This Rotten World (Book 3): No More Heroes

by Jacy Morris

  Tejada grabbed the book and rushed down the stairs. There was a lot of noise outside. As he approached the glass doors, he saw what he had feared, an angry mob stealing themselves to make an assault on the soldiers inside. They had torches and wielded baseball bats liberated from the Ken Griffey Jr. tribute wall.

  "What do we do, sir?" Day asked, but Tejada didn't even stop to give him an answer. He thundered through the front doors of the security building into the black of the night.

  As soon as the doors opened, he was greeted by outraged shouts. They called him murderer and tyrant, all the things people called someone who had the ability to shape their own lives without their say-so. He understood that. They felt put upon, left out of the loop. They felt taken advantage of. He and his men had been guests here, and now it would seem that they were calling the shots. But they weren't, and they had no intentions of doing so.

  Still, he would like to know who had whipped up this mob because the people he had seen throughout his short stay on the campus had shown themselves to be a weak lot, even if they did have a certain hardiness about them. This was not a natural outpouring of rage. Someone had wound them up, and he had an inkling of who that someone might be.

  He held the journal up in his hand as the first rocks came flying his way. "I understand you're angry," he began, dodging the thrown stones.

  "You don't understand shit!" a woman yelled from the back of the mob.

  "No, I do. You think we come here to rule you, to put you to death when we think you've done something wrong, but that's not true."

  "Then why do you have Nike locked up?" a different woman yelled.

  Tejada nodded. "I have him locked up because we have more information than you. It has come to our attention that Nike has been doing more than just looking out for you good people. He has been doing much more than that."

  He held the journal up so that the mob could see it. "When we cleared this place, we found this journal. There's some interesting stuff about Nike in here that you all ought to know. I'll leave this out here for you." Tejada set the journal upon the ground. "Tomorrow, there will be a trial, so read it, study it. Because we won't be deciding the fate of Nike. You will."

  With his message sent, he turned his back, hoping that no one out there had a gun stashed away. He heard murmuring among the crowd. They were unsure what to make of what he had just said, but he knew that eventually curiosity would win out in the end. He pulled the doors open and stepped inside.

  To Day he said, "When they come up to grab the book, don't shoot them, unless they come up to touch the door."

  Day nodded, and Tejada began his climb up the stairs. He was tired. Every bit of him ached, but it was his mind that was the most exhausted. He didn't know how much of this he could stand, but he knew that just over the horizon, he and his men had another slog through the countryside ahead of them. He wondered if it would finally do him in. He hoped not.

  Inside the room, he relieved Epps of his duty and sent him off to grab some sleep. He sat down across from Nike. Nike looked at him like a dog that had just been kicked.

  "What did you do?" he asked.

  "I haven't done shit. It's you that has things to answer for. My conscience is clear."

  Nike looked like he was going to bolt for the door. But then he thought better of it and remained in his seat. "I do have things to answer for. Yes, yes I do. I have to answer for bringing all these people here in the first place. I have to answer for saving their lives when everyone else around them died. And how do you think they'll punish me for this?"

  "I don't know. I don't care," Tejada said.

  "Oh, life must be so simple for you. Wake up. Follow orders. Decide who to kill." Nike sneered at him, as if he were but a piece of shit on the sole of one of his one-hundred-and-fifty dollar pairs of running shoes. "I was responsible for all of this. I was responsible for bringing people here. I was responsible for keeping them safe. That meant tough decisions had to be made."

  "You're preaching to the choir."

  "Then why are you doing this?" Nike asked, exasperated.

  "I'm not doing this for you. I'm not doing this for them. I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for all the people that came before, all the ones that didn't have a chance to live. I'm doing this because this is the way things were done before the world went to hell. Just because we're living in hell doesn't mean we act like demons. You should have thought of that before you cost hundreds of people their lives because you were afraid."

  "This world needs people like me."

  "We'll find out tomorrow, won't we?" Tejada rose then, he was through listening to this man. He was a nothing, a petty, self-involved nothing.

