Dead Last (Vol. 1): Dead Last

by Quaranta, Marc

  She quickly reached up and felt the pain in her cheek. A small trail of blood dripped out from underneath her hand. Now the tears were really falling from her eyes. The salt of the tear mixed with the thickness of her blood. I couldn’t help but smile softly.

  “Now get the fuck out of here,” I said. And then she ran out like a little girl.

  Once she was out, I had the intention to slam the door, but something stopped me. I put both my hands on the edge of the door and closed it softly with the use of my entire body. I wasn’t sure if I was closing the door or if the door was holding me up so I didn’t fall.

  After I closed the door, my knees buckled and I fell to the floor. It took all of my strength to crawl to the pillow and put my head onto it. I pulled the sheet over my eyes and tried to block out all the light.

  I cried more than I’ve ever cried before.

  LI

  Jack Scoville

  I didn't have much time to collect my thoughts during our ride. I offered to drive and had to do my best impromptu thinking. If Frank or Kurt were driving, they probably would have taken the very route I took when I gunned down Cam and his friends. After I shot them, I didn't bury them or even kick them to the side of the road. I just left them there. I left them to bleed on the gravel and rot away under the hot sun.

  I didn't have enough respect for them to put them away peacefully. For all I cared, an animal could have eaten up their bodies. A group of stragglers could have come upon them and used their bodies as firewood. I didn't care. I didn't think it would come back to bite me in the ass. I didn't think Frank would still be in our camp when he got word that his brother was missing.

  I strayed off the main roads and turned down a side road.

  "What--what are you doing?" Kurt questioned my route.

  "Frank's group didn't see him," I quickly mumbled out.

  "What? What does that mean?"

  "When Frank's guys came buy TIX to talk to him, this is probably the main route they took. If Cam were on this road, they would have seen him. You really think they would be on this road, open to be spotted, for over two weeks?"

  "He's right, Kurt," Frank said from the back.

  It was nice to have Frank's vote of confidence from the back seat on how I liked to handle my business, even if it was all a lie and I killed Cam and his boys right down that road I had just turned away from.

  "Frank," I watched Kurt turn his body to the back seat and start talking to Frank like he was a small child. "Is there anywhere that Cam would go that would mean something to you? Did he ever talk to you about wanting to go somewhere?"

  I looked up in the mirror at Frank, whose facial expressions were reading "constipated" more than they were "thinking."

  "No," Frank finally answered. "He never talked about leaving the hospital. Cam was always so content to stay in one place. He never talked about moving out of town. He never talked about running off and making a name for himself. He was always content to just be...Cam. He was happy being my younger brother and being my second-in-command at the hospital."

  "Since we were kids, he was always like that. I'd play basketball in the front yard and he would be standing right next to me supporting every move I made and every shot I took. Make or miss he would be right there clapping. He was so happy to be second in command. He got all the luxuries of being with the guy in charge without having to make the tough decisions. He wouldn't have run away from that. No way in hell."

  I glanced back at Frank in the mirror and saw that he was on the verge of tears. He choked them back, though, and looked up at me. I don't know if he saw the worry in my eyes that they were going to find something out. I didn't look at him for too long. I didn't want him to get any ideas. I was scared to think of what would happen if he found out. I don't mean scared for my life. I mean scared of what I would have to do to him with Kurt sitting by. Would Kurt be okay with it? Would he understand what I had done and why it was important to our group's safety or would he condemn me? Would I have to then take care of Kurt?

  If any of that happened, I don't think I would be able to go back to WTIX. I didn't have any ties there. I hadn't formed any strong relationships, but it would be hard to leave the group at this point. Not because of them, though. I could have been in that station with a bunch of mutes and aliens and it still would be hard to leave. It is always better to go with the devil you know than the devil you don't know. It would be hard to pack up and hope to find as secure a place as WTIX.

