Dead Lost

by Flint Maxwell

  “If there’s any trouble, if you or Lilly is lying, then expect me to send Calvin up to your room.” He snickers, like he’s in on some great joke. “Lock your door if you want, that big buffoon will knock it off its hinges as easily as if it was made outta newspaper.”

  “Thanks,” I say, picturing a guy big enough to knock a door clean off its hinges. The image that comes to mind is of the big fellow who was sitting three stools down from me in the bar. Something about him just oozes henchman.

  I go up the steps. They creak beneath my feet and a fresh smell of dust and wood rushes up to meet me. It’s a good smell, one that I’ve missed. It beats the outdoors and the lingering odors of zombie guts and sickness so prominent in the wilderness. On the second floor landing, I turn right and read the numbers. Someone screams in 209. The floor groans in 211. 212 is silent and so is 213. The key goes in the lock, the door opens.

  The room is nothing to write home about—a single window, a single bed, and a nightstand with a Bible on top of it—but it looks like heaven to me. There’s a toilet and a small shower with a pre-filled bucket hanging from the ceiling. I close the door and lock it. I take a shower. The water is lukewarm at best, but it does well to take the dirt away from my skin, the oil from my hair.

  I draw the curtains to block out the sunlight. Strip off my towel and lie naked on the bed. Then I lay my pistol next to the pillow—another lesson I’ve learned traversing the wasteland. Never sleep without your weapon nearby. That’s just how the world is now.

  5

  I awake to the sound of clamoring outside of my second story window.

  There is a chill in the air, but my body is slick with sweat and the old sheets—that have probably never been washed in their existence—stick to my skin. The sun has gone down. The sky is dark, but the streets are not. Torches light them. Some of them are lit with fire while others are lit by electricity. It is a godsend to see electricity again.

  It takes me a moment to gather my thoughts. The noises outside don’t help. There are screams and shouts. I can’t tell if they are out of pain or joy. My guess is the former, but I’ve been wrong before and am hopefully wrong right now. Still, I grip my pistol with a sweaty hand because I’ve learned it’s better to be safe than sorry.

  I sit up now and yawn, thinking back to my dreams. They aren’t significant enough for me to remember, but I’m guessing they were nightmares. Almost always are.

  Outside, someone is saying, “Make way! Make way!”

  Speaking of nightmares, before Darlene and Junior were murdered, I suffered from the most horrible dreams imaginable, the type of nightmares one could never forget—believe me, I’ve tried very hard. All consisted of death. Once I dreamed about waking up next to Darlene. The sheets were soaked with warm liquid, but I’d never felt colder in my entire life. I patted the mattress, moved the covers, found Darlene. I remember in the dream, I shook her and said her name. She didn’t answer. I was just about to turn on the light when I heard a tapping on our bedroom window. We didn’t bother to put curtains up because we were on the second level. Because of this I saw the monster outside of the glass as plain as day. It was as if a spotlight had been shining on it’s face. I can’t say for sure, it might be the fact that many things have happened to me since those dreams, but I still think to this day that the one-eyed man had found a way to inhabit my subconscious mind. He held a bloody knife in one hand and Darlene’s head in the other. She stared out at me with lifeless eyes. He tapped the knife’s blade against the glass and said, Jaaaaackkk, Jaaaacccck…JACK! And the lights flipped on and I saw Darlene’s headless body next to me. I saw that the warm liquid soaking through the sheets and my clothes was blood. Her blood.

  I woke up screaming. Darlene was right next to me, unharmed. I don’t know how many more nights we would’ve had together before the unspeakable happened to her and Junior and Haven, but it wasn’t many.

  Then something crazy did happen. At one of our council meetings Carmen, Darlene’s sister, brought up the nightmares she’d been having. They had all dealt with death. Then Abby spoke up and Darlene did, too. Norm wouldn’t admit to having the same nightmares as us, but his husband Tim did. Not only did they deal with death, but they had something else in common, too. There was a man in all of them. This man was older, his face was wrinkled and worn like he’d seen more bloodshed than all of us combined. In my dreams, he was missing his eye; in Darlene’s he was missing a nose; in Abby’s a hand like her; in Norm’s he was whole (we knew this to be an obvious lie). And so on and so on. Norm still wasn’t convinced of our shared dreams, he had said it was some fantastical bullshit and I would’ve been inclined to agree with him had zombies not infested our world. If that was possible, anything is.