  As Tejada closed the door, Nike wept softly.

  ****

  Masterson and Whiteside reported that the mob had departed peacefully last night, taking the journal with them. There had been no sign of them since.

  Amanda clung to Rudy's arm as the morning broke gray and cold over the Nike campus. They watched as the broken and somber Nike was led down the stairs.

  "I'd hate to be in his position," Rudy said.

  "You never would be. That's the difference," Amanda said.

  Allen and Epps led Nike onto the green grass of the campus. The smoke from the previous day's burnings had all but gone, though the smell still remained. For his part, Nike didn't struggle. He was led to the grass as meekly as a lamb on a leash. Tejada came next. He sent Whiteside and Masterson to get some sleep before ordering Gregg and Day to find their way to the roof to provide covering fire should things go wrong. Everyone else followed Tejada out to the campus green.

  They only had to wait but a moment before the people of Nike began to file out of the Ken Griffey Jr. building, which sat directly across from the security building. Amanda watched them coming. Their faces were grim and they shuffled forward as meekly as Nike had. Tejada stopped Nike in the middle of the field and sat drinking instant coffee from a tin cup as the crowd gathered around.

  Amanda wondered how Tejada could smile the way he did, nodding reassuringly at the people as they began to congregate in a semi-circle around the accused Nike. This all felt familiar to Amanda, and she couldn't help but think of Chloe. Sometimes she felt guilt for what she did, but at other times, she looked over at Rudy, the most unlikely of loves, and she felt absolutely justified for the actions she had taken.

  The people finished filing out of the building. Tejada dumped the dregs of his coffee cup on the grass, drawing a disdainful look from Nike. Then the soldier began to speak.

  ****

  Walt stood next to Brown, his finger getting itchy. He didn't like being out in the open, but Tejada seemed calm, so he tried to keep calm too. He looked around the field, marking the shadows in the glass windows around them. There was still a lot of work to be done, and he felt like they shouldn't be wasting their time playing games with Nike. He was a murderer. He should be dealt with accordingly. A bullet was all he deserved.

  Brown, who he had been talking to more and more, didn't feel the same way. Walt had never been a religious person, but he had found Brown to be so. He kept saying "God was the only real judge," or some such bullshit. To be honest, he had tuned the man out as soon as he had offered up religious babble. How the man could still believe in a god after everything they had gone through was a mystery to him, but he supposed that some people would believe right up until the moment they died... simply because they hadn't yet died, as if that were indisputable proof of God's greatness. But Walt was willing to bet that on their deathbed, God offered little consolation even to the most pious of the believers.

  Walt scanned the crowd, his eyes crawling across Amanda. She had been responsible for something like this at one time, and Walt had hated her for it. He understood now. He understood about justice, about caring for the others around you so much that you would do anything to make someone pay for hurting the people you cared about. Truth was, before he had met Tejada and his men, he had
never had anyone care about him. His time with the other soldiers had changed him, in a good way he hoped. It was such a short time, but so much had happened to open his eyes. His feeling of hatred for Amanda and Rudy were gone.

  He spotted Rudy standing next to her, and though the pair still looked somewhat silly, they also looked right together. Rudy had proven himself capable and far more of a survivor than Walt had ever expected. When they had asked him to man the door to the security building, he hadn't even batted an eyelash.

  "I'm not going to give you a speech. If you've read that journal, you know why we're here," Tejada began. The crowd remained silent, attentive. "This man, according to that journal, has been toying with your lives since the day you arrived here. Look around, and you can see the fruit of his actions." The crowd looked around at the shadows of the dead standing in the windows of the surrounding buildings.

  "We are here, to determine guilt or innocence. If he is found guilty, you shall determine what we do with him." The crowd remained silent, and then Tejada stepped back and said, "But I'll not punish anyone without them getting the chance to speak their side. So Nike, the floor is yours."

