by TW Brown
“Yeah, that would be a safe bet.”
“And you say that these people with you were just people you willingly picked up?”
I didn’t like how this was starting to change. Her tone was hardening with every word and the look on her face was starting to remind me of what a shark would look like if it had blue eyes.
I stared back, but I was already wondering how much torture I could endure before I spilled anything and everything she wanted to know. It wasn’t that I was a big sissy, but I didn’t really owe anything to Betty or Carl. As for the kids, I did not wish them harm, but being that guy who gets fingers snapped or hooked up to car batteries and answers the interrogation with witty quips through gritted teeth was fiction.
The woman stood up, and I braced myself for something terrible, but she walked out of my line of sight and a few seconds later, I heard the door to the room open and shut. I held my breath, trying to discern if maybe she was still in the room, but I couldn’t hear anything.
I waited, and at some point, must’ve slipped out of consciousness. My eyes snapped open when the sting of a slap brought me back around.
“Mister Berry,” a low voice grumbled.
The man standing in front of me was a giant. He was looking down at me as he stood flat-footed on the floor and I was mounted on this ‘X’ with my feet several inches off the floor. His brown hair was shaved on the sides, but the strip he kept on top was long and pulled back into a ponytail. His skin had a coarse ruddiness like he spent too much time in the sun without sunscreen.
“Jesus,” I gasped.
“No…not even close,” the man said with a dismissive wave. He leaned in close and gave me a salacious wink, “But I have made a few of the ladies see God.”
I was too caught up in the minty freshness of his breath for a moment to actually catch his little jibe. It was a running theme with this group from what I was seeing. They were all so fresh and clean; you would be hard pressed to believe that the undead were wiping out humanity. Had I missed something during my spell of unconsciousness?
“I hear you are some sort of good Samaritan,” the man said after I continued to stare at him with no idea what to say at this point. “You were found with a carload of people that you just scooped in off the street. Maybe you haven’t realized it, but these are dangerous times. The thin veneer of law and order are gone and people are becoming rather base and crass.”
I listened to this man speak, but the words coming out of his mouth did not fit. I was expecting some kind of gorilla, a buffoon perhaps in the mold of Biff from Back to the Future. Despite his deep voice, he was soft-spoken. The book was definitely not matching up with the cover. If not for being lashed to this stanchion, I might consider this person to be a potential ally. This would be the kind of guy I would be able to join up with and follow.
“You know my name,” I finally managed, “but I have no idea who you are or how I should address you.”
“Where are my manners?” the man laughed heartily. “Don Evans…Diamond Donnie to my friends.”
“So, what should I call you?”
His tone was still friendly, but I was seeing something in his eyes just as I had Natasha Petrov’s. There was a hard coldness that hinted at something dangerous. His smile was real enough, but it was one of a sadist in the thralls of torturing someone or something.
“You can call me Mister Evans. Kinda funny that our names are so similar.” His words made it sound like a joke, but his tone said otherwise.
He moved around behind me and I tensed for something terrible. I heard the rasp of metal on leather and knew well enough by now the sound that a blade makes when being drawn from its sheath.
Here it comes, I thought.
I heard another sound and then felt the strap around my forehead fall away. Next was the twine that had bound my left ankle to this ‘X’, and a moment later, my foot went hot and tingly as the blood rushed back to the extremity. This process was repeated with my other leg, and then each wrist.
I eased down from my perch and felt the pins and needles in my feet for a moment. It took everything I had not to crumble to the floor. As I regained full feeling in my hands and feet, Don Evans walked back around to regard me. The knife was still in his hand and it took everything in my power not to stare at it. Instead, I glanced around the room. I noticed three more of the large ‘X’ structures shoved to one side of the room.
“So, where is everybody else you found with me?” I dared to ask, almost afraid of what I might be told.
“One of them is being processed just like you,” Don replied. “But the infected one was put down.”
“Joan…her name was Joan Kioki.” That left one person unaccounted for. That was a matter of concern, but at the moment, I was focused on my own problems.
“Does it really matter?” the man scoffed. “She was infected and soon to become one of them.”
He was not saying anything that I didn’t know, but it was the total lack of feeling that galled me. Despite her eventual fate, she was still a human being.
“Was it at least merciful?”
I had no idea why I was asking all these questions. Maybe I was just curious as to how I would be treated as soon as I started to show the symptoms. I felt confident that I was still not displaying the tracers in my eyes considering how I was being treated.
“Is there really such a thing?” Don laughed. “I have yet to meet anybody who was just okay with dying. They all want that last few minutes. The problem with that is that resources are finite these days. The delivery trucks have stopped running.”
“Was it quick?” I clarified. “I mean, you didn’t make her suffer or anything, right?”
