by Noah Mann
“He would have,” Neil said. “He didn’t have any idea Grimes would be where he was. My guess is Ty thought I would have done what we were supposed to do.”
“Which is?”
“Eliminate our double if there was a likelihood of compromise.”
“So he had one, too,” I said.
“He was probably worm food before he knew what was happening,” Neil said.
He quieted for a moment. We both did. There was no more sound of any aircraft. That silence that the blight had brought upon the devastated world settled over us, and all that surrounded us. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. Bandon had left that foul hush behind. People laughed. Birds chirped.
Here, though, the world was still as it had been. There was no recovery. Even the green that had drawn Dave Arndt and I down to investigate was faux, just bait for the trap that had taken his life and left me captive.
“They killed Dave,” I said, nodding toward the vault door.
“Dave Arndt?”
I confirmed Neil’s question with a nod. He’d known the man during his time in Bandon.
“Perkins will kill anything that gets in his way.”
“That’s not a surprise,” I said.
“If he gets to Bandon...”
He didn’t finish the grim suggestion, letting the truncated worry hand for a moment before he shifted to a subject I knew he would choose to revisit.
“You said Grace and the kids are okay,” Neil said.
“They are.”
“How is she holding up?” he asked. “From what you said, she had to think I died. She had no idea about Riley Grimes. I never shared that with her.”
“It was hard on her, Neil,” I said, being as honest as I could while telling him nothing of what I knew I would have to.
He accepted my words, but puzzled at them. At the manner in which I’d delivered them—with apology dripping from the few syllables.
“Fletch...”
I didn’t look away from my friend. I wouldn’t. Not with what I would have to share. Words that I knew would hurt.
“Neil, she moved on.”
He let that hang there for a moment, understanding the reality which spun from the comment. Still, he wanted more. He wanted to know.
And he deserved nothing less than that.
“She remarried, Neil. They have a child. A little girl named Alice. Brandon and Krista adore her.”
There was almost no light that reached us in the depths of the bank vault. But enough trickled in from the starry night beyond the open front of the building that I could see the sheen of tears build over my friend’s eyes. The pain he was feeling I could not imagine, having lost his family through distance and captivity, only to learn that it was worse than that.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His gaze drifted about for a moment and his hands reached to the bars, fingers flexing tight around the thick lengths of steel, squeezing with a force I could not only imagine, but that I could see. For all the wasting which had afflicted his body, his hands had remained surprisingly strong, I now noticed.
“Who did she marry?” Neil asked.
“You don’t know him.”
“Who?” he repeated.
“His name’s Clay Genesee. He’s a doctor. He was Navy when he came in with support elements to help sustain Bandon.”
“He was military?”
I nodded.
“And he came in? Like Sheryl Quincy came in?”
I knew where he was going with the question. With the suggestion, really. I had to cut that off, if for no other reason than to end any hope on his part that there was some scenario that would remove Clay and put himself back in Grace’s life.
“He’s not like that, Neil. He’s a good man.”
His stare hardened. At me in particular. I wasn’t taking sides because there were no sides to take. Circumstances, a grossly unfair collection of them, had crafted the reality he now faced. Nothing more.
“I guess Grimes was convincing to the end,” Neil said.
“I thought it was you,” I told him. “If I didn’t know, how could she? How could anyone?”
His gaze drifted off, settling on a point lost in the darkness at the back of his cell. Then, without a word, he slid his withered body away from the bars until he was lost in the shadows.
“Neil...”
My friend didn’t answer. Not then, nor when I called to him time after time over the following minutes. It was as if, once again, he was gone from my life.
Four
I woke to weak morning light spilling into my cell and the tap of metal against the bars.
“Rise and shine...”
My eyes opened from the exhausted sleep to see Perkins clicking the barrel of his revolver between the bars, Bryce and Jake behind him. Past them the new day had brightened the bank beyond the vault.
“Time to get started on your cooperation, Fletch,” Perkins said, smiling.
I glanced past the men and saw Neil crawling slowly toward the bars from the back of his cell, his gaze shifting between our captors and me. The anger and hurt which my news had brought over him was gone, replaced by a different pairing of emotions.
Fear and concern.
“On your feet,” Bryce said as Perkins stepped back from my cell door.
I did as was ordered, knowing that Bryce’s pump shotty, or Jake’s double barrel, or their leader’s .44 magnum monster could easily end Neil and me in seconds. It was still not time to resist, despite what I believed we were about to face.
In one very small, yet incredibly important way, I was wrong.
“We’ll have him back in a bit,” Perkins said, looking to my still-caged friend after I’d been trussed up and stood outside my cell.
Neil pulled himself up with his surprisingly strong hands until he stood, supported by the bars. The fear that I’d seen rise in him had a semblance of an explanation now—confusion. What he was witnessing right now was not just unexplained—it was unexpected.
“What are you doing?” Neil asked, demanding a response from Perkins directly.
The man turned toward my friend, eyeing him for a few seconds before whipping the long barrel of his revolver at his fingers. Neil quickly withdrew his hands, leaving the weapon to smack hard against the thick metal, saving his fingers. His grip released, he slid to the floor against the wall.
