The two of them broke eye contact and stayed quiet. The footsteps came to a stop just outside the door. Somebody was speaking, but Grace and Shelly hid low and too far away to hear what was said.
Chapter 50
“Robert,” James said. “You okay?” They were about to move toward the cog when James sensed something wrong with his son.
Liam looked over and saw Robert did in fact look preoccupied by something. Had the mission finally gotten to him? He hadn’t seemed worn out this entire time, not to Liam, anyway. Maybe the reality of possibly being asked to kill his girlfriend—or soon-to-be ex-girlfriend—was the final straw?
“No,” Robert said. “Just uh… thinking about…”
“Thinking about what?” James prodded.
Robert bit his lips until his face brightened. “That’s it!” he proclaimed. “We need linens.”
“What for?” James asked.
“This could get very ugly,” Robert said. “We don’t want a mess in the cog.”
James shrugged and held his hands palms-up in a confused gesture. “It’s gonna be messy anyway,” he insisted.
“Yeah, but I think we can keep it to a minimum.”
James hesitated. Liam saw the former marine’s jaw clench and his eyes narrow.
“Fine,” James said. “Just make it quick. Everybody else, fall in.”
The group left and Liam fell in with the others, but a hand grabbed his arm.
Chapter 51
“Did you do that?” Shelly asked quietly. “With the zombies?”
Grace laughed. “You mean did I lock up a bunch of zombies before you guys came up here, expecting them to attack at the most convenient time? No.”
“Jesus,” Shelly said, her tolerance for Grace’s sarcasm having worn thin. “Of course, not. I just meant… did you lock them up while trying to escape or something? You know, the last time you were here?”
“No,” Grace said, and this time her response was sincere. “But I think I know who did.”
“Really? Who?”
“Rose. She was this woman Charlie and I…”
Her voice cut out.
Charlie.
He was still here. In the cafeteria. She had been too focused on surviving and her adrenaline too intense; she never thought about his final resting place until now. The last time Grace saw Charlie alive was just outside the opposite door to the kitchen, at the foot of the staircase.
“Oh my god…” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“My… my husband. He’s here.”
“Oh…” Shelly offered. “You mean… here here?”
Grace started to stand and she limped toward the door to the dining area. She lifted her hand and pointed.
“He’s right out there. Right where I left him.”
Rose, after she had turned, attacked Charlie just as he stepped off the bottom of the staircase; Grace had been well ahead of Charlie with one foot out the door, unable to prevent what happened.
“Oh, god, Grace,” Shelly said. “I’m so sorry. If I knew, I never would have--”
She waved a hand. “It’s okay.”
Grace covered her mouth with her hands. Her face became red as the hurt and loss tightened around her heart again. She hadn’t been allowed to feel the hurt the last time she and Charlie were together, her final moments with him seemingly stolen forever until now. The pain was new and raw all over again.
“Whatever happens next,” Grace started, “I need to say goodbye.”
Shelly nodded.
Then Grace pushed through the kitchen door.
Charlie was there. He appeared just as Grace had left him, except it was much worse. He had been decomposing for a week, maybe even longer. Grace still couldn’t remember how many days it had been. His body was bloated and the blood that had escaped from his wounds was dry and sticky. His skin was discolored and took on a mostly ruddy hue.
The smell was the worst. Grace had noticed it shortly after entering the cafeteria, but it hadn’t given it much thought. Now that she stood only a few feet away from Charlie’s body, she was horrified to learn it was him that gave off the odor.
She looked to Shelly for some kind of support. Her feet were paralyzed and her face expressed a helplessness Shelly hadn’t seen from Grace. Shelly jumped immediately and pushed through the door opposite the one in which Grace stood.
There were tablecloths on all the tables and she snatched one quickly. She then raced toward Charlie’s body and spread the linen over him, pulling carefully at all the edges and corners until his body was completely covered. Grace watched as Shelly seemed to look around Charlie and not directly at him. Whether she did this out of respect for Grace, or because she didn’t want the image of Grace’s dead husband burned into her memory forever, Grace appreciated the effort.
When Shelly appeared satisfied, she met eyes with Grace, who nodded. Then Shelly backed away and Grace was alone.
She knelt on the floor next to Charlie. Grace reached out to touch part of the napery, but retracted her hand—she ultimately didn’t want to know what his body felt like—and placed it in her lap with the other. Then she spoke to him only in her mind.
Charlie. My love… how did we end up here?
The words bubbled in her head and with them, pain swelled from her stomach and into her throat, and she began to sob. She cried so much these days and only now began to realize how tired she was of it. Tired of feeling sad and alone. She remembered Charlie’s strength and how he overcame his hiking injury years ago; how he persevered against all odds toward his goal of summiting the tallest mountain in each of the fifty states, even when it seemed hopeless; and how he pushed Grace to keep going as his life slipped away. He could have been selfish and asked her to go with him, but he had wanted her to continue to live and to have a full life. Grace drew from that strength now as she spoke to him:
I’m so sorry, baby. I wish you were here with me now. You would be proud of me. I kept going, even though there have been times I wanted to give up.
