The Remaining: Fractured

by D. J. Molles

  “We told you not to rock the boat. And what did you do?”

  “I didn’t do shit, Arnie.”

  The other man shook his head, and for the first time Sam realized he held a pipe. “No. You rocked the boat. You fucked us hard. You went behind our back, and you started spreading some fucking lies about us, and about Jerry. You tried to undermine what we’re doing here, and that is fucking unacceptable.”

  Keith looked up at the man—one of the men that Sam had seen hanging around with Greg the scavenger—but didn’t say anything. He just sighed. Shook his head. Looked off into the woods.

  “Who did you talk to?” the man demanded.

  “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We need. To know. Who the fuck you talked to.” The man bent down, the pipe working up and down in his grip. “You are going to tell us, or you are going to die. If you tell us, we will let you go with a good beating as a reminder. If you don’t…then we’ll make an example out of you.”

  Keith just laughed, a very old sound. “You gonna kill me, boy? You’d be doin’ me a goddamned favor. You think I wanna live in this shithole anymore? In these conditions? I’ve only got a few years left anyways. And that’s being generous. So why don’t you go fuck yourself. Do whatever you want.”

  The younger man standing beside Keith looked distressed. “Come on, Mr. Keith. Don’t be like this. You know we gotta do what we gotta do. Don’t put us in a bad spot. No one wants to hurt you, especially not me and Arnie.”

  “Well,” Keith spat into the dirt. “Maybe not you, Kyle. But Arnie here seems to like the idea.”

  Arnie—the one with the pipe in his hand—raised his hands in surrender. “Look…the man’s right, Keith. We don’t want to hurt you. You tell us who you were talking to and we’ll just drop the whole thing, okay?”

  “Yeah?” Keith sat back on his heels, wincing as though the position was painful. “I don’t think you will. I think you’ll hurt me anyways. And I think you’ll hurt or kill whoever’s name I give you. So where’s it gonna end? You keep killin’ everyone that don’t agree with you, ain’t gonna be many left by the end of the year.” A wan smile. “Be a lonely Christmas for Jerry and the boys.”

  Arnie stood over the old man. “Well…if that’s how it’s gonna be, then that’s how it’s gonna be.”

  “Yeah, I s’pose so.”

  Arnie swung once, connected with the side of Keith’s face. Blood and brain erupted out of ears and eye sockets. Keith slouched with a groan, one hand keeping him from falling over. One eye hung out, and with the other he stared up at Arnie, convulsing violently, his mouth working soundlessly.

  Sam felt his bladder empty into his pants.

  “Oh fuck!” Arnie jumped back.

  “Jesus! Fucking kill him already!” Kyle cried out.

  Arnie hesitated. Keith mumbled something unintelligible, desperate, his un-socketed eye twitching about madly. Arnie got his guts up again and stepped into Keith, swinging again, this time a downward trajectory that cracked Keith in the middle of his skull, caused a spurt of blood from his nostrils, and all the life to flee from his body, as though a puppeteer had simply dropped the strings.

  Sam stared at the dead body on the ground. The warmth on his legs turned suddenly cold. His heart burned like it pumped fire. A sob worked its way up his throat and he tried to stop it, tried to keep it down because he knew he had to be quiet, because this was not “yelling and scolding” trouble this was I’m going to die trouble.

  But it came out anyways.

  One short, sharp sound of grief and shock.

  He ran. He knew he had to get out of there, knew that they would have heard him make that noise, so he ran. His legs were wobbly, rubbery, just weak muscles with no bones to support him. The other kids stood in the field, staring, wondering where the soccer ball was, but he’d dropped it somewhere back behind him. He ran, he fled, he had to get away. Some of the kids asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t hear them, couldn’t hear anything accept the sound of fear, which was like being caught in a windstorm, or strapped into a car with all of the windows down as it hurtled down the road at a hundred miles an hour.

  He ran clear across the field where they played soccer and disappeared into the rows of shanties.

