by Tim Meyer
Jarvis gazed at the bronzed Bald Eagle mounted on the wall behind the judge's bench. He glanced over at the empty stenographer’s seat. He forced himself to look at the jurors, mouths that would never speak again and decide nothing today.
This wasn't a courtroom.
It was a fucking joke.
And Jarvis decided it was time to get funny.
“Gentlemen,” Judge Fayden began, “at this time I will commence with your arraignments. The charges will be reread to you individually and I will then ask you to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. Understood?”
Jarvis rose, scooted past Chuck, and let himself out of the defendant's box. It was Sargent Mickey's eyes glaring at him, not Judge Fayden's.
“Boy...” Fayden said.
“Your Honor,” Jarvis said, bowing like Fayden were the King of England. “If I may...”
Fayden said nothing.
“If it pleases the Court,” Jarvis said, “I'd like to act as Counsel for myself and my co-defendants.” Judge Fayden glowered over his glasses, but remained silent. Jarvis couldn't tell if his little stunt was working or sentencing them to a fiery death. “If it further pleases the Court,” he continued, “and his eminence, I have prepared an opening statement which I'd like to submit to the bench and jury.”
The Judge leaned back in his seat, rolled his eyes, and waved at them lazily, a gentle flick of the wrist.
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Jarvis noticed Sam and Chuck's expression, the look of pure terror rendering their skin colorless. “Your Honor, ladies and gentleman of the jury, citizens of this fine town, my co-defendants stand before you accused of crimes we did not commit. Mind you, this is not to say we did not commit those specific acts—because we did—but what I will prove today is these actions were without criminal intent, and in these uncertain and changing times, I daresay they could not even be considered crimes. How can one be 'jaywalking' if there is no traffic to avoid, or traffic signals to advise when it is safe to cross? I submit this was a misapplication of an obsolete law. 'Breaking and Entering?' Yes. I must confess, we did forcibly enter a private establishment after operating hours. However, as we made plainly clear to the arresting officer, we were obtaining medical supplies for our gravely ill friend, who is still waiting for treatment a few miles from here. Her life depends on us, and so, yes, we broke into a facility where this medicine was stored. If you call that breaking the law, then ask yourself if you would feel the same knowing it saved a life. Was Oskar Schindler a criminal? He broke laws that saved thousands. Or how about John Stuart Mill’s The Greatest Good for the Greatest Many? Doesn’t this, without a doubt, serve The Greater Good?” Jarvis strolled closer and closer to the jury box, fighting his way through the emanating stink. The closer he became, the worse the smell, the putrid stench of twelve hot deaths. He had gotten so close he could touch the jurors in the first row, had his hands not been cuffed behind him. “And lastly, we stand accused of possession of a controlled dangerous substance. Well, let me be the first to tell you, ladies and gentleman of the jury, that stuff ain’t gonna get you high. Oh, and the resisting arrest and assaulting an officer charge? Laughable. HA!” He pointed at one of the jurors, the blackened statue resembling a woman, and laughed along as if she had been laughing too. “We complied with Sargent Mickey's request all the way to the bitter end. Never stepped outside the boundaries once.
“So, the question here isn’t ‘were we guilty of possessing narcotics,’ because lab results, which I can only assume the prosecution conveniently lost prior to these proceedings, will show no narcotics were in our possession. Boom. Not guilty. That is, unless you choose to take the word of the arresting officer, Sargent Mickey as gospel. No. The question is, ‘why would he assume we had narcotics?’ Is it because of how we looked? The color of our skin perhaps?” He paced back and forth with a troubled look on his face. Glancing at Judge Fayden out of his peripherals, he could tell the man wasn't biting. He was going to have to kick it up a notch. “Have we not learned to stop judging others by their outsides? Did the Civil Rights Movement accomplish nothing? Did Dr. King fail us?” The more he spoke, the louder he spoke. He made sure to amp up the intensity, hoping to grab Fayden's attention and hold it.
