for us. It was great, it was bad, it was horrible, then got better, and I can’t even pinpoint where we are as a couple right now. Over the last month, it almost felt horrible to even think about us as a couple. Getting our people to survive and taking care of everything seemed to be more important.

  I nodded slowly. I’d been saying that forever.

  “But I’ve recently realized that the love we share is what keeps us going. The only reason I was able to be strong for the people around me was that I had somebody that loved me. I don’t ever want to question anything about us anymore. I never want to doubt what was the most important thing in my life anymore.”

  Kurt stepped closer to me and then lowered himself to one knee. The pain crept across his face, but I was too shocked to attempt to help him. He made it down and then took my hands in his.

  “Haylea Meyers, will you marry me?”

  “Of course, I will!”

  “Okay,” he said. “Will you marry me tomorrow night?”

  I smiled and helped him back up to his feet. I kissed him and wrapped my arms around him so tight it would have hurt him even if he hadn’t been shot.

  “Was that a yes?” he joked.

  We laughed together and the rest of the group behind us started clapping. It was an interesting proposal because I was already wearing the ring. In fact, Kurt had proposed a long time ago, and then I’d thrown the ring in his face not too long ago, and then he gave it back to me.

  But we just set a date. We were going to get married. Again, this place was going to be able to offer us something normal that I never thought I would get.

  Jack shot through the front door and made a beeline right toward us. I hadn’t seen him anything but drunk in the last few weeks, but he looked anything but. He was angry. Seething.

  He split right through and reached his arm back. He punched Glen in the face and dropped him to the floor.

  Behind Jack, Ryan was running into the house and reached out and grabbed Jack and pulled him back.

  I stared at Jack, and then at Kurt. Kurt was concerned, but his injury was hindering him from jumping in and doing anything. Emily looked distraught. She had her hands covering her mouth, and Heather was almost already in tears at what happened to her new boyfriend. Finally, I looked down at our new leader who was lying on the ground. He was breathing, which was a good thing, but the lights were out on the inside.

  38

  Emily Clark

  H olding my hands over my mouth, I could feel the warmth of my breath. It was probably even warmer than usual because my adrenaline was rushing and my heart was beating nervously fast.

  I’d just witnessed the new love of my life smash another man in the face with his fist. It wasn’t just any man, either, it was the guy who had welcomed us in, gave us houses and food, gave us jobs, and had pretty much, without anyone saying it out loud, saved our lives.

  Glen was flattened to the floor and unconscious. Jack stood off to the side holding his fist, but I couldn’t move. He wasn’t the same man he had been only twenty days ago. He was broken and vulnerable and distraught. He was so upset with himself and us that he had become disengaged from the group, but most importantly with me.

  We were so close to building something special. We’d expressed our feelings and were ready to start a romantic relationship. That felt like a rare thing back in WTIX, but it was becoming more of a reality and welcome sight in District 7-1.

  Haylea and Kurt were happy and just newly engaged for what seemed like the fifth time. Heather and Glen had struck up an intriguing relationship. Finally, Jack and I were starting up our relationship, but it came to a screeching halt when Jack accidentally shot Kurt.

  Was that the reason
for the punch?

  Sure, Jack had spent weeks complaining about District 7-1 and constantly warning us about the place. He wanted us to leave. He hated the people inside the community, didn’t trust them, didn’t understand why District 7-1 was there in the first place, and it was killing him.

  He barged into the house and punch the leader of the whole place. Jack had started drinking a lot after shooting Kurt and I guess he had just reached his tipping point. He was angry. He was drunk. He was a fool.

  Jack, confident that his hand wasn’t broken, walked back over to the side of Glen and kicked him hard in the ribs.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  Ryan pulled him back and pushed him away from Glen.

  “Wake him up! Wake his ass up!” Jack shouted.

  “Jack, what are you doing?” Kurt asked.

  There were others shouting, including Heather who was kneeled beside Glen trying to calmly wake him up. She was angry with Jack. I could tell, and knowing the kind of person Heather was, that she would already claim that she was in love with Glen.

  “Keep him back,” I told the guard holding Jack back. I bent over to Glen’s side. “Heather, let me see.” She backed up, but not much. I held Glen’s head in my hands and gently spoke to him until his eyes rolled open.

  “Oh my God,” Heather said. She tried to jump on him, but I kept her back.

  “Relax. Give him space.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Jack said.

  “Jack! Shut the hell up!” Kurt shouted.

  “Kurt, stop! You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jack warned him.

  Haylea and Kurt looked at each other. Haylea and I looked at each other. Kurt and I looked at each other. Nobody knew what Jack was talking about.

  “I’m okay,” Glen said without anybody asking him.

  He leaned up and then with me and Heather’s help, was standing to his feet.

  “Okay, Mr. Scoville.” Glen rubbed the side of his face. A small spot of blood filled his left nostril. “You’ve got my attention.”

  “I knew you were a liar. You son of a bitch, I knew it.”