Imprisoned

by J D Jacobs

  IMPRISONED

  JD Jacobs

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  I. Trial

  II. Verdict

  III. Imprisonment

  IV. Execution

  Special thank you to Callie Gilbert for her tremendous work on the front and back covers. Thank you for helping me showcase Imprisoned as I have always envisioned it!

  Copyright © 2018 JD Jacobs

  All rights reserved.

  To anybody who has lived life in the shadow of fear

  I. Trial

  1.

  I lie sideways on the mattress in my cell, staring at the walls in front of me. Made of gray cinderblocks, the walls are as monotonous to stare at as they are insulting. Trapping me in this room with the one person I’ve grown to hate: myself.

  I avert my attention to my hand, which is swallowed by dried blood that had poured out from my knuckles. I pull the glass shards out from my fist without flinching, then slice the small shards along my mattress, slightly ripping the threads of my bed and exposing a small amount of the fabric for me to twiddle with.

  “Jaden, what good did that do you?” Across the room, leaning on the locked door, is the talking, faceless Grim, whose voice I’ve heard more than my own. The orange bowtie, dark blue button-up combo he boasts is almost more characteristic of him than his lack of a face.

  “I don’t know,” I glumly respond, uninterested in his thoughts. “Punching the mirror didn’t hurt that bad. It actually felt good. I enjoy the warm feeling of blood on my knuckles.”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” the Grim assures me. “You were away for more than thirty seconds. The last thing you need is for them to come in here while you’re doing that.”

  “So what? It’s no secret what I’m doing,” I pester back. I know I sound like a teenager that’s fighting with his parent, but I really don’t care anymore. Let them find me. What will they do, throw me in another room with even grayer cinderblocks?

  “You don’t know what is and what isn’t a secret, Jaden,” the Grim tells me. “Your secrets are the only leverage you have left.”

  “Secrets…” My mind falls astray as the overuse of the word brings back terrible memories. “Everybody has secrets, don’t they?”

  “So what?” the Grim reminds me. “None of that matters right now. The only thing that matters is—”

  “I’m going back,” I decide aloud. The Grim begins his rant of disapproval, but before he can muster out a full sentence, I’ve fallen on my back and closed my eyes.

  So what better place to start than where I left off…

  ∆∆∆

  I wake up, sweat pouring onto my exposed cheek as I lie looking straight ahead of me. The early-morning sun creeps under the curtains that are to the left of my hospital bed. Right beneath the window is the nightstand which has my hammer, my broken shark tooth necklace, and alarm clock gathered on top of it.

  Seeing my shark tooth necklace brings me back to an earlier time. A time before I was Jaden Foxx, the outlying survivor of the Cozmin disease, newfound celebrity of Tryton. Instead, the necklace brings me back to a time when I was simply Jaden Foxx, senior at Westwood High School in Mississippi. I think of my friend, Scarlett Avalon, who gave me that shark tooth necklace for my birthday.

  I then think of how she died. Her, her brother and one of my best friends, Ryan, and the mayor of Westwood made it all the way to Tryton’s gates, only to be rejected and cast out by Tryton’s mayor, Harrison Jenkins. The last image I saw of Scarlett was her fighting for her life, swinging a pocket knife at Jenkins, slicing his ear and scarring it up. That didn’t stop Jenkins from throwing all three of them out of the Tryton gates and into the Cozmin-infested world, where they stood no chance of survival.

  Every now and then, I look at the shark tooth necklace and remember what life was like. I remember the people who were in it. And I remember the person who prevented that from happening again.

  I sit up in my bed and look around. I’m in the same hospital room I was in when I was rescued by the people of this city, Tryton, a little over a month ago. The doctors haven’t allowed me to exit the room; they’ve been running tests on me from the moment they rescued me from Westwood. They’ve been frantically trying to discover what it is about me that kept me from being killed by the Cozmin disease; what it is that makes me special enough to survive living in a heavily infected city for months while billions of other people were killed by the exposure to the virus in mere hours. So far, they’ve had no luck.