  Walt decided this was a wise move on Tejada's part. This way, people wouldn't have any misgivings about what happened. If he had demanded Nike to stand there silently and be judged, people would have had their doubts. Walt waited expectantly to hear what Nike would say.

  The man stood still, forming his thoughts, the wind ruffling his curly brown and gray hair. His face looked tired underneath his overgrown beard, but there was still something of the worm about his face, something completely and totally untrustworthy. No, it was less worm and more reptilian, Walt decided.

  Finally, he spoke. "You people know me. Where would you be without me? Without the walls I have provided?" He let the words hang there, as the crowd filled in their own answers. He was a great speaker, his voice carrying a natural authority that was almost soothing, and Walt wondered if maybe Tejada hadn't made a mistake. "You'd be dead. Don't fool yourselves. Each and every one of you owe your lives to me, ten times over. I gave you safety. I gave you security. I gave you food and a roof over your heads. Did some people die in the process? Yes. And for that, I'm terribly sorry. I never wanted anyone to die, but this is what being a leader is about. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the greater good."

  "Fuck you!" a woman shouted. She pushed her way forward. She was a stout woman, matronly in many ways. Her face was screwed up in anger and outrage. "My brother was one of those sacrifices thanks to you."

  Nike listened, never breaking eye contact as the woman continued. "He died because you had to be in control. You had to make sure that you were always in charge, and so now my brother is dead. What do you say to that, bossman?" The crowd cheered her on, nodding and supporting the woman's outrage.

  "I say this. If your brother were here now, and he had a choice to save your life by giving up his own, what would he do?" The woman said nothing. The crowd looked to her to see what she would say, but she clenched her jaw and stared straight at Nike. "You see? It's like I said. Most of the people in those buildings, if they knew they were going to be saving the rest of you, they would gladly give up their lives."

  "What about the security guards?" a man asked, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

  "What about them? They were dangerous. They were too powerful. Sooner or later they would have been running the show. And then where would we be? Men with guns, they might be necessary at times, but sooner or later, a man with a gun gets it in his head that he wants things, that he needs things. We saw it before they died. They ate more than the rest of us. They demanded more than the rest of us. And it was only a matter of time before they wanted more than just our food and support. Sooner or later they would have wanted us, our bodies, our freedom, they would have taken it all."

  He lapsed into silence as his words echoed through the crowd's mind. "If you want to know if I killed the guards, then yes, I did. But understand this. When a master craftsmen is done with his tools, he doesn't leave them sitting out to gather rust so that his child can come along and hurt himself with them. He puts them away. And that's what I did. When we didn't need them anymore, when our home was carved from the city, I put them away so that the children wouldn't hurt themselves. I put them away so that they wouldn't rust and become dangerous. I did what had to be done... for you." He looked into their faces, his own face suddenly humble.

  Walt smirked at the man, at his saccharine words, so sweet, so misleading. But he saw that there were those in the crowd who were swayed by his words. There were those in the crowd that were still loyal to Nike, still appreciated that he had saved their lives because, in the end, they were only alive because he had brought them to the campus and put up the walls in the first place.

  "That's all I have to say." Nike took a step backwards and clasped his hands in front. He seemed completely calm and in control, as if he already knew the outcome of his little speech.

  Tejada stepped forward. "You've heard the charges; you've seen the proof. He has admitted his part in the deaths of the security guards and the people of the campus. At this time, does anyone else wish to say anything?"

  Diana stepped forward, and Walt was once again jealous of Allen. He couldn't believe he had slept with that woman, that lucky bastard. Walt had put out some feelers to some of the women on campus, but none of them had reciprocated his clumsy attempts at romance.

  She walked to her father and then turned and faced the crowd. "My father has done things for the good of all of us. While we may not agree with those things, he has never done so out of spite or for a reason that did not include our safety. Is he guilty? I think so, but guilty of what? Trying to protect us? Well, then we ought to put these soldiers on trial as well. They killed Harper in cold blood. Where was his trial? Or were they simply trying to protect us from him as well? It's just something to think about."

