The Red X_Complete Edition

by Robert P. Sullivan

  Jake crushed his eyelids together hard to block out the light, and let out a few painful coughs. “Where am I?” he asked. He squinted as he lifted his head from the ground, and sat up. He felt the damp earth beneath his hands, and struggled to come to terms with what was happening.

  “They say these taser things are non-lethal, but I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up.” Barry was flipping the spent taser in his hand, and threw it to the side, making a loud metallic clang when it struck the wall he was on.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jake’s eyes finally began adjusting to the light. A grey metallic sheen was all he could make out at first, before he fixed his gaze upward to the voice of Barry above him. When his vision cleared he saw the wall that surrounded him, it was jagged and sharpened steel all the way around, and he was in the pit of it.

  “Jake… is that you?” Mark asked from off to Jake’s left side. “I feel like I got hit in the chest by a fucking truck.”

  Jake looked over to Mark who was lying face down on the ground, but was making the effort to get up as best he could. “Yeah it’s me. You might want to get up.”

  “Oh good! Our second guest has awoken! Boys give our friends a round of applause.” Barry said in jest. He seemed different now, not like the frustrated and uneasy Barry that Jake had met earlier. Now he was confident and bold, and just like his father, had an air of theatrics about him.

  A few laughs could be heard from the three other men on the wall. There was one man on the top at each direction surrounding them. They sat in old lawn chairs with their guns next to them. “How are you feeling? Bad? I know you’re both getting pretty old so I want to give you a break before things get started.”

  “What’s this ass talking about Jake?” Mark asked, and rolled over.

  “That asshole is one of the ‘X’s.”

  “Well that explains why he pulled a stun gun on me. Glad I got to sock him in the jaw before he got me with it.”

  Barry rubbed the side of his face. “You were quick old man, I’ll give you that. But we’ll see who gets the last blow in.”

  Mark got to his feet. “What are you going to do to us?” He asked.

  “Oh I don’t want to spoil the surprise, let’s just say it’s going to be… poetic!” Barry grinned, but kept an intense glare on the two men.

  “He’s going to make us fight zombies till we die.” Jake said defiantly.

  “Ah! You had to go and wreck it. Come on, that doesn’t make a good show! I wanted to see the horror on his face as the lurkers came pouring in…” Barry sighed and let his shoulders slump. He shifted his gaze to the sky. “Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to settle for your screams of agony.”

  “I don’t understand, if you want to kill us, why didn’t you just do it?” Mark asked.

  “Because! That! Would just be boring. I could have just shot you, yeah. But! I wanted this to be memorable, to have some charm to it.” Barry stood up and started to wave a pistol around as he spoke. “You see I don’t just want you dead, I want my parents avenged. And what better way to do that than to kill you how you let my father die?”

  “Wait, is he the son of-“ Mark started to ask but was cut off.

  “You’re damn right I’m the son of Jethro Davidson, so shut up! It’s story time!” Barry pointed his pistol at them and flapped it back and forth. “Go ahead and sit down. Get your strength up while I tell you just how much you… Fucked! Me. Because there is some shit that you don’t know about the old ‘X’s” He turned around and pointed to the big red ‘X’ that he had painted on his jacket. “It’s true, they did some fucked up shit, we all heard the stories of the old pit of steel, and how they used to murder people in it. But the part that you didn’t know was that the ‘X’s weren’t always like that. Remember my mom, Clara… The woman you shot in the face! Yeah, she was captured by the ‘X’s, but when Jethro… My father saw her, her treated he real nice. I guess she was real resistant at first, but Dad fell in love with her… guess what, he had a heart. Well when he realized that his men had killed her brother, it tore him up inside.

  He changed because of it… because of her. He cut up the old pit, stopped trying to kill people, and he really did become a good leader to us. He even let the men who refused to go along with the change leave without resistance. Some went south, some went north, and I guess your old pal Gale killed the ones that went up the hill to Bear Lake.

  It turns out, when Dad stopped trying to kill people, my mother realized that he wasn’t that bad of a guy… And bam! I was born. Things were going well, the ‘X’s were living in peace…

  But alas! There was a problem. What was left of us didn’t have a way to live without scavenging. And so we had to make our way further and further out. We were getting desperate when we sent scouts toward Aegis, and as it turns out they had heard about the ‘X’s because of some asshole!” Barry scowled directly at Mark. “And so they started to shoot us on sight, instead of even giving us a chance to talk. Now we didn’t know what was going on, because the only scouts that actually found the people living here were taken out. But that was only a few men, and we needed supplies, bad! So, one day my mother went out to lead a supply gathering mission, and this fucker!”

  Barry shifted the barrel of his gun toward Jake. “Shot her in the face! Thanks for burying her by the way, but I’m still going to kill you.” he said nonchalantly. “So here’s the kicker, when the man who saw you shoot her got away… He didn’t know who the fuck you were! You see, Davidson wasn’t even looking for you when he came back here for vengeance… well I guess he was, but he was really just after the fucker that killed his wife. Then you two locked him in a fuckin’ room full of zombies and left him in there to get eaten!”