He turned to the juror's box for his next (and final) act. “You ma'am,” he said, facing the burnt woman. He leaned over the oak railing and stood nose to nose with her. He could taste her smoky flesh in the back of his throat. His stomach somersaulted. “Do you wish the times of ‘separate but equal’ still reigned? Would you have war veterans like John Rambo ousted from your small town because he wore a uniform with which you did not agree?”
He heard Sam whisper, “Oh Jesus Christ.”
“John Rambo? What the fuck is he talking about?” Chuck asked Sam under his breath.
Judge Fayden clearly had his fill of nonsense and tapped his gavel on the striking plate. “I think we've had enough—”
“You haven't had nearly enough, good sir!” Jarvis yelled, snapping his head toward the bench. “You haven't had nearly enough at all!”
Judge Fayden looked at Jarvis as if the man had stabbed him. “That's it! You are out of order—”
“You're out of fucking order!” Jarvis screamed, cackling uncontrollably. He composed himself quickly, before Fayden could open his mouth again and attempt to restore order. “Would you attack a simple boy because his maker gave him scissors for hands instead of fingers?” He turned from Fayden and hopped over the railing, landing inside the juror's box. He bent over and leaned in one of the corpse's ears. “Would you discriminate against the moon? The stars? It's not our fault the sun is one big giant orange asshole!” He rubbed his backside against the woman. “How does that suit your fancy? Whoo-hoo!”
“That's enough!” Fayden screamed, veins popping in his neck and forehead. He removed himself from the bench and stormed over to the juror's box. Jarvis didn't run. He stood, frozen, waiting for the judge to pull out his .38 Special from under his long black robe and blow his brains clean out of his skull. Instead, Fayden grabbed him by the collar and yanked him over the railing, planting him on the ground. “Get up you crazy son of a bitch!”
Jarvis complied, pushing himself to his feet. Fayden ushered him back over to the defendant's box, shoved him in, and closed the hip-high door behind him. Pleased with himself, Jarvis turned to the others, watched them shake their heads with clear disappointment. A wry grin settled on Jarvis's face, and he winked at them. Sam glared at him, wanting to punch his mouth off; Jarvis's stunt could have cost them their lives. Jarvis leaned forward and looked over his shoulder, nodding for the others to follow his eyes.
Sam and Chuck's eyes lit up like Christmas morning. They immediately straightened their backs, correcting their posture, and looked back to the bench. Judge Fayden had still been walking when Jarvis showed them the result of his loony actions.
Sam smiled as Fayden climbed back onto his seat and tapped the gavel three times in rapid succession.
“Thank you, counsel,” Judge Fayden said, his eyes piercing, “for those opening remarks. Now, the prosecution has decided to rely upon the observations of the officer, and as a result the court will now make its ruling.”
The first thing Jarvis noticed was the brooch on the woman's tattered suit. It was covered in sticky remnants of burnt flesh, blackened with human decay, but it was sharp and he was experienced with picking locks with safety pins, especially handcuffs. It had been somewhat of a hobby of his back in the day, but this was the first time he ever needed to put his talent to use in a timely matter. The “opening remarks” routine had been staged so he could nab the brooch, and Jarvis figured the crazier he acted, the better chance he had at masking his true intentions. He didn't want to call himself a genius—not yet—but he took a moment and a deep breath and congratulated himself on a job well done. He took the brooch and went to work.
“Is the defense ready to hear its ruling?” Judge Fayden asked, clearly bored with this whole charade.
Jarvis pleaded for more time with his eyes. He needed a minute, maybe two. The cuffs were tougher than he expected and he hoped they weren't a new model, impossible to pick. He stood while he fiddled with the lock, trying to figure out how to buy himself more time.
“The defense would like to further question the arresting officer,” Jarvis said. “Sargent James Mickey.”
Judge Fayden's eyes bugged as if he had been defeated in some way. “Sargent Mickey is unavailable at the moment,” Fayden countered. “Call your next witness or I will have no choice but to move forward with the ruling.”
“Um, b-but,” Jarvis said, stammering. “How's about recess, Your Honor?” Jarvis asked.
“Recess?”
“A discovery period? Right? That comes next, I think.”
