Dead Lost

by Flint Maxwell

  “Brainwashing,” Suzanna says abruptly, the maternal quality of her voice gone.

  “Brainwashing?” I repeat.

  Lilly laughs. It’s an uncomfortable laugh.

  “Yes, brainwashing. I don’t know how one goes about brainwashing—it might be very easy or entirely beyond my own intellectual capabilities—but that’s what the District does. They brainwash their people. If it doesn’t work, then they kill them without hesitation,” Suzanna says.

  My mind reels. Brainwashing? Now, I’ve heard and read a lot of crazy things—seen even crazier things—but brainwashing? That’s something else.

  “I can tell by your face that you do not believe me, Jack,” Suzanna says. She doesn’t sound angry or disbelieving but perfectly natural instead. “I’ve seen it myself. These soldiers, Bandit had words for them, like dog trainers have for their dogs. He’d tell the soldier to jump and say the word and the soldier would ask how high.”

  “I’ve never heard of this,” Lilly says as if her knowledge of such things is the be-all, end-all of this matter.

  “Where do you come from?” Suzanna ask.

  “Freeland. A sometimes District-occupied place. We supplied arms and crop for their ‘protection.’ I was around District soldiers all the time, and I never heard of brainwashing—” A momentary spark of realization comes to Lilly’s eyes.

  Suzanna is nodding.

  Me—I’m confused as hell.

  “You see it now, yes?” Suzanna asks. “Now that I’ve pointed it out to you, you cannot unsee it.”

  Lilly whispers, “Holy shit. Oops, excuse me, Suze.”

  Suzanna waves a hand, turns to me. “And you, Jack?”

  “What am I looking for?” I ask. “What am I trying to realize here?”

  “Their faces,” Lilly says. “Their eyes. They all look like drugged-up puppies.”

  “I think that has more to do with their stupidity than it does being brainwashed,” I say.

  Suzanna chuckles. “Relative IQ score has a lot to do with it. It’s much easier to brainwash those of lesser intelligence. Those who are smart enough will just blindly follow orders for fear of their lives, but they are few and far between. The Shadow likes to keep his lackeys…lacking.”

  “The Shadow?” I ask. Brainwashing is one thing. I mean, I’ve heard of brainwashing, maybe even suspected it of the District soldiers at some base level, but I’ve never heard of The Shadow, or anything involving shadows when it comes to the District.

  Suzanna nods. “Yes, he is also known as the Overlord.”

  My stomach squirms. Inside of its pit is a snake of fear and loathing and anger and hate. “Also known as the one-eyed man.”

  “So you’ve seen him?” Suzanna says. “I never have. Bandit always made house calls. Slaves such as us wouldn’t have seen the light of day had it been the other way around.”

  I try to hide the anger on my face. Always simmering just below the surface is my hatred for the one-eyed man. These days, two years after my wife and son were taken from me, I have learned to control it slightly, to bury it a little deeper. Now, though, I can feel the heat baking my face, my hands shaking, my blood pressure spiking.

  “More than seen him then, hmm?” Suzanna muses. “He has wronged you personally. That is evident enough in your eyes.”

  I’m quiet for a moment, quiet and still, stewing in my own hatred and subtle panic. All my time on the road, I’ve wondered about this one-eyed man, this Overlord. I’ve heard a million different stories of who he is, but most of them were just that—stories. Some of the District soldiers I’ve come across during my travels did not even believe this Overlord existed, he was an urban legend to scare those into action as some shady government organization left over from the old days tried to put the pieces of the shattered world back together.

  “He did more than wrong him,” Lilly says in a low voice. I look up at her, my eyes blazing. She catches the hint. “Well…it’s not my story to tell.”

  “Not one I feel like telling, either,” I say.

  “That’s no problem. I understand,” Suzanna says.

  “What do you know about him?” I ask.

  “Not much. Only what I’ve heard over snippets of conversation from Bandit and his men.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of bull,” I say. “Why should I believe you?” I don’t mean this to sound harsh. It kind of does.