  "You know what this means, right?" Kurt said looking out the window. He turned to me and then begrudgingly turned to Frank, "It means Cam, Seth, and Pete are probably in trouble."

  "You're probably right," Frank responded.

  It was approaching late afternoon, already. Frank, Kurt, and myself had been on the road for a few hours. We searched neighborhoods, we searched grocery stores, we even walked through the library. They were highly disappointed that we hadn't found Cam yet. I was annoyed because this was a wild goose chase, and I couldn't tell them that, that was only wasting our time. But I was okay with it because I had nothing better to do. If I weren't outside searching, I would have been back inside WTIX sitting around, eating a bag of chips, doing nothing but wishing I were somewhere else. At least, this gave me something to do...or something to pretend to do.

  "Okay, let's go down the main road," Kurt said.

  I froze. I didn't know how to talk my way out of this one anymore. I was able to take every available street in the town besides the one that would lead straight to the hospital. Why? Because that was the street I had left Cam and his friend's dead bodies.

  "The other guys would have--"

  "I don't care. We need to take that route. If Cam isn't there, then at least we're back on our way to the hospital and we can talk to Frank's people and see if there are any areas where they haven't searched yet. Someone there has to know something."

  "Okay, we'll head back to the hospital, but we'll drive north and then cut over," I said.

  "Stop the car."

  "What?"

  "I said, stop the car, Jack," Kurt was angry.

  I stopped the car in an abrupt manner. He wanted me to stop the car, didn't he? So, I slammed the brakes and watched as Kurt's head jerked forward. Once the car was at a standstill, Kurt reached up to his neck and rubbed what was the pain from whiplash. I wanted to smile. I actually felt a smile coming on, so to hide it I looked out the driver side window for a second. I smiled, made sure nobody could see it, wiped the smile off of my face, and then turned back to Kurt.

  Kurt knew. Somehow, he just knew. I don't think he realized what he knew, but it was always his place to be over thinking, overcomplicating things to the point where he always knew there was some kind of truth being covered up. He was looking at me like a kid that just ruined my dinner by eating ice cream an hour before the dinner table was set. He was judging.

  "What's up?" Frank asked from the backseat.

  "Your guess is as good as mine, Frank," I said to him. I wanted Kurt to fess up. I wanted Frank to hear the accusation that Kurt was about to lay on me.

  "Frank, can you give us a minute?"

  "Now?"

  "We'll only be a minute. Step outside, Jack."

  "Are you out of your mind," I didn't believe it.

  "We haven't come across a single straggler since we've been out on this search. There isn't anyone out here," Kurt said.

  "Anyone...anything," Frank said.

  I looked back at him. I didn't know if he was referring to an animal. Maybe he thought an animal had gotten Cam and the others. I don't know what kind of animals are in Indiana that poses such a threat. It's not like any lions or bears had escaped from the zoo. I think animals suffered from the air's infection just like we did. Hell, maybe he was referring to people as things. Had he grown so numb from his brother's disappearance that he now didn't look at human beings the same way?

  "Jack, step outside. Now!" Kurt demanded.

  There were so many tim
es I wanted to punch him in the face. He had laid one on me back at the station the night that Joe was killed and I still owed him for it. One of these days I was gonna tap him across the chin and he didn't even know it. But I always stopped myself for the group's sake. I didn't want to bring any more tension into play. There was already plenty of it. Especially between Kurt and I. Anymore and I think it would lead to a complete split between us.

  While Kurt is a good leader, I think a lot of the people agree to go along with him because they see I go along with it. I, along with the others, look at Kurt as the brains and look at me as the muscle. If I didn't agree with Kurt, they wouldn't agree. I have disagreed with him on plenty of crap, but I always allowed him to get his way. If I put my foot down on one decision, the group would be torn. We didn't need that right now.

  At least until I found a new place to take shelter. Then I could take a few of the others with me and we wouldn't need to listen to Kurt's brains. All in good time.