  At the corner of the Camp Ryder building, Kyle stumbled around the corner, pale in the face, his eyes sickened and rushed with adrenaline. He looked around desperately, trying to find the kid that he had seen dip around the corner—the little Middle Eastern kid that hung around with Angela and Keith. He looked at each of the kids that stood in the soccer field, saw that some of them stared out towards the shanties, while some of the others looked straight at Kyle.

  But none of them were the kid he was looking for.

  He put a hand to his head. “Shit.”

  CHAPTER 16: WITNESSES

  Jerry opened the door to his office and found Arnie and Kyle standing there with looks on their faces that immediately made Jerry stop in his tracks, hand still on the doorknob. He looked behind him at Greg. The man in the Yankees ball cap stood outside the office, hands on his hips, regarding Arnie and Kyle with that special brand of disdain reserved for friends who’ve screwed up.

  “Goddammit, guys,” Greg mumbled and edged past Jerry, closing the door behind him. “Tell me you didn’t fuck this up.”

  Arnie wrung his hand. “Well…”

  “Lemme guess,” Jerry touched his fingers to his temples. “Something happened, you guys turned your back for a second, let your guard down, or maybe he asked you for a cigarette and it confused you because, shit, no one has had a cigarette in two months, so it completely distracted you…and he got away.”

  Arnie shook his head, his fatless jowls swinging like empty bags. “No, no. We did the job.”

  Jerry glared at them. “So what’s the problem?”

  Kyle looked at Arnie.

  Jerry and Greg looked at Arnie.

  Arnie looked at the floor. “Kid saw us do it.”

  Jerry threw his hands up. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ!”

  Greg stepped forward, his fingers stabbing the air. “Wait. Whose kid?”

  More uncomfortable fidgeting. “The Hadji kid…the one that hangs around with Mr. Keith and Angela.”

  “What?” Jerry almost screamed. He glanced behind him, to see if the door was shut, then spun back to Arnie and Kyle. “The fucking kid…the one that hangs out with Keith and Angela…he’s the one that saw you two mopes do this shit? Un-fucking-believable!”

  Greg closed his eyes. “What did the kid see?”

  “Everything.”

  “Everything?” Jerry swore loudly again. Kicked a chair.

  Arnie shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, I didn’t notice him until he let out this weird little noise, and then I turned and saw him runnin’ away from us. Not really sure how long he’d been watchin’ us, but he saw Mr. Keith dead, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Did you hide the fucking body?” Greg steamed.

  “Yeah,” Arnie quickly seized on what he’d done right. “Pulled it through the cut in the fence and hauled him into the woods, just like you told us to.”

  Jerry put on a fake smile. “Oh, that’s great. Super great. Fucking fantastic. You got half of the job right.” He crossed the distance between him and Arnie with a single long stride and grabbed the man’s jacket. “You have any idea how much fucking trouble you’ve caused me? This kid fucking sees this shit, and he lives with Angela. With Angela. Of all the fucking people, you do this shit in front of Angela’s kid. Fuck me! You know what that means? I want you to tell me what it means! Please fucking explain it to me, so that I can feel secure in the knowledge that you at least have some sort of brain cells floating around in there. Tell me!”

  Arnie blew out a shaky breath. “The kid’s gonna tell Angela.”

  “Yeah.” Jerry pushed the man back into the wall of the office, sneering with disgust. He shook his head, walked around the desk and flopped into the seat, st
aring up at the ceiling. He seemed boneless, as though his outburst were some exercise in anger and he had spent himself out on yelling at Arnie. “Everyone just shut the fuck up and let me think for a second.”

  The chair behind the desk creaked. Jerry stared at the ceiling, unmoving.

  Creak.

  Creak.

  Greg stared at the two men.

  Arnie mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

  Greg gave him a furious look and gave the other man an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He balled his fist and raised it from his side just slightly, the inference very obvious: Say one damn thing and I will knock your teeth down your throat.

  After a lengthy few minutes, the steady creaking sound stopped.

  Jerry leaned forward, the chair making an odd springy noise as he settled his elbows on the desk, fingers interlaced, face suddenly calm again as though the three men simply stood before him in order to be interviewed for a position.