“That’s right,” Perkins said to him. “Cower like the coward you are.”
He turned and nodded toward the exit and Bryce pulled me out of the vault. I managed to glance back just once before I could no more, and saw Neil once again standing as Perkins and Jake followed us out. His hands were wrapped around the bars once more, supporting his weakened body, and his gaze was locked with mine. It wasn’t the sort of exchange that people shared when one would never see the other again.
But it wasn’t far from that.
* * *
There was no flatbed truck this time, just an old pickup that reminded me of my own back at home.
Home...
Elaine would be worried. Beyond that, I knew. It was certain that we were considered missing by this point. Efforts would be underway to determine what had happened and where we were.
That ‘we’ would be Dave Arndt and me—not Neil Moore. But it mattered not who I was with. Bandon would be arranging some sort of search in the vicinity of our last known positions. Camas Valley and Remote would lend assistance.
But distance would make any effort difficult. Chris Beekman, once he had a working aircraft, would spearhead the search, I was certain. We were the needle in a very big haystack that he would be charged with finding.
That, though, could be days away. Weeks, maybe, if the planes he’d gone to salvage required extensive repair. For now, we were on our own. And, for the moment, I was on my own.
“Just tell him,” Bryce said.
He rode with me in the back of the pickup, resting against the rear of the cab while I was secured to the
tailgate. Perkins drove, which surprised me. I’d thought a bevy of servants and acolytes would be at his beck and call to perform menial tasks such as chauffeuring him from place to place. Perhaps, though, in Bryce’s suggestion there was a hint of some explanation.
Perkins was all about power. To have those outside his inner circle be witness to one who continued to defy him might be detrimental to the image of a strong leader he’d constructed. More than strong, actually—beyond resisting. How many had stood up to him and lived to tell the tale? So far just Neil. And now me.
“Why?” I pressed Bryce as the pickup turned off the main road and followed streets through the deathly stillness of a neighborhood savaged long ago by the blight.
“It would just be best that you do,” Bryce said.
I found it immediately odd. The way he’d responded to my challenge was not some harsh rhetoric meant to bolster his leader’s intentions. Instead it seemed simply a statement tinged with...humanity? How that was possible, I did not know.
But I was about to find out.
The pickup pulled into the parking lot of the town’s high school and stopped next to the gymnasium, one wall largely broken out, mounds of charred rubble piled at the base of the penetration. Wrecked cars littered the lot, and as I was pulled from the back of the pickup by Perkins and Bryce and hauled toward the gym, I glanced into one of the vehicles, its rusting shell resting on four flat tires. In the front seat a decomposed body rested in a seat which had partly dissolved under the rotting flesh. What remained was mostly mummified, stretched skin torn in spots by bones protruding through it.
It had been a long time since I’d seen a direct victim of the blight. But I was far from Bandon. Far from the town and its surrounding hamlets which had been cleansed of such reminders of what had been so common at one time. Bodies. The anonymous dead everywhere. Glimpsing what I had, I realized that they were still everywhere. The world was mostly still dead. A funeral pyre in waiting.
That resurfaced knowledge made me, once again, think of home. Of Elaine. Of our daughter, Hope. I hadn’t even told Neil about her. I sincerely hoped that I would get that chance.
“Inside,” Perkins said as we reached a side door to the gymnasium.
He held it open and Bryce manhandled me through. The space was surprisingly bright, daylight pouring through the large hole in the partially collapsed wall, enough that I could plainly see the devastated interior. Wooden bleachers had been stripped, and a collection of lights and ceiling fixtures which had once hung above were scattered about, time and weather having weakened their mounts.
I also saw Sheryl Quincy, standing at the center of the warped wood floor, a person tied to a chair next to her, white hood draped over their head. It was a man, I thought, and his body trembled, quiet sobs rattling through him.
“Keep moving,” Perkins ordered.
I did, my pace slowing some as we neared those who were waiting for us. For me. Bryce nudged me with his shotgun, an almost gentle push this time, no jarring thump to my back. Was that some sudden humanity rising again? I doubted it.
Perkins grabbed my trussed arms where they were lashed behind my head and guided me to a place facing the bound man. He was not tied as I was, his hands behind his back and cinched tightly to the chair, his ankles secured to each front leg.
“Go ahead,” Perkins said.
At his command, Sheryl reached to the man and snatched the hood from his head. He was maybe fifty, with a salt and pepper beard and hair that was stringy and too long. There was that distantly familiar thinness about him. He was one of those countless people I’d seen over the years who had just survived, barely, their body always on the precipice of starvation.
“Fletch, I’d like to introduce you to...” Perkins paused, looking to the man. “Tell him your name.”
The man hesitated, his wide, terrified gaze moving between Perkins and me.
“Go ahead,” Perkins urged him gently. “Fletch here is your new best friend.”
Finally the man fixed his wet, reddened gaze on me.
“I’m Fr...Frank Wallace.”
