Dead Last (Vol. 1): Dead Last

by Quaranta, Marc

  Dead Last

  Volume 1

  By

  Marc Quaranta

  Copyright © 2019 Marc Quaranta

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 9781799106760

  Table of contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV 97

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  XLVII

  XLVIII

  XLIX

  L

  LI

  LII

  LIII

  LIV

  LV

  LVI

  LVII

  LVIII

  LIX

  LX

  LXI

  LXII

  I

  Jack Scoville, April 18th, 2013. 9:27 a.m.

  T his can't be happening.

  I can't believe that I'm stuck in here. I should have been home or at the office with the rest of them. I had to come here. Of all the places to be stuck, I get stuck in Indiana. Back home in Chicago, no matter where I was, it would be better than this. I'd be stuck with more attractive women, there'd be better food, and people would be more courageous. They'd be smarter. We wouldn't still be stuck. We'd be out of this mess already. I'm sure people in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles are already out of this mess, but we'll never know because we don't have any fucking cell phone reception. Not a single person in this building has any cell phone reception.

  I had to get away from the group. I left them all to argue, huddled around each other like a pack of new born puppies praying for answers. I told them that I was going to see if I could get a signal on the other side of the building, but I just wanted to walk and clear my mind. If I got reception, well, that's just the frosting on the cake.

  I wasn't sure how close I should be getting to the windows. The building was sealed up. The front entrance had three sets of doors you'd have to cross into to get into the building. The very first doors brought you through to a small room that is used for security purposed because the second door needs a keycard to get through. Or the secretary would buzz you in, but...well there is no more secretary. Then there is a lobby and the final door, again needing a keycard, would lead you into the station. To the right there is a small lounging area with tables, refrigerator, microwave, sinks, and everything else kitchen-like. That is where the rest of the group is held up right now.

  I left them there and walked to the west side of the building. There weren't any doors leading to the outside on the west side. The only other door that leads outside was on the very fall east wall. It was a heavy door that had rubber on the sides and bottom to keep any air out, how fucking ironic, right? Behind that door was a garage with a sliding metal door. We were sealed in tighter than an airplane.

  But still, getting close to the windows made me a little nervous, but I wasn't a pussy. I wasn't afraid to touch the window. It was safe. I pressed up to the window with my left shoulder and put my cell up against it. All I wanted was a bar or two of service and I would be able to make a call to my friends or boss or even my damn secretary and she would have me out of here in a second. I bet they would tell me that it was safe to go outside again and that all this had been for nothing.

  Three days. We've been in here for three fucking days with cell service, I might add. Everyone in the building was making calls, talking to family, making sure the people they loved were safe. That's the problem with having loved ones; you no longer worry about yourself. It becomes all about them. Not me.

  We were all told to stay indoors though. There was something in the air that was killing people. No explanation from the Center for Disease Control. Not a single word from the government about what was going on. That is our government. The United States of America's government. Who could blame them, though? They had enough shit to worry about.

  One of the guys in here was told by his brother's wife's friend, or some shit like that, that the President was outside at a charity softball game. Supposedly he didn't make it. That put the Vice President in charge and I don't trust him holding my drink while I go to take a piss, let alone, the whole damn country. It's no surprise that we didn't hear anything else except to stay indoors. Hell, maybe they don't know what's going on.

  Son of a bitch.

  "What do you want?" I said.

  Nothing.

  "Do you need something...buddy?" that was as nice as I was going to fucking get.

  Still he said nothing. It was one of the kids from the stupid field trip. There were four of them I think and I didn't know his name. I didn't know any of their names. Why should I? The second it's safe to leave, I'm out of this place and never calling any of these people, well maybe Haylea for a quick fuck or something if I'm ever back this way, but that's it.

  I don't understand kids. They have this entire building to play their games in and this kid wants to follow me. I'm not his babysitter. I know for a fact he has two of those here, at least. There were two teachers that brought them in. I don't know how old these kids were. Doesn't look like they need a babysitter, but kids are brats. I don't want anything to do with them in my regular life; I sure as hell don't want anything to do with them in this life.

  And just like that he turned and ran down the hall like he was about to piss his pants. Maybe I scared the piss out of him. Fucking kids. I checked my phone again but there was no change. I made sure the volume was on full blast and placed it on the window ledge. If I were going to pick up a signal anywhere in this building, it would be closest to the window so I left it there and waited for it to ring. I walked around the rest of the west side of the building.

  It was the Sales department. I saw a sign on the wall when I was walking back here. It was nothing but cubicles from one end to the other. There were two offices on the walls for the important people, but the rest were cubicles. I walked through it glancing at each person's desk. There were a couple cute girls working at the station, but a lot wouldn't get a double take from me. Most of them were old geezers with a couple young guys thrown it. Poor bastards. When I was their age, I accomplished twice as much and probably got paid a shit load more, too. I will say one thing though; the kid had a pretty nice pen. So, I picked it up and put it in my pocket. He probably didn't deserve it.