  The only sign that Jerry was still angry with Arnie and Kyle was that he refused to look at them, and instead bored straight into Greg. “We can make this work, Greg. So here’s what I want. I’m going to tell you what I want, and you are going to relay it to these two fucks, in whatever dialect you believe might result in the job being understood and carried out correctly.”

  Greg nodded.

  “You,” he pointed at Greg, “Go and get Angela. She should be in the medical trailer with Jenny. Go quickly, before that snot-nosed little brat shows up and cries his eyes out. Bring her to me. I will keep her distracted.” His finger shifted to Greg’s left, so it now pointed at Arnie and Kyle. “While I’m doing this, your two fuckhead partners will find this kid, and they will explain to him, clearly and concisely and in terms that a child will understand, why he should not speak to anyone about what he saw today.” Jerry steepled his fingers in front of his face. “They are not to hurt the kid.”

  Greg took a slow breath. “It’d be smarter to just…”

  “Kill him?” Jerry offered. “Yes. Kill the kid. Kill the little kid that everyone in the fucking camp loves.” He slapped the top of the desk. “No. Like I said, no one is going to hurt the kid. Not yet anyways. No one is going to miss Keith, the crusty old bastard, but when you get the kids involved then you open a fucking floodgate of every annoying parental instinct these people have and they won’t turn a blind eye to it. They will get suspicious. And when they get suspicious, they will ask questions. And I don’t think any of us are prepared to answer any fucking questions.” Jerry raised his eyebrows. “I can’t be any clearer than that.”

  Greg looked at the others. “Come with me.”

  ***

  Greg closed the office door and led the two men halfway down the stairs until he felt sure that Jerry couldn’t hear him. He glanced around first, checking the interior of the Camp Ryder building but it was mid-morning and everyone was still out doing the things that needed to be done. Two older men held a quiet conversation in the far corner but didn’t appear too interested in what he or the two men who followed him were doing. He turned on Arnie and Kyle and held up a hand for them to stop.

  “You guys wanna tell me what the fuck happened?” he said in a low tone. He glanced around again, cautious as ever. “Did you guys really kill the old man behind the building?”

  Kyle and Arnie exchanged glances.

  They weren’t unintelligent, Greg knew, despite what Jerry thought. Jerry was a hothead, and Greg recognized it for what it was: the passion of leadership. He wanted shit done a certain way, and naturally got pissed when it didn’t happen. That same passion was why people followed him. Because he appeared to have everything under control. And the worse the times became, the more control they were willing to give over.

  Greg was in. He had been in from the start, because Jerry had seen him as a means to an end—Greg wasn’t fooling himself about that—but lately the relationship had seemed to adopt a more mutual feel. They needed each other. It was a symbiotic relationship. They both wanted to run Camp Ryder in their own ways, and they assisted each other to their ends.

  Jerry’s was control.

  Greg’s was gain.

  So let Jerry think that Arnie and Kyle were idiots. He wouldn’t contradict Jerry while they stood on the receiving end of one of his tirades. But out of the office Greg knew he had to have his guys’ backs.

  He spread his hands out. “Come on, guys. You’re doin’ this to yourself.”

  Arnie made an exhausted noise. “Man, it was my fault. I just didn’t think we were gonna get Mr. Keith through the fence without him raising some sort of hell. I figured it’d be easy just to handle it out back. Shit, no one ever goes back there.”

  “Well, this time someone did.” Greg rubbed his face. “You guys gotta play this shit a little bit smarter, alright? We gotta have Jerry’s back. Can’t put him in shitty spots. Otherwise he’s gonna get a bad taste in his mouth and he’s gonna find other people to do his work.” Greg looked at Arnie and Kyle. “And we need that work. Scrap and scavenge is the one commodity left in this world, gentlemen. And right now we’ve got a monopoly on it.”

  Arnie and Kyle both nodded.

  “My bad,” Arnie said. “Won’t happen again.”

  “Alright.” Greg turned back around and started marching down the stairs. “Go find that little shit. I’ll deal with this cunt, Angela.”