  A man pushed forward, glasses on his face. He was small, unassuming, and had a face like a buzzard. "Nike claims he did this all to protect us. I accept that, but let's not overlook the fact that every act he took to protect us led to the deaths of others, people he had also claimed he was going to protect. If we don't find him guilty, who's to say that the next time we need 'protection' that I won't be the one to go, or you or you?" he asked pointing to people in the crowd. "We're all adults here. I am not a child. I do not need my actions or safety lorded over by some relic of a world that's dead. If I need to be protected, then teach me how to protect myself. If I need to make a sacrifice for the good of the others, then I damn well want to make that sacrifice with a good idea of what it is I'm sacrificing for. This man, though he claims to be protecting us, when it comes down to it, he's killed more of us than any of those things have. He's guilty as fuck, and if you can't see that, or you want to pussyfoot around the issue, then maybe you're just as guilty." He said this last to Diana, and she glared at him as if he had struck her.

  "Anyone else?" Tejada asked. The crowd lapsed into silence. "Alright. It's time to vote. Raise your hand if you think Nike is guilty. Walt watched as some people debated internally about whether to raise their hands or not. Most hands went up immediately, but a few took their time about it. In the end, there wasn't a single hand that wasn't raised in the air, including Diana's.

  Nike stood on the campus grass looking bewildered. His words couldn't change the facts, and everyone knew he was guilty, whether they owed him their lives or not. He seemed to realize that now. It were as if all the life had left him, and he stood on the grass looking like a lost old man who had been betrayed by his children. Walt felt a small sense of sympathy for the man, but not enough to care what happened to him. He had made his bed; now he would have to lie in it. That's what his mother had always told him after he had taken a beating from the boys in town, as if he could have avoided it in some way.

  "The verdict is guilty," Tejada proclaimed. "Now it's time to determine the punishment. So l
et's hear it. This is your man, not ours, so it's your punishment to dish out."

  Walt felt this was another good move on Tejada's part. His manipulation of the people was inspiring.

  "Kill him!" a voice from the crowd yelled. A few other voices shouted their agreement.

  Diana stepped forward and announced, "We ought to strip him of his power, but let him stay here. We owe him that much." No voices shouted support for Diana.

  The man in the glasses stepped forward again. He waited until he had the crowd's complete attention, and then he spoke again, squinting in the gray morning light. "There's been enough killing here. We've lost too many people to keep killing. While this man has saved our lives, he has also cost us the lives of many of our loved ones. Let him see what life is like without us, the people he sought to use. Let him see what life is like out there, where he has no power, where no one cares who he was before the world died. Let him be exiled from here."

  Many in the crowd nodded at the man's wisdom. He stepped back into the crowd, and people clapped him on the shoulders for a speech well spoken. Tejada, sensing that no one else would come forward and speak after the man in the glasses, held a vote. In the end, it was decided that they would send Nike over the wall. The soldiers would clear enough space for him to get away, and maybe he would have a chance at survival.

  The old man sank to the grass then, his lower lip quivering with either fear, sadness, or rage. Walt couldn't tell which. Maybe it was a combination of all three.

  Many in the crowd turned their backs on Nike, content with letting the soldiers carry out the punishment. Diana and a few other campus people brought Nike some supplies. He changed out of his comfortable business shoes and slipped into a pair of running shoes that Diana set before him. They filled a backpack with canned food and bottled water. Tejada himself handed Nike a baseball bat. Through it all, Nike remained silent, pensive, as if he were already dead.

  They marched him to the edge of the wall; only the most vengeful of Nike employees followed along to see that the job was done well. Using ladders, the soldiers situated themselves at the top of the wall. They opened fire at the dead milling about outside, obliterating them with the new weapons they had taken from the security building. When a space was cleared, large enough for Nike to reach the ground and get a good head start, they sent him up the wall with his backpack and his baseball bat in his hand. He went meekly, like an animal being led to slaughter.