“Wow, you sure seem to care an awful lot about somebody you supposedly just picked up off the side of the road.” Don crossed the room and grabbed a chair, spinning it around and straddling it as he took a seat. “And I am told you had a bunch of animal supplies and dog food in your vehicle. Unless you are just that desperate for food and medicine, or you have a giant invisible rabbit companion…that has me thinking that you are part of another group. That would also make me doubt that you were just driving around with a group of strangers.”
And there it was. This guy—and by extension, his group of survivors—thought that we were all some small team from another group.
“That why your people attacked us?” I asked bluntly.
“That’s the funny thing about perspective.”
Don rose to his feet and I tensed. He still had that knife in his hand, and I didn’t have a thing to defend myself with if he attacked. Of course, as big as he was, I had serious doubts as to my ability to offer up more than token resistance. I was fully aware that bigger did not always mean badder, but this guy had an air about him that sizzled with danger.
“One of your people shot at us. We were trying to get away when we crashed,” I said, taking a step back and trying to figure out the best way to prepare for the attack I was sure had to be coming at any moment.
“That is your way of seeing it,” Don said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Or…maybe we were defending ourselves from a group of people out raiding. You don’t think we haven’t heard the screams at night, or seen the people skulking around, watching us from all angles like they are trying to figure out a way to get to us…take what we have started.”
“If that was the case, why did we turn around? Why did we go the other direction?”
“Testing our defenses.”
I could already see that there would be nothing to come from this circular argument. This guy had his mind made up. I was the bad guy in his scenario. Honestly, I wasn’t so against the whole dying thing. I’ve had the past few days to come to grips with it. I just wanted it to be on my terms. Something told me this was going to be painful and anything but the way I’d envisioned it. Even worse, I’d worked so hard to gather some stuff for my dog, and now it was all for nothing. I’d failed her.
Unless…
“You asked about all the animal supplies. The dog food and other things from the veterinary hospital?” I blurted. “If I tell you where that stuff was going and why, maybe you might believe me. You would easily be able to check it out for yourself.”
“I’m listening.” The man looked down at the knife in his hand with an expression that almost looked like regret.
I opened my mouth. I could tell him about Chewie. Hell, I could explain about how we’d faced off with our own bad guy in Brandon. Maybe if I told him about the kids, and about Betty and that girl Amanda that I didn’t really even know…and then I could tell him why I was out by myself. Maybe then he would see that I wasn’t a threat. I had no bad intentions when it came to him and his people.
The scream that pierced the moment of silence between me and Don sounded close. It sounded horrible. It was the scream. I’d heard it too many times not to know it for exactly what it meant. Somebody was being ripped apart and eaten alive by one of the walking dead.
Don’s gaze returned to me from examining his knife, and that evil glint was replaced by something predatory. Something…evil.
I always believed that true evil was a very abstract idea. I’d written a paper in my college psych class about how evil was only defined as such by people of different belief systems who might not agree with the actions of another person or group. The discussion in class after my paper was shared had almost caused a miniature riot.
Eventually, I’d admitted that I might have made some foolish jumps from one ledge of faulty logic to another in order to support my thesis. There was such a thing as true and universal evil. I was looking it in the eye this very moment, and it made me want to shrink inside myself and vanish. I had no doubt that I was about to feel real pain for no other reason than to satisfy this man’s sadistic wants, needs, and desires.
The scream changed to a gurgle and Don closed his eyes, his lips curling slightly as if he might be hearing a favorite song.
“I think Joanie is awake.”
I hadn’t known him long enough to recognize his voice, much less the sounds of his screams of pain, but I was now certain that I knew the fate of not only Joan Kioki, but that of Franklin Murphy as well. It didn’t make any sense.
“Why?” the word slipped out almost involuntarily.
“This is a new world, Evan Berry. The slates are clean and it is only those who choose to reach out and grab the rudder of this ship that will have any say in the direction that it will take.”
Just that fast, this guy had gone from regular scary to cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs. I had no idea what he was talking about, but when he opened his eyes, I felt my blood chill.
“You think all this is an accident, Evan?” Don asked as he brought his knife up and made a shaving swipe down one side of his already clean-shaven head.
“I think it is a tragedy.”
The wet sounds died out mercifully and I felt terrible about just how much relief I found in that few moments of silence where the only sound I could hear was that of my heart pounding in my temples and my blood racing through my veins.
“We brought this on ourselves. We’ve allowed our government to take far too much power. We’ve sat back while this nation became the world’s toilet. All the shit that no other country wanted just floated into our bowl. We spent billions of dollars having all our welfare applications printed in a dozen languages so that the human waste could sap our resources…”
Oh great, I thought. This guy isn’t just the garden-variety crazy. He is one of those racist types.