  ***

  The medical trailer was a mess of people. The beds were no longer in use, because there was no point in keeping the people with pneumonia in them when there was no cycle of antibiotics to administer at a particular time. So Jenny had been sending them home with instructions to rest. If they had loved ones to look after them, she told them to keep them hydrated, and try to keep them well fed. If they didn’t have anyone to look after them, Jenny made sure she stopped by their shanty several times each day to try to give them what they needed.

  Now the medical trailer contained four newcomers, all of them coughing wetly into their hands, and Angela standing there with Jenny, watching them and imagining each person surrounded by a cloud of infectious germs. She didn’t want to breathe, kept subconsciously taking short, shallow gulps of air instead.

  Jenny looked bewildered. “I’ve got nothing for these people,” she murmured to Angela.

  Angela shook her head. “I think everyone’s here for the cold-flu thing.”

  Jenny nodded. She raised her voice so everyone could hear. “Please raise your hands if you are displaying any of these symptoms: pain in the chest when you cough or breathe; dark colored mucus, or if it’s got blood in it; feeling short of breath; or if you’re running a fever.”

  The four people looked about hesitantly. They all raised their hands.

  Jenny’s face was grim. “That’s what I thought. Okay. Look, folks, I’m speaking to all of you now, so listen up.” They coughed and sniffed and stared at her expectantly. “I have no medications whatsoever. There is nothing that I can give any of you that will make you better right now.” She glanced at the floor. “I’ll be submitting a request to Greg and his team for antibiotics and cough medicine, but right now I have nothing that can help you. As for the symptoms I just mentioned…” she sighed. “…You probably have pneumonia. Right now, it’s best for you to try to stay warm and to rest up. Drink plenty of fluids. Make sure you’re eating carbohydrates—oats, rice, sugars.”

  She looked at them. “You’re all otherwise healthy middle-aged adults, so you’ve got a great chance of just beating this thing on your own. But if your symptoms do get worse, please send someone to come get me. I’ll be coming by your houses and checking on you, and as soon as I can get some medication, I’ll be addressing the worst cases.” She shrugged. “That’s all we can do for now.”

  Rather than arguing or bickering, the tiny crowd simply seemed to droop, as though they didn’t have the energy to protest. Then they turned and shuffled out of the medical trailer.

  Jenny watched them go, the hard feeling showing on her
face. She wrapped her arms around herself. “God, I feel so fucking useless.”

  Angela reached out, rubbed the woman’s arm. “Hey. We got some rounds to make.”

  Jenny nodded. “Yeah…”

  The trailer clanged three times, hard knuckles wrapping on the metal sides.

  Angela and Jenny both looked up sharply.

  Greg stood at the entrance to the trailer, his head turned as he watched the last of the sick people file out of the trailer and disappear into their shanties. He frowned at them, holding a hand over his nose and mouth as though it would protect him from invading germs. When the last of them had gone he removed the hand and gave the slightest of shudders, then turned his attention back to Jenny and Angela.

  “Jenny,” he said, familiarly.

  “Greg,” she replied, cautiously.

  Angela took a step forward, wished that she hadn’t—didn’t want to be any closer to this man. “What the hell do you want, Greg?”

  “Whoa,” he held up his hands. “Settle down.” Then he tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “Jerry wants to talk to you.”

  Angela touched her chest. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  Her mind exploded with warning bells and whistles and questions. Why does he want me? Did he overhear something? Did someone say that I’d gone behind his back? Did Greg hear me and Jenny talking and report it back to Jerry? Why would Jerry want to speak with me? I didn’t say anything during his town meeting, why the fuck is he mad at me?

  Shaking, but trying to not make it obvious, she raised her chin up. “Why me? What’s wrong?”

  Greg gave a small shake of his head. “You’re gonna have to talk to him, Angela. He just asked me to come get you.”

  A hand squeezed hers.

  She looked back, found Jenny putting on a brave face. “It’ll be okay.”

  Angela nodded, mimicked the face, but it didn’t feel right on her. Then she turned back to Greg and followed him out of the trailer. Oddly, as she walked, she thought of Abby’s torn jacket and how she had not been able to mend it yet. She’d been caught up with Jenny and then the town meeting, and then the medical trailer…