I met a woman here. Her name is Shelly. She’s nice and she’s trying to help me. Sometimes it feels like you sent her to me after you died, when you saw that I needed to be pushed. If you did, then thank you, my love.
I don’t know what will happen next. Shelly thinks one of them saw us. If he did, then it’s probably just a matter of time before they find us. If that happens, then the good news is I’ll see you soon! But I DID try, baby, I did.
“Uh…” Shelly quietly interrupted. “I’m sorry, I just… we might need to leave soon.”
“Okay,” Grace said softly. “It’s okay… I’m almost done.”
Shelly smiled and turned away again.
So, I guess this is it, baby. Maybe I’ll see you soon, and maybe I won’t. Either way I’ll be using your strength to fight until the end. Okay? I miss you, Charlie. And I love you. Always.
Grace wiped at her eyes and reached for a chair to help her stand up. Shelly, who had given her ample space, fast approached her.
“I signaled to Robert,” she whispered.
Grace’s stomach fell and she nearly lost her breath.
“Wha…” she blurted. “Why did you do that!”
Shelly put a finger over her mouth, then continued. “There are only a few of them. They were just outside. Some of the guys must have died fighting the zombies in the store, but I think Kyle is leading them away from us because they’re not coming inside.”
Grace still didn’t understand. She tried to look around Shelly and over her shoulders.
“They’re not coming in!” Shelly said again. She was happy, excited. “I think I got through to Robert!”
Grace steadied herself and tried to find some faith in Shelly’s new strategy.
“Okay,” Grace said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know, I just… I made some hand signals to him and I think they’re headed away.”
“’Away?’ Like, away from the summit?”<
br />
“I don’t know for sure,” Shelly said, “but they--”
The door to the cafeteria opened and Grace ran for the stairs.
Chapter 52
“Liam!” Shelly exclaimed. “What are you-”
“Robert sent me,” he said, nearly out of breath.
Grace heard Shelly say his name and stopped. She held the counter and turned, but continued to slip halfway through the kitchen door, expecting someone else to enter the cafeteria.
Liam noticed this.
“It’s okay,” he said. “There’s nobody else coming.”
“How do we know?” Grace asked.
Shelly sighed. “Grace, come on… you know I’m telling the truth! This is our guy!” She held out her hands as if presenting him to her.
Shelly stared at him a moment, like he was a mirage, and Grace could see there was genuine and mutual affection between the two of them. Grace smiled at the thought that these two people would finally be able to share that affection soon.
Then she remembered they were trapped on a mountain and desperately needed to escape.
“But why…” Shelly began. “Why did Robert send you? I saw him and he saw me, then it looked like you were all leaving.”
Liam shrugged. “He said we needed linens or something. He said he was going to run inside and James took the rest of the group to the cog. I started to leave and he pulled me aside.”
Then his eyes lit up when he remembered something.
“Oh, he told me something. He said, ah…” He closed his eyes and tried to remember the words. “He said, ‘we’re doing the right thing,’ or something.”
Shelly’s face became wistful.
“He said that?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Why, does that mean something?”
Shelly smiled and cried at the same time.
“Yes, it does.” Then with added emphasis, she said, “It means something.”
“Okay,” Grace said, snapping her fingers. “What’s next?”
Liam shoved a hand into his back pocket and produced a set of keys. He grinned.
“Another gift from Robert,” he said.
Chapter 53
Robert followed his father toward the cog. James made a series of quick hand gestures and Tom and Sam ran to the opposite side of the railcar. He motioned Kyle to the back of the car. James then pointed to Robert and indicated a spot at the front. Robert took a position on the track and waited.
“Listen up!” James yelled toward the rail car. “I’ve had just about enough of the bullshit today! Now you can either come out with your hands high, or we’re coming in after you.”
Robert knew there was nobody on the car. For all he knew, the girl’s husband probably didn’t even exist and had been a setup all along. The look on Shelly’s face when they locked eyes through the window in the cafeteria confirmed she had orchestrated the whole thing.
Robert shook his head and smiled in spite of himself. He knew years ago that she wasn’t the kind of person for this. And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t quite sure he was the right kind of person for this, either. He admired her gumption, though. Shelly was a tough girl, as he learned many years ago on a baseball field. She never let a team full of boys discourage her back then, but he didn’t expect her to employ her greatest coup de grâce at this moment.
Well done, Shelly, he thought to himself.
“I’ll take that as your response,” James shouted after a minute of silence. “Robert! Come in from the front. I’ll take the rear entrance. Gentlemen! Cover us!”
Robert watched as his father stepped cautiously up the stairs and into the cog. In a contradicting move his father certainly wouldn’t authorize, he jumped up into the railcar and shouted, “Nobody move!”
James, having not expected this, stumbled as he now ran up the steps.
“The fuck,” he barked. “What are you doing, Robert?”
“All clear,” Robert said. Another prematurely decisive action of which his father wouldn’t approve.
“Goddammit! Robert, what the f-”
“It’s all good, dad. There’s nobody here.”