  Across the room, lying on the couch next to the bathroom door, sleeps my best friend, Cody Goodwin. His feet hang off the armrests, as his tall frame doesn’t stand a chance of fitting on that couch, but he said that he doesn’t mind sleeping on it. It gives him a chance to hang out with me, as our inseparable bond has seemed to survive the Cozmin, unlike most anything else that was in Westwood.

  Cody and my dad are the only people I knew before the Cozmin outbreak that had survived it. Us three are the only people from Westwood to make it to this safe haven of Tryton, Illinois. My other friends–Ryan, Scarlett, and Cody’s girlfriend, Terra–didn’t make it. Well, let me rephrase that. Terra didn’t make it. I found her dead body back in Westwood. Ryan and Scarlett made it, but like I mentioned earlier, they were turned away. I saw the scene for myself through a flashback. For some reason, I have this weird ability to relive moments in the past through these random, sepia flashbacks. I watched that specific scene through a flashback, and even a month after seeing it, it stills rips me apart to think of them being thrown out. As heartbroken as I am that Ryan and Scarlett didn’t make it, I’m relieved to at least have my dad and Cody with me.

  Cody must have heard me sit up, as he turns over toward me with his eyes still shut. “You have another nightmare?” he drowsily asks me.

  “Not this time,” I tell him. Nightmares have been a problem I’ve had ever since the Cozmin disease left me abandoned in Westwood, and even when I don’t have them, I usually wake up sweating. My dad was worried about me having nightmares at night, so he let Cody stay in my room with me to keep me company. I’m really glad he did because Cody is really the only social interaction I’ve had in Tryton. In fact, he’s the only other person that stays on this hospital floor with me. Even after being rescued, I’m still somewhat isolated.

  “If you’re not having nightmares, quit being dramatic and let me sleep,” he tells me as he tosses back around to face the back of the couch. “I could hear you breathing if I was back in Westwood.”

  Before I have time to make a smart comeback, the door handle clicks, and it slowly opens until I see my father rolling a cart behind him.

  Wearing different colored scrubs from the ones he wore back in Westwood, Dad adopted a new look ever since he’s made it to Tryton. I can’t decide if his bald head or his cleanly shaven face throws me off more. On top of that, he looks like he’s aged ten years since Westwood, even though it hasn’t been a full year since the Cozmin spread.

  He was one of very few people who survived the outbreak and had a history in the medical field. Once the Cozmin spread, the exposure that doctors and nurses across the globe had to their sick patients didn’t give them much of a chance at surviving. And because of that, the lack of people in the medical field has been evident in Tryton. Dad was selected as the head physician practically by default. In the apocalypse, where the remainder of the human species basically lives in one city, that’s a huge amount of responsibility. Pretty big step up from simply being a nurse in a much smaller town.

  “Good morning, son,” he tells me as he pushes the cart toward my bed. “Your forehead is looking sweaty. Have another bad dream?”

  “Not this time,” I repeat, hoping that the food he’s bringing me is
somehow better than what he usually brings.

  “It’s still early; you should try and get back to sleep. Today’s the big day,” Dad reminds me as he stops the cart next to my nightstand and pulls out a platform that extends from the cart and hovers above my waist.

  As I uncover the plate, I’m met by the same unappealing breakfast that I’ve seen for the last month: watery, powdered eggs, bacon, and undercooked toast that is literally stale bread. The hospital passes it off as toast because it has the same crunch to it that toast does. I’m not hungry anyway, so I focus instead on the apple juice. “What’s so special about today, anyway?”

  “Today is your introduction ceremony,” Dad informs me, disappointed that I had forgotten about it. “Son, I told you about this yesterday.”

  “Oh yeah.” I actually knew all along what is happening today, I just wanted to hear him say it again. Finally, after a month caked up in this room, they’re releasing me from the hospital. Well, technically I will still be staying here to sleep, considering that space in the city is limited, but I’m allowed to exit the hospital and go around the city at my own free will. That is, after the ceremony, of course.