The irony came around and slapped me right in the face. I still remember when one of my classmates had used the term racist to describe the type of mentality it would take to write that very same paper about evil that had just resurfaced in my memory mere moments ago. I’d been so full of myself when I wrote that paper that I truly believed I was sharing some sort of existential piece of wisdom that would make everybody sit up and take notice. What I had failed to do was look at the human events that I had managed to gloss over or simply ignore: slavery, the Holocaust, and a host of other human atrocities that were the simplest examples of evil, and impossible to be seen as anything else.
“…and now we can wipe it all away and start again. This time…we can make sure that those who don’t truly belong here never get the chance to pollute this nation again.” Don brought the knife down and I saw a thin line of red well up on the side of his head. A single ruby bead eventually lost the fight with gravity and rolled down to vanish behind his ear, leaving a crimson trail in its wake.
I’d been concerned for my well-being before. Now, I was trying to figure out a way to go out and take this creep with me. This was the shining example of exactly what Carl and I had spoken about. This was a person who no longer had the restrictions of a civilized society to keep him in check. Without the social structure and deterrents in place, this was one of those fringe types that usually made the news when they were under siege by the ATF or some other multi-lettered branch of law enforcement.
Now, people like this could band together and embark on whatever their warped and twisted minds could manage. I also knew without even having to think too deeply that this would likely be just the tip of the iceberg. I was willing to bet there would be worse out there just crawling out from whatever rock they had managed to live under.
“So, Evan, you need to answer one question. It really is simple, and there is no reason to put any pretty words around it. You in…or out?”
I looked at the man, my eyes flicking to the blade in his hand. There was no way I would stand a chance the way things stood. If I opted out right here, he would kill me. On the plus side, my worries would be over.
An image of my beloved Newfoundland popped into my head. I’d always heard people say that we—and by ‘we’ I mean Stephanie and I—treated our girl better than most people did their children. I thought that was stretching things a bit, but here I was, about to determine my own fate, and at that same moment, if I simply gave up, I would be leaving my dog to rely on the mercy of others.
The infection could express itself any moment now. If I didn’t get away from this lunatic and his band of evil minions soon, her fate would be sealed as far as I saw things. I would probably have one chance, and it would have to be soon. If I died in the attempt, at least I would do so knowing that I gave my last effort trying to care for my dog.
Not for the first time, I questioned my own mindset. All my thoughts were about my dog first and foremost. There were three adults and two children that I imagine a normal and more well-balanced person would be placing higher in his or her thought process.
I decided that I really didn’t care. Chewie truly did represent all that I had left from that old life.
It was in that moment that another revelation hit me. This one came like a punch in the gut. My bag containing my picture of Stephanie had obviously been confiscated along with everything else.
“I’m in,” I said, hoping that my voice didn’t give away the contempt that I felt for this guy and anybody who would follow him.
“And you have to know that it isn’t quite that easy. I mean…anybody with their feet to the fire would probably say the same thing.” Don paused and pursed his lips in consideration. “Unless they were trying to go out as some sort of bad ass.”
I saw his eyes flick to me. He was obviously checking my reaction. I would have to play a role for as long as possible if I was going to have any chance of pulling this charade off with even the slightest chance for success. As long as he didn’t ask me to murder some poor person they had captive, I felt that I would be able to maintain the fragile façade for a short time.
“So, where is your group holed up?”
The question came so quick that I didn’t have a chance to check myself. Good or bad, at least I’d already told myself that I would give up the location if it meant that I gave my dog a better chance to survive. I really didn’t owe Carl, Betty, or the others a damn thing.
I gave them the general location without pinpointing the specific house. I did my best to put them in the area and tried to play it off like we’d just picked that spot to hunker down and that there had been no concrete plans to make it permanent. It was close enough to the truth that I didn’t think I gave away any hint that I’d been less than a hundred percent truthful.
“You get that, Natasha?” Don called out once I was done.
“A team is gearing up now,” the woman said as she entered the room.
“And how did your questioning of the woman go?” Don slid his knife into its sheath and turned his back on me.
I imagine that was easy for him to do since Natasha was standing just inside the door with one hand on the grip of a pistol holstered to her hip. Add in the fact that I didn’t have anything I could use to inflict any harm except my bare hands, and it was less like Don was being bold and more like he’d simply dismissed my presence entirely.
“Her story matches his almost verbatim, and both versions match what that other couple said before we took care of them,” Natasha said with no more emotion than if she were discussing the weather despite what I knew to more or less be the fates of Joan and Franklin.
“Who do you want running point with the team?” Natasha asked.
“Well, he says that there are women and children in this little group if he isn’t yanking our chain, so why don’t you go? I think they might be a bit more receptive to letting a woman in. I am willing to bet your sweet little ass that these people are still clinging to the old ways. They will probably think that you are perfectly harmless.”
I had to almost bite my tongue. They hadn’t met Carl. These people were going to be in for one hell of a surprise. I was almost feeling smug until Don continued his instructions.