  Then, not too long after Haven had fallen, and I’d seen that face from my dreams brought to reality. The one-eyed man, the leader of the radical group calling themselves the District, the one who took my family from me.

  He had help. I’ve found some of those bastards.

  Like I’ve said before, I have not let any of them live.

  I’m up now, getting my pants back on, my shirt, my cloak. The rambling outside has picked up, but I’m not quick to check it out. Frankly, I don’t care much. In my experience any noise after sundown is never a good thing.

  It can’t be a flood of zombies from a breach in the gates, either. If it was, there’d be a lot more screaming.

  Once I’m dressed, I go downstairs, taking the creaky steps one at a time. There’s a clamor coming from the first level of the motel, men and women talking in hushed tones. It’s dark down here, too. Shadows dance across the floor from a single candlelight burning at the front desk. The old man still sits behind it, but his feet aren’t up. He doesn’t look the least bit relaxed, though he’s still smoking. Just one cigarette tonight.

  I see the windows are shuttered and the door is barred closed.

  “Might as well go back up to your room, sir, and get some shut-eye,” the old man says to me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. My fingers tingle as my post-apocalyptic senses tell me I should fill my hand with a weapon.

  “Don’t want to know, outlander,” the old man says.

  “I do. That’s why I asked.”

  Someone in the lobby area chuckles. “He got you there, Franky.”

  “Aw, stuff it, Rich, or I’ll kick you out and make you see them District boys face to face,” the old man says.

  My heart shudders to a stop. I arch an eyebrow, trying not to let the surprise show on my face. So I ask as nonchalantly as possible, “District?”

  “What are you, a dummy?” Franky asks, looking at me cross-eyed.

  “Be nice,” a woman says to the left of the bottom of the stairs. I look over, thinking it might be the bartender Lilliana. It’s not. It’s a woman in her fifties or sixties with silver hair. Her skin is porcelain smooth, no lines or wrinkles whatsoever. I’m reminded of Eve, Darlene’s mother, who was the leader of Haven and the founder of the council we were on before she died of what the compound’s doctors diagnosed as cancer. It was a nasty affair. Without proper treatment, Eve withered away to basically nothing. It had hurt Darlene and her sister Carmen very badly. Hell, it hurt every last one of Haven’s citizens.

  “Don’t tell me what to do, woman!” Frank yells.

  “Quiet!” Rich hisses.

  There’s a handful of others in the room, but they look too scared to speak. Their faces are pale, their heads are stooped.

  “I’m going to get a drink,” I say, and walk through the lobby.

  Rich steps in front of me. He’s a man about my age, somewhere in his forties. He’s burly, clean-shaven, short-cropped hair covered by a Sherlock Holmes hat. There’s nothing about him that’s intimidating, I think, until I look into his eyes. There is a primal fear in those eyes, and the reason he’s so frightened, the reason the door is barred and the shades are drawn, is because he, along with everyone else in this lobby, is afraid of the Dis
trict.

  I don’t blame them.

  But I’m not scared. Not many things scare me anymore. Before I lost Darlene and Junior, the only thing that did scare me was losing my family. Now I’m a man with nothing left to lose.

  “Please, sir, don’t go out there. For all our sakes,” Rich says.

  “If he wants to be a dumbass, let him be a dumbass,” Frank says. I do my best to ignore it. No need to pick a fight with a crotchety old man. “If you think about it, he’ll be a distraction. Them District boys will set their sights on him and forget about us.” He closes his eyes then mumbles something that reminds me of a silent prayer. This is all but confirmed when he does the sign of the cross right in front of me.

  “Please,” Rich says again, ignoring Franky. “Please, sir, I don’t know you, but I know there’s not a lot of us left. No reason to get yourself killed.”