  She looks at me, not in the least bit offended. “Does it matter, Jack? All you’ve heard may be true, it may be not, but it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme. You only want one thing, I see it in your eyes as much as I see the pain and hurt in them.”

  I look away. I can’t help myself. It’s as if Suzanna isn’t looking at me so much as she’s looking through me. I feel exposed.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” she continues. “What I’ve heard.”

  I almost stop her, almost raise my hand and say I don’t need to hear this. She’s right, you know. None of this matters. The Shadow, the Overlord, or the one-eyed man. He could be Ghandi reincarnated for all I care and I’m still going to get my revenge. Because what it comes down to is the fact that he took my wife and son away from me; he slit Darlene’s throat and stepped on Junior’s back as he shot him in the head; he ruined my life, all that I’ve built up, all that I had.

  “His name was Adam. He was an investment banker long ago, and those types of skills one learns in investment banking do not transition well into the zombie apocalypse. So him surviving is almost unheard of. But then something happened. The story goes he was on the run after his compound was flooded with rotters.”

  Lilly adds in, “A feeling we all know,” as I continue to look away from Suzanna, trying to force my mind anywhere else. But I can’t. I have to listen. For Darlene, for Junior, for Abby and Norm and Herb and Tim and Carmen.

  Suzanna doesn’t seem to notice Lilly’s comment and continues talking. “It was while on the run that Adam began to be haunted by what has come to be known as The Shadow.”

  “Like a ghost?” Lilly says skeptically.

  “Like a ghost,” Suzanna agrees. “This ghost or shadow or spirit—whatever it was—made Adam do terrible things. I’ve heard that by this point in time he had lost his wife on the road. Those among his group were his wife’s cousin and a friend from the camp they’d been driven out of. One night, Adam sat by the smoldering remains of their fire on watch. The voices inside his head were always there, I assume, but then they were so loud, he couldn’t avoid them. They told him to kill his wife’s cousin, to kill the friend. And he did it while they were sleeping. He took their lives for no apparent reason, and on that day a new alliance was forged between The Shadow and what was left of Adam’s mind.”

  “What is The Shadow besides a ghost?” Lilly asks. “Like, really?”

  “I—I don’t know. Does it matter?” Suzanna asks. “It is evil, whatever it is.”

  I let out a shaky breath, tune back into the conversation.

  “Holy shit,” Lilly is saying. “That just sounds…crazy.”

  Suzanna shrugs. “It gets crazier still. This spirit so tormented Adam that he listened to its every word just to appease it. Even when The Shadow called for Adam to remove his eye. One of the men passing through Bandit’s farm claimed to know the soldier who walked in on Adam doing this. He did not use anything besides his own finger, digging and digging into the soft flesh until the eyeball came out with a suctioning pop. The man saw his eyeball hanging from one tangled and stretched optic nerve, saw the blood cascading down his face like red tears. The floor was soaked with puke and blood and pus, and Adam turned around, not Adam any longer for the transformation had been complete that night, and shrieked at the top of his lungs for the soldier to leave or it would be his eye that was removed next.”

  Lilly and I look on; her shocked, me unamused. Nothing seems to shock me anymore.

  “He didn’t require any medical attention. It is said The Shadow healed him in a matter of days. There was no infe
ction or complications. He did not wear an eyepatch, either,” Suzanna says.

  I nod, the image of the man fresh in my mind. He hadn't wore an eyepatch when he murdered Darlene and Junior. The hole was a raw mess of red and pale-white flesh, twisted and pinched to look as unnatural as Suzanna’s story sounds. Thinking of that wound makes me want to scream in rage, to find him and pull his other eye out.

  I push myself up from the bucket, step out of the barn and into the cool, smoky night air.

  Suzanna pauses for the moment. I turn to look at her, the queasiness ramping up with the movement. “What does this have to do with Abby?” I ask.

  “Everything,” Suzanna says. Her face remains blank and stony. “Your friend is under the influence, to an extent, of The Shadow, and I’m afraid there is no possible way to save her. She is lost, lost forever.”