“That's enough, counselor. Take a seat. I think you've made enough mockery of this Court for one day.”
Jarvis sat down slowly, fiddling with the lock one last time.
Fayden sighed, raised a paper closer to his eyes, and said, “After careful consideration, this Court finds you guilty on all counts. The three of you are hereby sentenced to death by hanging.”
Chuck screamed and nearly fainted.
-5-
Chuck's blood pounded so furiously he thought his organs might fail. His chest burned, his heart pumping liquid glass through his extremities. It was hard to breathe, so he stopped trying and let his body do whatever it wanted. Lightheaded, Chuck climbed to his feet and stumbled. Jarvis caught his arm before he fell out of the defendant's box.
God, help me! Chuck thought. He'd never been a devout Christian, but the last thing he wanted was to die, and who better to help him now than the almighty deity. He managed to escape his fate on more than once occasion since the apocalypse started, which he attributed to the good grace of the Big Man Upstairs. That, and he was beginning to get a handle on this whole survival thing. Somehow he had managed to keep it together, kept his wits about him when Malek and his bloodthirsty buddies had him locked away in that cage—but now, seeing Sargent Mickey approach them in that ridiculous judge's costume, he sensed the inevitable. And for some strange reason, God was nowhere to be found. He felt alone. Abandoned.
Mickey strolled over to the defendant's box and reached for Chuck first. He grabbed him by the back of his scrawny neck and ripped him from Jarvis's grasp. Chuck tumbled to the floor, unable to keep his balance. He tried crawling away, but Mickey brought his boot down on his ankle. It sounded like a twig snapping over the knee of some burly lumberjack. Chuck screamed, cried, and begged for mercy he would never receive. While continuing to apply pressure to Chuck's ankle, Mickey turned back to Sam and Jarvis, wagging his finger.
“Don't you boys try any funny business while I'm gone,” Mickey said. He held up a key. “I'm gonna lock you fuckers in. No escaping, so don't bother trying.”
“Don't do this, man!” Chuck hollered. “Please, for the love of God, don't do this!”
Mickey glanced down at the groveling nitwit, laughter emanating from the bowels of his throat. “You disgust me,” he said.
Chuck pushed himself to his knees, clasping his hands together in prayer. “Let me go!”
Mickey took the back of Chuck's head and firmly held it while he smashed his knee into the beggar's face. Chuck dropped to the floor, unconscious, blood leaking from the hole in his lip where his front teeth pushed through. He turned back to Jarvis and Sam. “I'll be keeping an eye on yous.” He pointed to the far corner of the room where a camera roosted on the ceiling. “Make one move I don't like, and I'll make sure you fuckers roast slowly.”
He picked Chuck up with both hands and flung the lightweight man over his shoulder. He carried him out of the room, making sure to lock the door behind him. There was only one door out of the courthouse, and hope abandoned them when the audible click of the lock slipping into place echoed throughout the room.
“I killed him,” Jarvis said, his eyes fixed on the door, their only means to freedom. “I got him killed.”
“He was going to kill us all anyway. Decided it the moment he put us in the car.”
“How is he going to hang him?” Jarvis asked. “It's light out. He can't go outside without burning himself up.”
“I don't know. I don't want to know.” Sam looked behind Jarvis's back. “How are you doing with the lock?”
Jarvis brought his hands to his face. Free hands.
“Good job.”
“Doesn't matter.”
“Sure it does. Do me.”
Without much excitement, Jarvis picked the lock on Sam's cuffs in less than thirty seconds. Sam flung them across the room and stood up, rubbing his wrists.
“You might want to act for the camera,” Jarvis suggested.
“He's not watching shit.” Sam hopped out of the defendant's box. “He's preoccupied. Are you coming?” Sam asked.
Jarvis continued to sit, staring at his own lap. “What's the point?”
Sam sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “I know you think it's your fault, but it's not. Yeah, I mean you picked that rehab facility in that town, and maybe if we went elsewhere, we wouldn't be here. You can't change the past and you sure as shit can't keep continuing to blame yourself. You did the best you could given the circumstances. We would have never gotten what we needed if it weren't for you. No one in our group would've known how sick Lilah was if it weren't for you.”