  “You see his sword, Rich?” the woman asks. “He isn’t going to die. Not Conan the Barbarian here.” She chuckles and a score of the other formerly silent people echo her laughter.

  I’m not amused. Not many things amuse me these days.

  “I appreciate the concern,” I say to Rich, “but I’m parched. I could really use a drink.”

  “We have—”

  I don’t let Rich finish, no time to listen to bullshit. If the District is here, I have to make them pay. So I push past him, cutting him off, and open the door to the fire-lit streets beyond.

  But when I look up, the man I see out there makes me want to go back inside.

  6

  I don’t go back in the motel for obvious reasons, the biggest of them being that I’ve already made a big fuss about being brave and I have to stick to that.

  Still, it’s hard to be brave sometimes.

  The man I see has his back turned toward me then he disappears into The Jet.

  The man’s name is Brandon. He was there when Haven fell. He was there when Darlene’s throat was slit and my boy was shot in the back of the head. He was there laughing and cheering the one-eyed man on. He helped hold Darlene down. She had put up such a fight.

  I start to shake. Tears blur my vision. Not because I’m sad, but because I’m angry. More angry than I realize.

  I take a deep breath. Get it together, Jack. Compose yourself.

  I know if I go in there guns-a-blazing, it will not end well for any of us. Innocent bystanders will probably be killed. I’ll have to play this right.

  Going up the street, I pass buildings with blinds drawn and doors locked just like the Travelers’ Bay, except I see faces poking out through the curtains and shutters. Pale faces and wide eyes.

  My heels click on the old asphalt.

  I am a lone gunslinger (with a sword) coming down a dusty street to pick a fight with the black hat.

  Just before I get to the downed plane, I hear something that causes me to draw my pistol and raise it up. It’s a sound predisposed to make my trigger finger convulse. It’s the groans and moans of zombies. A pack, by the sound of it.

  I take cover at the corner of the abandoned post office. Gaze around.

  My jaw drops.

  The zombies are chained up, attached to a car. It’s not a normal car, though. It’s sawed in half. The front end of a convertible with an extra wheel added to the back part near the seats so it looks like a tricycle. The metal is jagged and dangerously sharp. The windshield is cracked and slick with dark blood. The hood ornament is gone, but judging by what’s left of the body, it’s a Chrysler. Another blast from the past.

  I now see why the zombies are there. I have to squint. They are missing their bottom jaws and the teeth in the upper part has been removed. Each hand is nothing but a bloody hunk of flesh, no fingers so they can’t scratch. Their eyes burn as fervently as ever, though, and as soon as they see me or smell me, they lunge forward, causing the car to creak. It goes nowhere. Thank God for the parking brake…I think.

  Still, I’m unnerved. Only people—hell, I don’t know if I should even call them that—who would be crazy enough to hook a pack of rotters up to a sawed-off convertible are people from the District.

  I holster my gun, knowing the zombies aren’t a threat and probably never will be unless someone has an irrational fear of being gummed to death, of which I do not.

  I go up the ramp to The Jet and push through the batwing doors. No piano plays, but the same man from earlier sits at the bench, his posture stooped, his eyes averted to the floor. Lilliana is behind the bar with another woman, this one older than her. They rush back and forth with drinks in their hands. I catch eyes with Lilly as she comes out from behind the bar with three glasses of flat beer, filled to the brim. Her eyes practically plead for me to get out of here.

  I’m not leaving. I’m thirsty.

  Thirsty for blood.

  Lilly brings those beers to the corner booth where the District have set up shop in the corner of the large room . Brandon has his back turned to me still, but I know it’s him. I could recognize that misshaped head a mile away. He’s a little younger. Probably in his early thirties. He has that certain kind of cockiness commonly seen in the big man on campus back in high school and college. As Lilliana sets the glasses down, he reaches out and slaps her ass with a big, dirty hand. Lilly stiffens at the gesture. I can only see the side of her face, but the way her eyes bore into him and her lips raise in a snarl tells me she is not particularly fond of Brandon’s greeting.

  One of the other District officers sees me eyeing the table and leans over and whispers to a different officer, who turns to look at me just before I make a show of hailing down the other bartender.

