“You don’t really mean that do you?”
“Shit yeah I do… You’d make a better one than I ever did. Don’t get me wrong, you could use a lot of training, but you’ve got more potential than anyone I’ve met on the force.”
“Thanks John… I guess.”
“I’m not telling you that you have to become one. It’s certainly not an easy job. Just consider it, alright?”
I didn’t know what else to do but agree. “Sure, I’ll think about it.” I waited for him to say something else that obviously wasn’t coming. “Is there anything else?”
“No I think that’s it for now…” He took a deep breath trying his best to relax. “I’m getting really tired… I think I’ll take a nap now… probably the last one I’ll ever get.”
“Alright, I’ll let you be then.”
“Keep it down!” He joked as he turned on his side. “I just told you I’m trying to get some sleep.”
I began to walk out the door. But stopped when I heard John laughing to himself, it was quiet but I could make it out clearly. “What’s funny?” I turned around and asked.
“Oh it’s nothing… I just realized that, I am going to die in prison.” He chuckled again. “I guess there’s justice after all.”
I made it clear that John just wanted to rest, so Elizabeth, Jill, and I waited in a small room across the hall from the infirmary while Dennis checked out the prison. He wasn’t comfortable being there if he thought there could be a threat lurking just around the corner, and I completely understood his rationale.
It was somewhere around half an hour before Dennis came back. “The prison is practically clear. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here other than a few zombies, and I think they came inside through the open door.”
“What about John?” Elizabeth asked.
“I just checked on him, he’s still breathing but it’s labored. I don’t think it’ll be much longer.”
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked still holding on to some glimmer of hope, even though I knew the truth.
“I don’t think so. At this point he has lost so much blood, the only way to save him would be if we had a couple bags of his type… And even then we would still have to sew him back together to stop the bleeding…”
“Well then what do we do now?” Elizabeth was holding Jill, who had fallen asleep while waiting.
“We should leave the prison as soon as we’re ready. But there’s something you should see first.” We weren’t sure what to make of his request, though it wasn’t like we were doing anything else, so we followed him. He led us into a cellblock. “Notice anything strange?”
“Well there’s a dead guy in the middle of the room.” I said pointing out the guard lying face down on the ground with a shiv sticking out of his back. There were cuts going diagonally across his back forming a big red X with the makeshift blade dug down right in the middle where they met.
“He was murdered, that much is obvious.” Dennis continued. “But there’s something else. All of the cells are open. There isn’t a single prisoner in the entire compound. And there’s more…” he pointed his flashlight on the walls. “If you follow the path to the exit you’ll see it.” He started walking and there it was, a large X drawn in blood, then another, and another. “We didn’t notice it on the way in because we couldn’t see, but whoever did this had themselves an obsession. The halls leading out of here are covered in them.”
“So what? Prisons are known to have some crazy bastards.” I added.
“It’s not the work of a handful of people… Follow me.” As he led us back to the door from which we entered we could see what he meant. The walls were coated with the ominous Xs, hundreds or maybe even thousands of them. “It seems they adopted this as their symbol. When we leave we should be sure to avoid places, or anyone that has an X on it.”
“Good thinking…” Elizabeth said under her breath.
“Before we go, we should eat something. Come on, the cafeteria is this way.” Dennis said and led us to where we needed to go. The meal was most appreciated, it had been a good while since any of us had eaten, and we were all getting quite hungry. Even if we were more focused on trying to keep ourselves alive.
When we had finished, I brought some of the canned stuff back just in case John was hungry too, but… When I opened the door he was laying there motionless. He wasn’t breathing anymore. Dennis grabbed a hold of his neck. “He’s dead… We should go.”
“Wait! Shouldn’t we burry him or something?” Elizabeth chimed in.
“It’s not that I don’t think the same…” Dennis said coldly. “But we need to be ready to fight should the time come. I don’t want us tiring ourselves out digging.”
“We could at least say something…” I added trying to get at least some closure on the subject.
Dennis took a deep breath and looked at us with the slightest hint of remorse in his eye. “Fine…” He turned to face the body. “I can’t say that John was a good man. I can’t even say that I particularly liked him… The only thing I can say is that he gave his life to save my daughter’s… and for that I respect him… Is there anything you want to add?” When we didn’t answer, he finished quickly. “May he rest in peace.” With those parting words, we left the prison.
Chapter 27
We had to do the thing where we led the zombies away from the truck before we could all get in and safely away. After that it was as if we were lost. We had no plan other than to survive. We lived on the outskirts of town for about two weeks, moving from house to house in the country. As things went on it was getting harder and harder to find food.
“Have we been here before…” Dennis said.
“I don’t know, this house looks kind of familiar.” I said back to him.
“We really need some sort of method to mark these so we aren’t searching them over and over.
“That makes sense, I’ll check the garage and see if there’s any paint.” I finished with Elizabeth following behind me. When we had gotten into the garage we had already started digging around for paint when I considered what John had told me. “Elizabeth?”
“What is it Mark?”
“I was just thinking… I mean… Is there any chance that…” I was rubbing the back of my neck embarrassed as I could be.
“Spit it out Mark.”
I took a big gulp and blurted it out. “I like you… like, like like you…” I certainly could have said it better but it got the point across.
She crushed her eyes shut. “Shit…” Her response was disheartening.
“I’m sorry to spring this on you, I just-“
She cut me off. “No Mark, it’s not that… I knew. I knew the whole time. I’m not an idiot.”
“So…”
“Look Mark.” She grabbed me by the arm and sat me down on the washing machine. “It’s just not a good time.”
“Yeah I’m aware of that. I thought the same thing.”