  I opened my door and stepped outside. I closed the door behind me and looked around through the trees. I didn't look back at Kurt, but heard the sound of his door open and close. When I came around to the front of the van, he looked like a man on a mission. His jaw was tight and his eyes were focused. Focused with a purpose.

  "Is there something you want to tell me?" Kurt asked. He stood close to me. Closer than I was comfortable with.

  I didn't shy away from his pressure, though. I looked down at his lips. Not in the way a guy does before he kisses a girl. I did it thinking that it would only take a quick second to smack those off his face. He wouldn't give me any more lip after that, no pun intended.

  "What the hell are you talking about? You drag me out here to find a guy that killed one of our own and now you want to waste time parked here talking about God knows what," just like I figured, that pushed him back a couple feet away from me.

  "Drag you out here? This was the first time none of us had to drag you anywhere, Jack. You volunteered for this. You were the first one to speak up which has me thinking that you have some ulterior motive for being on this hunt."

  "Are you out of your fucking mind, Kurt? It is like you sit awake at night trying to concoct these schemes that you can use to tear this group apart."

  "Me? Oh, Jack, you got some balls. You think I'm tearing this group apart? Everything that we do in this group, every plan that we come up with, you have to put your two cents in on why it's the wrong plan."

  "Every plan you come up with!" I screamed. At this point, I was close to hitting him and, again, I didn't want to. So, I walked a half-circle around him, pressing him against the van. "Nobody has an opinion in this group because you've brainwashed them. It's Kurt's way or the highway."

  "That's right it is. Because they looked to me. The second I got here. They looked to me."

  "That is right. They did. And where's it gotten them? Kidnapped. Threatened with a gun. It got Joe killed. What's next? You gonna get the station blown up?"

  "Oh, and you'd do better? Really? Where's Nick, Jack?"

  I faced away and looked in the distance. Through the trees, I thought I saw something move, but after a second more, I realized there was nothing there. My eyes were playing tricks on me. Without turning my head, I stared at Kurt out of the corner of my eyes. Looking at him straight on wasn't as intimidating.

  "That's right," Kurt continued, "You went on your own little mission and it got Nick killed. And one more thing. What happened to the van?"

  I looked at the van and had no idea what he was talking about. I saw Frank sitting inside staring at us. I'm sure he could hear us. It was only car glass. I could have sworn I could hear him breathing from inside. So, there was no chance in hell he didn't hear us screaming.

  "Not this van," Kurt said. He took a couple steps to the side now, too. Now, neither one of us was backed against the van. "What happened to the van you took out that first time? The time Nick was killed."

  "What the hell are you getting at?" I asked.

  "The van has a smashed in front end and blood all over. Did Nick do something you didn't like? Did you run him over?"

  There was some sarcasm in his voice. I don't think he was really accusing me of running over a friend of his, but I also felt like he wasn't sure. He wanted to make it a joke. He wanted to point out to me that I'm such an ass that I may have actually done that, but after he said it the look on his face showed confusion. He didn't know what to believe.

  "Run him over? Are you fucking serious?"

  "What happened?"

  "Watch out, Kurt. I mean it. Watch what you're saying to me," I pointed at him.

  "Or what? Gonna run me over?"

  "It was a fucking deer, man. Come on."

  Kurt looked at the van and was reimagining what the dented van looked like. The entire left side of the front end was smashed in like we had driven into a telephone pole. The hood was so bent that it blocked the driver from seeing anything. Anything that could be seen was covered by the blood on the windshield. The window washing solution and wipers could only clear so much of it. The rest of it was probably dried now. Oh well, the van was useless anyways.

  "A deer? Ya know, I've lived in Indiana a long time and most deer like to stick to the wooded areas. They don't like to stray too far from water and the last I checked...there isn't a lake on the way from TIX to the gas station."

  "Sounds like you aren't asking me anything. Sounds like you've already made up your mind."