  Lilly hangs her head down. I don’t. This is bullshit, I know it is. Abby recognized my voice. If she is brainwashed and she recognized my voice once, that means it’s not too late to break that spell. Somewhere under her trance, she is the Abby of old, the sister I’ve never had.

  Or what if it’s a setup? What if she faked it and they’re waiting for me? But why would they want me? Unless…someone from Freeland helped spread my little run-in with Brandon and the other District guards to the higher-ups. Maybe the one-eyed man thought I was dead and after hearing the story he finds out he was wrong. What would be the best way to get me to him? Abby would.

  But that’s just…crazy. Isn’t it?

  I turn away from the barn now, the rifle over my shoulder, thumping me in the side. It aggravates an old injury in my ribs, one I never got properly checked out due to the collapse of civilization all those years ago.

  No, forget it. Setup or not, I can un-brainwash her if I have to.

  “Jack? Where are you going?” Lilly asks.

  “To the Lincoln,” I say. “I have to get to Chicago.”

  Lilly stands up now, too. “Not without me.”

  “Lilly, just stay. I can do this by myself.”

  “I know you can,” Lilly says, “but you shouldn’t.”

  Suzanna gets up jerkily, holding her lower back. Despite the pain she’s obviously in, she offers a weak smile. “Jack, you really shouldn’t go. Not yet, at least. You are worn to the bone, that much is evident just by glancing at you.”

  I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. If what you say is true, I’ll fail anyway.”

  “No, you may not. But you shouldn’t go alone. The place they call Black Towers is dangerous, or so I’ve heard.”

  “Everywhere is dangerous now,” I say. I turn my back on them, stopping at the stable. There, Bilbo stands with sleepy eyes. He perks up at the sounds of my footsteps. I resist the urge to stroke his muzzle, to get attached.

  He snorts air softly.

  From the stable I go to the ruined U-Haul truck. Lilly and Suzanna have followed me. “I’m not taking it all,” I say. “Just enough to get by.”

  “Not even all will be enough, Jack,” Suzanna says. “Please, don’t go. Stay here and live in peace for the rest of your life.”

  I set the rifle I’m handling down on the hole-ridden metal floor. “Peace? No such thing as that anymore. They’ll always come—the zombies, the District, The Shadow, doesn’t matter.”

  “But we’ll be prepared for them,” Suzanna says.

  “That’s exactly what I thought. You want peace? You have to make it yourself. It’s what I intend to do,” I say.

  Suzanna nods. She sees there’s no convincing me because there isn’t. I’m going to the Black Towers and I’m going to save Abby, then I’m going to rip The Shadow right out of the man who was once known as Adam.

  I load the trunk of the Lincoln up with three rifles, each with a different attachment, and as many boxes of ammunition as can fit. I take a crate of grenades, too. For a moment, I think Suzanna is going to protest me taking the car, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to go anywhere. She wants to stay and relax, and as nice as that might be, I just can’t.

  The spare tire is underneath the back bumper. The jack and the rest of the tools are in the trunk. I take them out. I’ve only changed a handful of tires in my lifetime, most of them being under the supervision of my brother Norm, who knows a hell of a lot more about that stuff than I do. Norm isn’t here, so I have to make due.

  As I jack the car up and begin to remove the blown tire, Lilly is over my shoulder. She corrects me and because of these corrections, time is saved. Though I don’t show it on my face, I’m grateful for her.

  We get the car back on all four shoes. A spare won’t get me too far, so it’s lucky I’m only going about fifty miles to Chicago. In all of this work, I didn’t notice Suzanna has disappeared until she comes back with two red cans of gasoline. They slosh with each step she takes.

  “I may not be able to convince you, Jack, but I can help you as much as I can. Here, take this.” She hands me the containers. They are heavy, causing me to strain. It’s a good feeling. The smell of gasoline brings up many buried memories, makes me think of the old world. Anytime I was with Darlene—before the world went to hell, that is—I always got out and pumped her gas for her. This smell engulfed me as I leaned up against the pump and laughed like an idiot at the smashed faces Darlene would make, pressed against the glass of the driver’s side window. Damn it, I miss her so much.