James turned and twisted, looked beneath and over several seats before finally realizing the car was empty save for the two of them.
“I don’t… what the hell is going on here?” He looked outside at Sam, Tom, and Kyle—all of whom stretched their necks to see what was happening inside of the cog. “Robert!”
Robert approached his dad with his hands out in a submissive manner.
“Dad, listen. They played us.”
“They what?!” His muscles tightened with fury.
“It’s okay,” Robert insisted. James’ face contorted as he tried to sort through this information. “We don’t have to chase them anymore.”
James looked at him with incredulity.
“Are you insane, Robert? We have to get them! The girl and her husband! We have to--”
“There’s no husband, Dad,” Robert continued in the same, even tone of voice. “They tricked us.”
“Who tricked us?”
Robert grinded his teeth and took a long, steady breath before he answered.
“Shelly and the girl.”
James’ eyes turned into slits and he growled her name: “Shelly.” His fingers turned white around his rifle, of which Robert was acutely aware remained securely in his father’s grip. “That fucking cunt!”
James’ breathing turned heavy and angry, and the veins in his neck stood out like tubes under his skin.
“Dad,” Robert pleaded, “it’s over. We don’t have to--”
“What’s going on?” Tom asked. He entered the car and stood halfway up the stairs. “Obviously they’re not in here, so… now what?”
James swung the rifle and aimed it at Tom. “Were you in on it, too?”
“Oh, shit!” Tom ducked and raised a hand in front of his head.
“Well, are you?” James demanded again. “I know you’ve had your eye on Robert’s girl for years, you little fuck!”
“Dad!” Robert tried to defuse the situation. “Tom didn’t have anything to do with it, it was all the girls’.”
There was movement in the back of the car and James spun on his heel.
Kyle and Sam stood there.
“Whoa,” said Sam. “Easy now, James. We’re in this together.”
“No we’re not! This whole fucking thing was a sham! Who else had a hand in this?”
“That’s enough, now!” Sam barked back. “We’re a team, here. We just need to figure out where they are and get there. Look”—he motioned toward the vans—“they haven’t gone anywhere. They don’t have keys. The one girl has a bad foot: they’re not going to get far.”
“Where’s Liam?” James said, as if remembering only now that he was missing. He squinted out the windows of the cog. “Is he back yet?”
“Nope,” Tom chimed in. “He’s still missing.”
“Okay,” James said, and his breathing became a bit easier now. “Okay… so it’s him and the girls versus us.”
Robert felt a wave of relief as it appeared his father finally seemed to accept this as truth and was ready to move forward with a new plan.
“Unless one of you is in on it, too!”
He waved the rifle around recklessly and the men ducked their heads. Tom jumped off the car and stood outside, away from the track.
“James!” Sam shouted. “Calm the fuck down! Nobody here is against you!”
“What about you, Kyle?” James ignored Sam and stepped toward the smallest member of the team. “You wanted to help the pretty ladies so you went along with this scheme of theirs? Is that it?”
Kyle stayed quiet.
“Dad,” Robert said, “Kyle didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s--”
“Answer me!”
The barrel of James’ rifle jabbed into Kyle’s chest and the young man was now in tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice barely
audible.
As the words trembled off Kyle’s lips, Robert pitied him.
Aww, Kyle… you didn’t have to.
“Sorry for what?” James prodded.
The young man was sobbing now. “I’m sorry… I saw the… two girls running… and I led you guys… away from them.”
“Oh, Kyle…” James said softly. He lowered his rifle.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Verhoeven. I’m sor--”
“No, no… you did the right thing by telling me.”
Kyle looked up through confused tears. “I did?”
“Yes,” James said. His voice was easy and seemingly full of compassion. “I appreciate your honesty.”
He raised his rifle again quickly and fired once. The bullet ripped through Kyle’s midsection and out the other side. Blood exploded against the windows and seats in the back of the cog and Kyle’s body fell out of the car and onto the tracks.
“James!” Sam shouted. “What the f--”
James fired again. This time the bullet ripped off a chunk of Sam’s head and he fell straight down at the top of the stairs. His body lay in a heap, motionless as a crimson geyser erupted from the wound and sprayed the back of the railcar.
“Dad, no!” Robert yelled. “Oh, Dad, no… you didn’t have to do that!”
He turned and glared at Robert. “Yes, I did! I needed to show those men that there are consequences when people fuck up! Now that they’ve paid for those consequences, you, Tom, and I can go clean up the rest of this mess!”
“I’m not going,” Robert said defiantly.
James arched his brow. “You’re what, now?”
Robert folded his arms. “I said I’m not going.”
James stepped toward his son. “Now you listen to me, you little fuck. You will come with me and Tom, and you will see to the end of this matter. If you do not--”
“Then what, Dad?” Robert cut him off. “Are you going to kill me, too? Your own son?”
James’ lips curved upward slightly on one side and his eyes were filled with madness.
“We both made a promise a long time ago. And you know the rule of containment.”
“Mm,” Robert seethed. “Yes I do.”
Dead Summit: Containment Page 22