  "I'm just trying to figure out how much trouble you're gonna get us in," he said.

  "You need to figure out," I stepped closer to him so that he would understand how serious I was, "how to start making decisions that doesn't get us killed cause one of these days...it's gonna be your little old lady that gets popped."

  Kurt didn't waste much time. He swung at me and connected across the upper part of my jaw. I wasn't expecting it so my head whipped back. I guess I wasn't waiting for the right opportunity to hit Kurt. I was just waiting for the moment I was physically provoked again. And I finally got it.

  I turned and punched him in the gut. It was enough force that it brought his body up on his toes. I punched him across the face with my stronger right arm and then grabbed his shirt. I swung him around and threw him into the front of the van. The force of the collision was emphasized on his ribs.

  I pressed him against the van and punched him another time in the face. He used the weight of the van to push himself off of it and tackle me to the ground. My head hit the back of the concrete and as much as it fucking hurt, I was too excited to finally be locking up with Kurt to stop and concentrate on the pain.

  He held his left hand against my throat and punched me with the other. I wrapped both of my arms around his left arm and twisted his body to the side. He chest landed against the ground and left his arm buried under my side. I wrenched at it. Not enough to break or snap anything, but enough to where I could hear him scream.

  After that, I heard the van door close and heard Frank's footsteps coming toward me. He grabbed me and lifted me up. His strength was impressive. It felt like he grabbed my collar, pulled me to my feet, and tossed me into the van all in one fluid pull. After that, I didn't want to wrestle two guys, and I knew Frank would be on Kurt's side, so I put my hands in the air to signal my surrender for the fight.

  I looked at Kurt, who was still lying on the ground, holding his left elbow. I didn't intentionally break anything, but I might have in the heat of the moment. It is hard to hold back in a fight and there was a possibility that I was a lot stronger than I thought I was being.

  "My brother is missing! You two assholes want to measure dicks then please continue. But I promise you I will take this van and leave you out here. I don't give a damn anymore."

  I pulled my gun out.

  Frank's eyes grew big. I could hear his thoughts. He didn't think I would revert to my gun so quickly, but the truth was...it wasn't for him.

  Frank read my eyes and saw that I wasn't lo
oking at him. I was looking past him. Down the street. It had to have been three hundred, maybe four hundred, yards away.

  Frank turned his head around and saw it too.

  Far away from us there was a group of people. Five, maybe six. They weren't moving much and I couldn't get a good look at them. We were too far away. I could see that they weren't walking very steady. One was walking with a bad limp. Another walked hunched over. They didn't have much strength. Their arms looked limp and dangled to the side of their bodies.

  "What? What is it?"

  "Stragglers," Frank said.

  "Yea, that road back to the hospital looks pretty good right now," I didn't care anymore about the possibility of driving up on Cam's dead body. I just wasn't ready to deal with whatever those people were bringing.

  Kurt rose to his knees, with one arm, and saw the people. None of us could move right away, even though we knew it was time to go. It was a shocking moment for us. We hadn't seen people all day. In fact, besides the group at the hospital and the two people I hit with the van that first day out, this was the first group of people we had seen.

  But we hadn't had a good experience, yet, when it came to stragglers wandering the streets. Luckily, they were too far away and moving too slow to warrant any present danger.

  That changed dramatically.

  For no reason and with no warning at all, they started running towards us. Sprinting like they were being tested. I heard one of them scream at us and it sounded strange. It wasn't clear, instead sounded like he had something in his mouth he was gargling. It sounded mutated...infected. Infected by the air.

  "Come on, come on!" I shouted.

  Frank grabbed Kurt under the arm and pulled him to his feet. Kurt let out a groan of pain. We sprinted back to the van. Frank pushed Kurt into the back and closed the sliding door. Then he hopped into the passenger seat the same time I closed the driver door. I threw the van into reverse and had that thing flying backwards before Frank could have his door closed.