  Beep. Beep.

  I knew it. The ring from my phone caught my attention and I quickly moved back toward the window like I had just spotted a bag full of millions of dollars.

  Son of a bitch.

  My battery power was low. It was at less than fifteen percent and these fucking iPhones die quicker than fruit flies. And because I didn't know that I should have brought all of my luggage into the station for a seven day stay, my charger was still safely tucked away in my suitcase that was in the trunk of my car. I looked out the window and I wanted so badly to be sitting in that car. It was more comfortable in there than any of these awful chairs. I
just bought that car not too long ago. It was a beautiful Cadillac CTS. Silver. It was the Coupe model. Two doors because like I said there ain't going to be no kids hopping in the back seat. There was no use for four doors.

  I leaned back onto the window and looked at that car for what seemed like hours, but that is only because time stood still in Indiana.

  No use killing yourself over a phone charger. That was the first thought that came through my mind. The second thought made me sick. I could ask one of them if they have a charger lying around.

  II

  Emily Clark

  I am not sure that I'm going to be able to handle this. Sam isn't going to make an effort to bond with these people, but I think he is wrong. As positive as everyone is trying to stay, I don't know how long we are going to be stuck inside this station. I've got to continue to smile and try to communicate with everyone. I've got to make sure that everyone has a chance to be heard and that if someone wants to speak up, they can. Nobody should be afraid to say something that they are feeling.

  I watched Elyse sitting next to her father. He had his arm around her and her head was pressed against his chest. I haven't seen them that close in years. She was probably ten or eleven the last time she was doing that. Once she became a teenager, it wasn't cool anymore to be held. She wasn't the "daddy's girl" that some teenagers are. She was more like me. She was independent and strong. Those days seem like they were just around the corner, too. Now she's seventeen, graduating from high school in a month, and then heading across the country to Stanford. Sam realized that, too. I think that is why he has been trying to get close to her again. Once she leaves, she may never come back home. Permanently that is. She'll be an adult. A woman. She'll be all on her own.

  Sam puts too much pressure on himself. I think he blames himself for his relationship with Elyse. He was so protective of her and was very strict with rules. It was for her own good, though. Plus, she turned out to be a terrific young lady. But he still blames himself. He'd never tell me that, but I can see it. You don't spend twenty years married to someone without being able to sense how they feel, practically, all the time.

  I grew up in Goodyear, Arizona. It's about fifteen minutes from Phoenix. It was a nice place to grow up. I had a normal childhood. Parents have been happily married for forty-three years. I miss them. I hope they are okay. I met Sam when I was eighteen. We were both at the University of Arizona. He studied sales and I was working to become a Pediatrician, it was hard, but I made it. I knew right away that Sam was going to be my husband and we wasted no time making that happen.

  I was twenty-years-old when we got married. Sam was twenty-four. My parents thought I was too young, like most parents would, but Sam made them comfortable with the idea. The way he acted around them, the way he presented himself, but especially the way he loved me. They could see all of that and gave him their blessing. Not too long after that, Elyse came along. It was hard being a twenty-one-year-old mother going through medical school, but we made it work.

  We moved to Indiana when Elyse was about five because Sam was offered a terrific job as the station's Vice President of Sales. He accepted so quickly I don't think they even offered him the job yet. Thoughts like those help me smile. It's hard to smile right now.

  "Well, I'm not getting a damn thing," said Scott. He was the building manager. He and Sam had been working together since the day we moved out here. They were close friends.

  "Is anyone getting anything?" asked Joe without looking from his phone.

  My phone died late last night and Sam left his in the car. Elyse told her dad that hers got wet at a party the other night and would no longer work, but she told me the true story the next day. She was at a friend’s house drinking and accidentally dropped her phone in the toilet. Happens more than you'd think. Anyways, we were getting her a new iPhone 5 at the beginning of the week before everything happened. So, the Clark family could do nothing but watch the rest of the group try to contact the outside world.

  "I'm still not getting a single bar of service. Somebody has to have something. There is no way a television station doesn't have cell service," said Heather. She was sweet. A little older than Elyse, I believe 23, so they bonded quite nicely.

  "Nothing. There's nothing," Scott replied. He put his phone on the counter and threw his hands over his baldhead.

  "Maybe the servers went down...I mean, maybe no one is getting service because there isn't any service left," that was Nick Holmes. He worked at the station, too. He was a Master Control Operator. He worked behind the glass staring at what seemed like fifteen TV monitors. If something aired wrong, or the TV went black, he was one of the guys to fix it. He was the shift leader of the overnight shift. Heather worked that shift, too. That's how they got stuck in here.