  “Everybody in Tryton is excited about it,” Dad tries to hype the ceremony up, but the way he worded it makes it sound like I’m some new invention that’s going to magically make everyone’s life better. “These people have been ready to see you since we took you in. This is a moment everybody’s been waiting for, including you. I know you’re tired of staying in this room all day.”

  “Is there any chance that Jenkins isn’t gonna be there?” Cody asks as he sits up on the couch, finally giving up on falling back asleep.

  “Considering that he’s the mayor and is the one who orchestrated this entire event, I have a hunch he’s going to make an appearance,” Dad responds. Cody groans obnoxiously loud in disapproval, as he, too, has a strong hatred for Jenkins like I do. Not for the same reason I do, though. Cody doesn’t know what Jenkins did to Scarlett and Ryan–he just doesn’t like Jenkins because Jenkins is a jerk.

  And as if the man couldn’t come right on time any more perfectly, Jenkins bursts through the door. “Wakey wakey, Mr. Foxx! Today is the big day! I hope you’re as excited as I am!” The raspy yet somehow fervent voice of Mr. Jenkins charges through the air, with harsh gasps for breath coming from the hefty, rather short man.

  “Chill out, dude. It’s way too early for this much excitement,” Cody tells Jenkins. The comment is a very nervy thing to say to Jenkins, but it isn’t surprising to hear it coming from Cody, as he’s never shied away from telling Jenkins what he really thought. And Jenkins, who obviously isn’t used to the treatment, has never shied away from showing his displeasure with Cody.

  “Mr. Goodwin,” Jenkins turns to Cody, his bushy mustache shuddering in annoyance at Cody’s existence, “can’t say I’m surprised that you’re still here.”

  “Yeah, I sort of live here, too, so I have a good reason to be here.”

  “Shouldn’t you be heading for your nurse training or something?”

  “Nah, I still have forty-five minutes until it starts,” Cody refutes back.

  “I don’t care,” Jenkins tells Cody, squinting his eyes as he talks. “You can be early.” The two stare at each other in a lockdown, but after a few seconds, Cody grabs the gym bag on the floor by his couch and gets up to leave.

  “I’ll see you later tonight, Jaden,” Cody calls back to me. “Oh, and I’ll see you in a little bit, Mr. Foxx.” Cody is taking part in the hospital’s nursing program that prepares others with essential medical experience, and Dad is technically Cody’s boss. Dad gives a soft nod, and Cody leaves the room without even looking in Jenkins’s direction.

  “Harrison, I was actually just telling Jaden about the ceremony today,” Dad continues. I don’t think Dad hates Jenkins or necessarily has a reason to, but I certainly do. The man who sent my friends Ryan and Scarlett to their deaths; I have nothing but distaste for this sick man. But that’s the thing: Jenkins doesn’t know that I don’t like him. He doesn’t know about my sepia flashbacks, which means he doesn’t know I saw what he did. I can’t let Jenkins know that I hate him or even that I know what he did.

  “This is a very exciting moment for the city of Tryton,” Jenkins reiterates. “These people believe you’re immune to the Cozmin, and for all we know, you could be. They’ve been waiting for weeks to see you and today they finally do! Now, it is very important that everything goes perfectly, so we must make sure that you look your best and know what to do.”

  “Which reminds me…” Dad says as he reaches in his pocket and hands me a folded piece of paper. “We prepared a short speech for you to give. It tells the people how excited you are to be here, thanks them for their support. You know, stuff they want to hear.”

  I unfold the paper and skim through it, and Dad was right. The speech rambles on about how happy I am to be here and how grateful I am for Tryton. And don’t get me wrong, I am happy and grateful to be here, but the speech seems borderline fake. But whatever, I’ll read it word-for-word if that means I get out of this hospital room sooner.

  Ding. The intercom in my room gives a soft chime and a voice comes over the air. “Dr. Foxx, your assistance is needed on the fifteenth floor.”

  “Sounds important,” I tell Dad as he begins to head toward the door.

  “Eh, if someone were in real trouble, the nurse would’ve said my name a lot faster,” he tells me. “I’ll see you before the ceremony later today, son.” He then pulls the door handle and exits the room.