  I have to play this right. I’m outnumbered here.

  But how do I play it?

  “I’d like a Coca-Cola, please,” I say.

  The woman gives me a tired look. “I’m sorry,” she says, “Coca-Cola and other sweet beverages aren’t for public consumption.”

  Just as I’m about to argue and say Well, Lilly gave me one less than twenty-four hours ago, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “Jack. Nice to see you again. What’ll it be? The usual?” Lilly asks.

  I blink stupidly up at her. The usual? I’m not a regular. I’m not—

  “Whiskey, right?” Lilly says. She gives me a slight wink. The other bartender has lost interest in the conversation. I decide to just go with the flow. Can’t afford to stick out with the District here.

  I stammer, “Y-Yeah, the usual.”

  “Jack Daniels coming right up,” Lilly says.

  The other bartender rolls her eyes and moves out of Lilly’s way as a fresh highball glass is put in front of me and filled with smooth whiskey. I pick it up and put my mouth to the rim. It burns on its way down, feels like a fire in my belly. “Ah,” I say. “Thanks, Lilly.”

  “No problem,” she answers. Then she’s gone as quick as she came, back tending to the other customers, filling up glasses and smiling as well as she can with the added pressure of having stone-cold killers as her newest patrons.

  “Hey there, piano man!” Brandon yells. His other goons laugh. “Play us a song!”

  The man on the piano bench jumps at the sound of Brandon’s voice, then he stutters and stumbles over his words. “S-Sure, friends! What’ll it b-be?”

  “Surprise me,” Brandon says.

  More laughter from his goons. A sour feeling arises in the pit of my stomach. My grip on my glass tightens enough that I think I might accidentally shatter it into a million pieces. Talk about lying low, huh? I take another deep breath to compose myself, trying not to think about my dead wife and son, or Norm and Abby and all those other Havenites who had their lives taken from them.

  The piano starts up. It’s a song I don’t immediately recognize. My head is too fuzzy for me to pinpoint it. That’s okay. I’m not here to listen to music. I’m here to get one step closer to my ultimate goal of revenge.

  Judging by Brandon’s already slurring words, he and his friends have had more than a few drinks before com
ing to The Jet. A few more and I’ll make my move.

  7

  Then something happens, something that changes my plans.

  Brandon is up, screaming at the piano player. “Play Billy Joel!”

  And the piano player says “I don’t know any Billy Joel.”

  Brandon hits him, knocks him off his bench. “How the fuck don’t you know any Billy Joel? You call yourself a piano man?” Then he’s laughing and wailing on him.

  The other District guards stand up and draw their weapons, aiming them at anyone who makes a move to stop Brandon.

  “Lucky it’s not you on the ground,” one of them says as a man lunges forward. “Sit back down or you get a bullet in the brain.” He cocks the hammer.

  I may not have hope in humanity anymore, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit around and put up with this bullshit.

  So I move fast because I have to. I kick the stool out in front of me, and it careens in the direction of the goons. Wood splinters as it connects with the goon’s knee, taking his legs out from under him, and his gun hits the floor. It clanks and cartwheels off somewhere to my left. Most importantly, out of the goon’s reach. Then, because I really don’t want to waste my own ammunition on the likes of a grunt, I pull my sword free from its scabbard. It has seen a lot of zombie flesh in its line of duty, not much human. Today it meets the other goon’s neck. I do this in one quick motion, pulling the hidden blade out from beneath my cloak. The edge swipes across the area just below the man’s chin. I don’t think I have enough power behind it to kill him, but the spray of blood and the wheezing that follows tells me I’m wrong. This goon is big and as he falls, he makes quite the racket, though the screams from the bar’s crowd are much louder. Goon lands on other goon, pins him to the ground.

  Good. This buys me more time.

  Unfortunately, I don’t have much of it to admire the beautiful mess I’ve made. And though, I’m not a fan of killing humans, I understand these men deserve it for their affiliation with the District alone. Add the mountains of wrongdoings these men have done, the destruction they’ve left in their wake, the innocent blood they’ve spilled, and I’m doing the world a big favor.