  Lilly takes the containers from my hand and puts them on the floor in the back seat.

  “Thank you,” I say to Suzanna.

  She smiles and offers me her hand. I take it. “No. Thank you, Jack. Know that you are in my prayers—all of our prayers.”

  “Say goodbye to everyone for me,” I say.

  “I will,” she says.

  Lilly closes the door and comes around to us as Suzanna and I part. The two women hug each other, and for a slight moment I get this odd feeling of mother and daughter, like in some other timeline Lilly and Suzanna could’ve been related.

  “Take care of that horse, too,” I say. I won’t call Bilbo by his name, that’ll only solidify my attachment.

  Suzanna nods.

  I turn my back on her and the house as I head to the driver’s seat of the Lincoln. Inside, I turn the key in the ignition and the engine roars to life. It’s a good feeling, that power thrumming beneath my feet.

  But there’s another feeling I get now, too, as I adjust the rearview mirror to the proper spot. It’s the feeling that I haven’t seen the last of Suzanna and Bilbo or this farm at all.

  I really hope that’s true. I really hope they can find peace and hold on to each other when I couldn’t.

  25

  By the time we see the Chicago skyline, the sun is starting to come up and exhaustion is taking its toll on me, which I can’t let happen. Lilly offered to drive once and I immediately took her up on that offer. While she drove, I was too worried to completely relax. I managed to doze in and out of consciousness; at one point, I even had dreams. I don’t remember them, but judging how I woke myself up by muttering, I imagine they weren’t very good.

  We’re coming into the downtown area. I’m trying my best not to look around, unready for the pain of seeing my old home like this. As much as I didn’t love the big city and the bright lights, Chicago beat the heck out of Woodhaven, Ohio, and I’d give anything for my life to be back to the way it was.

  “One positive,” Lilly says, snapping me out of my reminiscence of the past, “is that there’s hardly any traffic.”

  I chuckle and nod ahead. “Yeah, only piled up cars.” Which is kind of like traffic. Dead traffic.

  We haven’t seen many zombies yet, just the occasional stragglers, wasted away to practically nothing. They move sluggishly, without any purpose. As the Lincoln blares past them, I see their eyes light up and turn in our direction. Then we’re gone and so are they.

  The pile-up I just nodded to is worse than I originally thought. My idea was to hop the curb and drive slow on the sidewalk, but even t
hat’s looking impossible. I slow the car to a crawl and scan the streets for any way out.

  “Shit, this isn’t good,” Lilly is saying. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her hands white-knuckle gripping her rifle.

  “It’s okay. Just have to turn around and find another way in.”

  “In where, Jack? We don’t even know where these Black Towers are.”

  She’s right, but I have a hunch where the place is and I think Lilly does, too. The Willis Tower, also known as the Sears Tower. If ever there was a place to set up shop in Chicago, it would be that massive skyscraper. Hell, that whole area would be. If you cleared out the dead, you’d have quite the metropolis to play in, and I think the District is crazy and strong enough to do such a thing. But what does Abby have to do with it?

  I put the car in reverse and turn around. The tires jump the curb, making me cringe at the idea of the spare dying on me in the process. It doesn’t. Now we’re traveling in the other direction of the pile-up.

  Lilly lets out a sigh and eases her grip on the rifle.

  “You didn’t have to come,” I say.

  She says, “Shut up.”

  I do.

  After a moment of slow driving, maneuvering through car wrecks and more pile-ups, Lilly speaks up again. Her voice is nervous. “So what the hell is our plan anyway?”

  “To drive around until we see the Black Towers.”

  “Yeah, you said that already. We’re pretty close, but I haven’t seen a single living soul,” she replies.

  Of course, my plan isn’t what I tell her. My plan is to just avoid the zombies long enough until the District comes to us, then I’ll get taken to Abby and I’ll un-brainwash her and we’ll live happily ever after. And I have no doubt that they already know we’re here.