  And then there were two of us: me and Jenkins. Behind closed doors is when Jenkins truly lets his vile attitude out.

  “So study that speech and get used to it for later this afternoon,” Jenkins tells me in a surprisingly relaxed voice. “You won’t have to memorize it, but it wouldn’t hurt to get comfortable with it. Other than that, we’re not asking much more from you for this ceremony.”

  “Yeah, alright,” I nonchalantly respond, focusing my attention to the paper in order to avoid eye contact.

  “The ceremony starts at two, and right now it is… a quarter past eight. We’ll come get you at 1:30 sharp. That gives you plenty of time to clean up and get prepared. There’s a suit in your closet for you, so check it out and see if you like it. Once we get you, we will be escorted out to the stage, which is in the four-way intersection outside the hospital. Your father and I will be on the stage with you, so you won’t be alone as you give your speech. I’ll give a brief introduction, then—”

  “What about Cody?” I ask. “Will he be on the stage with us?”

  “He will not.”

  “Why not?”

  Jenkins gives a soft laugh. “I know you want him up there with you, but Mr. Goodwin hasn’t done anything to deserve to be on the stage,” Jenkins says, matter-of-factly. “His biggest contribution so far is living in your hospital room, so no, he will not be on the stage.” Jenkins places his hands behind his back and locks them together as he goes to leave the room.

  Jenkins is very stern with his response, and I feel that just the mention of Cody’s name aggravates him. I didn’t necessarily ask him that because I really wanted Cody to be on the stage, I just wanted to see his response to my asking.

  “Why do you hate him so much?” I blatantly ask Jenkins. This malicious attitude that he shows toward us is finally too evident for me to ignore. He has no reason to hate us. It’s as if we were the ones who rejected and killed his friends.

  Jenkins stops in his tracks and gives a soft chuckle, all while still facing away from me. “That’s funny. I promise you that’s not true. Why would you think that?”

  “It’s pretty obvious,” I respond, glowering at his scarred ear, the mark that Scarlett caused when she was fending for her life. “You get angry at the mention of his name. Why?”

  “Mr. Foxx, I’m sorry but my schedule today is very busy, so I don’t have time to deal with this.”

  “Why not? You hate
him; you’re just too much of a coward to tell me why.”

  I can’t believe what I just said. I’ve tried my best to hide my dislike for Jenkins over the past month, but for some reason, I can’t fully contain it this morning. Maybe it was looking at the shark tooth necklace first thing today that made that harsh moment fresh in my mind.

  Jenkins clenches his fist behind his back. The word “coward” has a strong resonance with Jenkins, as I remember the insult triggering him to beat the hell out of Ryan when I saw Jenkins kick them out. Perhaps Jenkins is being tempted by the word again. Good, I want him to do it. Let everyone know your true side, I think to myself.

  “I don’t hate anybody, but I disapprove of many. I also happen to disapprove of whom I disapprove of for reasons,” Jenkins tells me. “I disapprove of people who give me attitude, who don’t respect me. So far, I don’t disapprove of you.” He peeks over his shoulder, trying to hide the frustration in his eyes from me. “But if you ever call me a coward again, I will run you back to Westwood.”

  He then hastily leaves the room without saying another word.

  2.

  “Really? He said that to you?” Grant reiterates in disbelief as he looks away from the city in front of us and at me.

  “I’m telling you, he doesn’t like being called a coward.” I sit up straight in my lawn chair. “There’s something about that insult that gets under his skin.”

  “Oh, I can almost guarantee that the word ‘coward’ has some negative significance in his life,” Grant tells me as he turns back toward the city and inhales on his cigarette. He slowly blows the smoke out of his mouth as he thinks. “We just haven’t discovered it yet. I’m sure one of us will have a flashback about it if there actually is any significance to it.”

  I think back to the flashback I had where Jenkins practically beat Ryan to death because he called Jenkins a coward. I told Grant about that specific flashback, and I know he’s thinking of it right now, too.