“Frank, meet Fletch,” Perkins said, nodding to Bryce as he stepped away, the guard taking hold of me now. “You two are now fast friends. Do you know how I know that?”
I kept my eye on Perkins as he took a position next to Frank Wallace. On the other side, Sheryl stood, flanking him. But only for a moment until she very purposely stepped away from that spot.
No...
She was now out of the line of fire.
“Fletch, do you remember that game we played last night?” Perkins asked, drawing his revolver from its holster.
Frank Wallace turned to see the man produce the weapon, his already terrified gaze swelling. His gaze shifted back to me, as if I could provide some explanation of what was happening. Or was about to happen.
“Perkins,” I said. “Don’t.”
He opened the weapon’s cylinder and dumped six rounds into his palm, pocketing five and very obviously holding one for all to see.
“This time, Fletch, we’re playing for keeps,” Perkins said, inserting the single round into the cylinder and snapping it shut. “Not just playing.”
Without any warning he brought the weapon up and leveled the barrel at the captive’s head. Frank tried to lean away, head pulled toward his shoulders as he cowered.
“Fletch, where is Four Twelve?” Perkins asked.
“Earl,” I said, making an attempt at some human connection with the man. “This is not the way to—”
He pulled the trigger and a terrifying CLICK sounded. Frank screamed, his whole body shaking violently as he looked to me, his gaze pleading.
“What is happening?” he begged. “Stop him! Please!”
“Fletch,” Perkins prompted me.
“Dammit, I don’t know!” I shouted at him.
CLICK.
“Noooooo!” Frank screamed. “No! Please!”
“Ask your friend to be forthright,” Perkins told the man.
Frank focused on me, leaning forward against his bindings.
“Please, just give him what he wants. Whatever he wants. Please.”
“What’s it going to be, Fletch?” Perkins asked.
I tried to move, wanting instinctively to charge the murderous dictator, but Bryce’s hold on me was unbreakable.
“So, no answer still?”
“I don’t—”
CLICK.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Frank Wallace screamed. “Dear God, what’s happening?!”
I looked away from the man who’d been brought here to motivate me. To gain my compliance. I couldn’t bear the look of terror he was laying upon me anymore. Instead I gave my full attention to Perkins.
“He’s not part of this,” I said. “This isn’t about him.”
“Four Twelve, Fletch?” Perkins asked again.
I had no answer for him, so I gave none. He pulled the trigger again. This time there was no click.
The single round fired, exploding from the barrel and tearing through Frank Wallace’s head, from left to right, ripping half the man’s skull away as the horrific blast of blood and brain matter sprayed halfway across the gym floor. His body and the chair it was bound to toppled from the force of the impact and came to rest in a spreading pool of the man’s blood.
I turned my head, looking away as Perkins took a fresh round from his pocket and added it to the five he’d removed, reloading the weapon fully before holstering it. He stepped toward me and grabbed my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye.
“Plenty more where he came from, Fletch,” Perkins said, his breath foul and warm on my face. “You’re going to answer me. Soon. Because eventually the body count will include you or your friend.”
He released my chin and stepped back, eyeing the horror he’d created.
“Who was he?”
The question rose without any intent. Something within me simply sought some context as to why Frank Wallace had been chosen to suffer
this fate. And who, among the many Perkins had mentioned, was he?
It wasn’t Perkins who answered, though.
“Some slob survivor,” Sheryl said. “Someone who should have been dead long ago but didn’t know enough to let it happen.”
Perkins smiled and nodded at his companion’s harsh critique.
“You see why I like her?” Perkins said. “He’s a nobody, Fletch. Just a poor bastard who wandered into town. Not one of us, but he wanted our spoils. All we’d worked for.”
“In other words he wanted help,” I said.
Perkins chuckled.
“Fletch, you of all people should know that nothing in this world gets handed to you anymore. It has to be fought for. It has to be won.”
“To the victor goes everything,” Sheryl said, referencing a spin on her leader’s ‘spoils’ comment.
It was becoming abundantly clear that I was facing something new. Neil had been dealing with it already. The machinations of Perkins and his kind were a given by now to him. Not to me. The depravity, the drive, that the man exhibited and possessed were not what he saw as necessary evils. They were just part of who he was.
“Fletch, you’re an honorable guy,” Perkins said. “Naivete doesn’t negate that completely. And in that trait I’d found your weakness. Both you and Neil. You see, I realized last night when neither of you spoke up to save the other that your sense of honor to one another won’t allow you to break. But I imagine that the next time you face what just transpired here, your resolve will begin to crack. And who knows, maybe the right person in that chair will break you altogether. Another man. A woman. A child.”
Dear God...
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t have the answer you want.”
Perkins smiled and nodded.
“Keep telling yourself that, Fletch,” he said.
He turned and walked away from me, taking Sheryl’s hand as they left the gymnasium.
“I told you to tell him,” Bryce said.
Then he twisted me harshly around and aimed me at the exit, leaving the horror he’d been party to behind.
Five
I was driven back to the bank and returned to my cell. Opposite me, once we were alone, Neil spoke.