“Then why did you decide to say it now?”
“I don’t know… I guess it’s because there may never be another time, you know?”
“Geeze…” She stopped for a second to collect her thoughts. “Alright Mark, it’s not that I haven’t thought of it. It’s just… Things are fucked up! I mean you can’t seriously think this is the best time to start a new relationship. And yeah I get your point, there may not be a tomorrow, but I think that just makes things worse.” She directly avoided eye contact with me. “I guess if things ever calm down, then maybe… But, I just can’t afford to be in that kind of situation right now. So I think we should just pretend like this never happened.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I knew better than to push it, and in hindsight, it really was for the best. It didn’t take long for us to find the paint after that. Just a few minutes and we had made our way back to the front door.
“What should I paint on here to mark it?”
“Anything really it doesn’t matter.” She said back
to me. I wasn’t in the best mood, but I still wanted to play around a bit, so I took my time, and really put in the effort, and elbow grease to draw the best possible dick I could on the door. Elizabeth snickered, although she clearly didn’t want to. “Real mature Mark.”
“What I thought it came out really well.”
Dennis called from around the side of the house. “Hey, can one of you two come help me? There’s an old truck back here that we missed last time, maybe we can siphon some gas out of it.”
Elizabeth pulled the truck around while I sat down and waited on the front porch. It was a nice day other than the fact that I felt like crap. I didn’t know what we were doing, and I certainly didn’t know if things were ever going to be the way they were again. I guess that I just didn’t have much hope left, and so I just wanted to sit down.
But I realized that doing nothing wasn’t going to help us, so I found myself some busy work around the side of the house. There was an old shed which I figured might have something of use inside.
I was rummaging through some old tools and car parts that had clearly not been touched in years when I heard the sound of an engine off in the distance. As it came closer I could tell it was more than one. Four cars popped up over the horizon coming down the old dirt highway, and I knew it was trouble right from the beginning. I could see the giant red Xs painted on the hoods of the cars and as they got closer the men inside them were clearly armed with heavy weaponry.
They pulled up right out front and got out of their cars. “Welp, it looks like someone’s been here.” One of the men said pointing to the door. I couldn’t see them while they were at the front, but soon enough they came walking around the corner toward the shed that I was in. “Surround the place, let’s make sure we’ve got all the exits covered this time.”
They were heading around the back, and I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before they would see my friends. I had to do something, and in all likeliness I was going to be caught anyway. I thought back to what Steve would have done, to what John would have done, and I finally understood why they did what they did. In a bad situation you either act like a hero, and maybe you die, but if you act like a coward then chances are you die anyway, and other people get hurt too.
I stepped out of the shed. “Hey!” I called out getting their attention. “Thank goodness you’re here. I’ve been alone for weeks. Do you guys have any food or water?”
It startled the men who were right by the shed, they turned around and pointed their guns at me.
“Holy shit kid! Don’t sneak up on people like that!” One of them shouted at me. “You said you were alone right?”
“Yeah, I’m real hungry. Do you have anything to eat please?” Pretending to be alone and hungry was the only thing that came to my mind, so I figured I would stick with it, at least until Dennis and Elizabeth had enough time to get away. There were maybe ten or twelve men, each with a rifle. Even if Dennis had the jump on them I knew it was over if he got into a fight.
“Hmm…” The man who addressed me first looked around. “What are you doing out here?”
“I’m just looking around from house to house for supplies… Isn’t that what everyone out here is doing?”
“Yeah… But…” He looked at his men. “Hold on boys ‘cause I’ve got a question.” He grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me around the front of the house. “I’ve just got to know.” He gestured to the front door. “See we’ve been using this house as a sort of, what’cha call it? Staging ground. So I know this fine piece of work wasn’t here yesterday. Was it you who drew this?”
I let out a sigh. “Yes.”
“Well I have to say you drew one heck of a pretty penis there… um, what’s your name?”
“It’s Mark.”
“Ok Mark, now here’s the million dollar question… Why did you draw a dick on our front door?”
“I’ve… I’ve been using it to mark the places that I’ve been to before. That way I know not to bother with houses that are already empty.”
The man’s serious expression gave way to a smile. “I like that! That’s great! Boys we’ve got to start doing that, it’ll save us time on supply runs anyhow.” The sound of the truck starting out behind the house put everyone on edge. “You said you were alone!” He shoved me to the ground.
“That’s right, I did.” I said letting them know that I was lying the whole time.
“Shit! Boys get-“ But he stopped himself as he saw the truck speeding away over the hilltop out back. “Well we fucking lost that one.” He turned back around to face me on the ground. “So… Care to tell me why you lied Mark?”
I didn’t see a reason to hold back the truth. “I was at the prison, I knew what kind of people you were the moment I got a look at your cars.”
The man chuckled and stepped on my chest holding me down. “Boy, you’re gonna learn not to mess with the Red Xs.” The butt of his rifle came down on my forehead, and I lost all sense of consciousness.
I awoke in darkness…
Find out the fate of Mark Williams, the Red Xs, and the world in the exciting sequel The Red X by Robert P. Sullivan, available on Amazon.
Thanks for reading this book, I really appreciate all of the feedback from my fans, and I am glad that I got to write this for you. Now you may be wondering why the sequel is only available on Amazon, and that is because in order to get it to as many people as possible for free (and still get paid in the process), I had to put it up on the Kindle Unlimited program, which means that if you have a Kindle Unlimited account, you can read the next book for free! I hope you enjoyed this book, thank you again. You truly make this all worthwhile.
Oh, and sorry for the cliffhanger… But that’s just how the story goes.
The Red X Chronicles (Book 1): Emergent Page 15