“Lotta good I'm doing her, here on death row.” His eyes sparkled in the dim light the courtroom provided. “I'm a fucking failure.”
Sam approached the defendant's box. “You are not a failure. Not in the least.”
“I failed my family. My friends. You people.”
“You don't think we've all made mistakes? You don't think we'd all like a rewind button and do our lives over again?” He remembered slapping Becky on the day of The Burn and how he wished to have that moment over again. “Trust me, Jarvis, we've all done things we regret. That's life, my friend. Life is a series of regrets. I don't want to bore you with stories you don't give a shit about, but I almost lost my kids before The Burn. I almost lost them because, well, for one I was an asshole. And two, I was never there for them. But now I realize what's important and what I have to do to get them back. And I will get them back. Just like you'll save Lilah.”
Jarvis looked up, staring Sam on. His mood shifted, the poor-poor-pitiful-me face vanquished. He stood up, his head bouncing like a bobble-head doll. “Yeah...” he said, a faint smile spreading across his face.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said confidently.
“Good.” Sam jerked his thumb at the door. “Now, I believe we have an escape to plan.”
Lilah's eyes shot open, and for a long while she stared up at the white-tiled ceiling, counting their crater-like freckles, concentrating on something else besides the beating drum that was her heart. The adrenaline rush came on strong and lasted longer than any good high she ever had. After counting craters became tiresome, she looked at Brenda, who held her hand the entire time. Bob hovered over her, pushing a bottle of water in her face. She drank slowly, careful not to overindulge and choke.
“How are you feeling?” Bob asked, touching her forehead. The fever was still running strong, but at least the girl was conscious.
“Like a hundred bucks,” she replied groggily.
“Just a hundred?” Brenda asked.
“Maybe two?” She tried to smile but it hurt and made her want to puke. “Honestly, I feel like shit. I'm hot and cold all at once. I'm hungry and full. I'm sleepy and full of energy.”
“You take it easy. It'll all be over soon.”
“I'm going to die, aren't I?”
Bob wiped her forehead and forced a grin, although it came off like a grimace. “No, sweetheart. You're fine. Sam, Jarvis, and Chuck went to fetch some medicine to help with the withdrawals. They should be back...” He glanced at the clock on the wall, and knew it couldn't be correct. No way it was five o'clo
ck. According to time's ticking hands, the sun would set in about an hour. “Soon. They should be back soon.”
“You don't believe that, do you?”
Bob chewed on his tongue. “Yes, I do. We have no reason to believe otherwise.”
“They left last night?” Lilah asked, holding her stomach as it bubbled and burned.
“Uh-huh.”
“And they didn't return before sunup?”
“No.”
Disappointment marked her face. “They're dead, aren't they?”
Brenda said emphatically, “No.”
“Lilah!” Matty said from down the aisle. He had a rifle slung over his back and pushed a shopping cart full of lifted merchandise. “You're awake!”
She smiled at the sight of Matty's glowing face, but her expression suddenly changed, her mouth forming an O and blowing out a series of coughs. Foam bubbled on her lips and Brenda wiped her mouth with a fresh rag.
“How was your trip?” Brenda asked, trying to change the subject. She turned back to face her son, instantly setting eyes on the weapon strapped to his back. Her heart descended. Something changed; reality shifted. “Matty?” she asked.
“Great, Mom,” he said. “We got a lot of cool stuff. Check out these MREs—”
“Matty, what is that?”
“It's... it's...”
Tina stepped in front of him. “It's my fault. We were in the store, looking for supplies, and they had a gun section. I used to be a cop so I showed him a few things, how to safely operate—”
“You taught my son how to fire a gun?”
Matty recognized the tone and backed away as if his mother were rabid.
“No,” Tina said. “I would never do that. I only instructed him how to handle it. How to be safe.”
“Oh,” she said, wrinkling her brow, “well, that's much better.”
Tina folded her arms across her chest. “Look, I know. I should have asked first.”