  "Would the phones be the first things to go down? What about the power? The lights?" asked Heather.

  "Out there, I don't know. But we have the building hooked up on generators. We have three or four backups to keep this place running at all times," said Scott. The building manager would know.

  "Why?" asked Joe.

  "For emergencies like this one. When everything goes down, we'll still have power to broadcast. If people are out there expecting answers, we can go on the air and give a full report."

  "And if they don't have the power to see it?"

  "Hopefully, they still do."

  I watched each person lose faith in their phones. Once Heather suggested that they wouldn't work again, one by one they started putting their phones down on the tables around them. Nobody wanted to look at the screens anymore. It was only frustrating us.

  "So, if the station has back up power, wouldn't the land lines work?" finally, Sam spoke up. Elyse looked at him with so much worry in her eyes. After he spoke, he placed his hand on her head and gently pressed her back against his chest.

  Scott's eyes got bigger with hope. For some reason, nobody had thought about the office phones until this moment. In 2012, most homes no longer had home phones. Everything was cell phones. Maybe that was why we didn't think of it. Scott connected eyes with the man standing next to him, Travis Miller.

  Travis was kind of an ass. He didn't mean to be, but he was. It's not like he was rude to anyone or treated anyone unfairly, he was just loud and uneventful. He was the exact kind of personality that belonged on TV. Ironically, he was. He was the stations morning anchor that worked 4-7. He worked that shift with his girlfriend Jenny Brandt. They were very private, but everyone knew they were a couple. And an odd couple at that. Jenny was quite beautiful, but obnoxious. Travis was nothing to look at. He was tall and awkward. His hair was caught between red and brown and he was just annoying. It worked though.

  Travis walked over to the phone and slowly picked it up. He probably did it for dramatic effect. I knew he was doing it for dramatic effect when I saw the dumb look on his face. He listened for the dial tone.

  "It works," he said and then he hung up the phone. We all looked at him dumbfounded.

  "Well call someone," Heather said. She had some sarcastic tone behind her voice intended to poke fun at him. It made a couple others and I in the room smile. Jenny didn't get it.

  "Who?" asked Travis.

  We looked around at one another not sure of the answer. If the power was truly out around the rest of the town, nobody was going to be able to pick up. No one would even know we were calling. It would do no good. It would only get our hopes up once again.

  "I know that the police station runs on a backup generator, as well," Dan had a voice for such a big bellied guy.

  Along with Nick and Heather, he was the final piece of the overnight shift puzzle. There were others, but those three were working the night of the attack. I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to Dan much, but he was a strange bird. He was a sweetheart and meant well, but he was just strange. He was obsessed with Facebook and Twitter and all social medias. But the poor guy didn't have a whole lot going on in his life. He was in his early forties, workin
g overnights five days a week, living alone. It was sad, but he seemed to be happy.

  "How do you know that, Dan?" asked Nick.

  "I just do," he replied.

  "Are you a cop?" asked Joe. Joe didn't work at the station. He was a fifth grade English teacher. He and the other teacher, Molly, brought a few kids to the station on a field trip. That's why they were at the station. That's why we were there.

  Sam was going to give the group a tour and explain what goes on around the station. Elyse and I came with. The tour wasn't going to take too long and we were going to see a movie afterwards. We never made it to that movie, obviously.

  "No, I'm not a cop. I work here at the station," Dan said.

  "So how do you know?" asked Joe. He wasn't being rude but wanted a confident answer before they started dialing the cops. He wasn't going to get that answer.

  "I just know," Dan felt disrespected I could tell.

  "What the hell does it matter? The guy thinks that we can get through to the cops, we call the cops. Is this not an emergency? Just call 911," Sam spoke up. This time he shot out of his seat and walked off his frustration. When he stood up, his shoulder grazed the side of Elyse's face. She rubbed her ear and made a face. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

  "Dial," Scott said to Travis like he needed another order.

  Travis glanced at the phone for a second before dialing. If you ask me, I think he forgot the number for 911, if only for a second. He dialed and waited for someone to answer. We all waited for him to say something, but of course he didn't. He just waited keeping all of us on the edge of our toes and seats.

  "Well?" Nick said.

  Travis put the receiver down on the table and pushed the speaker button. We waited in silence for a moment.

  Ring...ring...ring...ring...

  It just kept ringing. It was eerie. I've never heard of 911 not picking up the phone. The slow ring of the phone echoed through the halls. We all stood in silence listening. Hoping that someone on the other side was going to pick up and let us know that everything is okay, or at least being taken care of.