  Barry closed his eyes and took a moment to quell his rage. “That’s just where our story starts though. You see after that our people were without a leader, and because of this we started to scatter. The boys and I, were orphans with the exception of our fine associate Dale Madison over there.” Barry pointed at his friend. “So with only his father to look after us, we were all but fucked, that is until you fucks over in Aegis slapped the ultimate insult on us. You took us in. Well that was your mistake, because as it turns out we were all a little bitter over what happened. We lost parents, and friends, family!... You took everything from us.

  And it certainly wasn’t easy for us being connected to the ‘X’s. I had to change my name so that no one would come after me looking for revenge. It was hell, do you know what it is like for everyone to think that you are the cause of the death of their loved ones. We were shamed and scorned at every, single, turn we made.

  So, we came up with a plan… This little thing called revenge! Open the gates!” The gates on the side of the pit opened to reveal the backs of truck trailers. “You see we are going to take these semi-trucks, along with a great deal more of them, that we filled with lurkers! And we’re going to open them up on the unsuspecting town. It’ll be a gas!”

  “That’s not going to work!” Mark yelled. “Sure you would kill a few people, but Aegis has a warning system and a strike force that is ready to deal with such threats. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Oh… You’re right! How could I have forgotten about the alarms? Or the phones lines to get the strike force organized?...” Barry trailed off while tilting his head. “Oh yeah! We took care of all that! How you might ask? Simple! We took our time and put people in all the right places. We have a person or two everywhere in Aegis now. There’s a man in the phone company, someone in the police department, with a key to the armory I might add. We even have a guy that services the early warning alarms… Get it? It took years, but here it is! They have no idea that it’s coming, and they have no way to stop it. They are all just waiting on my command. But I figured before the main event… I should have a little preview of personal revenge.” Barry smiled a sickening smile and sat down in his chair.

  “Should we open the trucks?” Dale asked.


  “Hmm… not quite yet… There is one thing that has been bothering me…” Barry rested his head on his hand. “Why? Why did the great Mark Williams, survivor of our captivity, and assistant assassin of our leader… Have a change of heart and fight to spare the remnant of the ‘X’s?”

  Chapter 36

  Mark took some time to think over what he had heard. “I… Well… I guess there’s no better time to come out with the truth.”

  “What are you talking about Mark?” Jake asked.

  “Did you tell him how I escaped from the ‘X’s?”

  “Yeah I did, you shot your way out from behind that rock, and got on a bike… That’s what happened isn’t it?”

  “No… well, yes… It just wasn’t all that simple. When I was out by that creek hiding behind that rock, they came over the ridge and started to advance on the other rock we set up as a decoy, but I didn’t just shoot them all and get away.” Mark closed his eyes and relived the moment. “I shot the first one, pretty easy, he fell to the ground before the other two even realized where I was. When the fight went on they started to get smart, and decided that they could do a pincer move on me. I opened fire when I realized what they were trying to do, but I only clipped one of them in the arm. He fell back when the other one charged.

  He came around the rock that I was hiding behind, but I was able to push the barrel of his gun out of the way because he got too close. His gun cracked off two rounds. With the gun in my other hand I let loose, and I wasn’t really paying attention, so I fired until the gun was dry. I grabbed the man who charged me’s gun, but only to find out that it was empty too. That’s when it sunk in… I had no way to fight off the last man. I waited for him to come back and finish me off. And sure enough he came, but he took his time making sure that I wasn’t going to shoot at him.

  I sat down and waited with my back propped against the rock. My leg was wounded, and I had no means of defending myself, so I resolved to just let go. I think that confused him when he walked up to me with his gun in my face. He was trembling, but I wasn’t anymore. I knew it was over.

  I looked up at him standing over me and I saw something in his eyes. It was fear, not fear of getting killed, but fear of having to kill me. He glanced at the corpses of his friends and then quickly back to me. I didn’t know what he was going to do. “Dammit!” he yelled out, and let the gun sink down.

  I was surprised to say the least, for the first time since I had run into these men one of them didn’t want to kill me. He started to pace for a moment, before double checking to make sure that his friends were dead. When it sunk in that they were dead he gave his attention back to me. “Get out of here.” he said in a low voice. He couldn’t even look me in the eye when he said it.

  “What?” was the only response that I could give.

  “Just go! I wasn’t here ok? I showed up later and found them like this.”

  I wasn’t even thinking when I responded. “Are you sure?” I asked, then felt pretty dumb that I asked him to reconsider killing me. “If you’re going to let me go, that’s great! Thank you, but where can I go? I won’t make it far on a shot leg.”

  “Gosh dammit… fine I might as well help you. A friend of mine that didn’t make it had an old dirt bike in house less than a quarter mile from here. It’s kick start, so you won’t have to worry about the battery being dead. Just take it and ride far away from here.”

  I was stunned to say the least, but I had to know something. “Why?... Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  He looked at me with sorrow in his eyes. “Not all of us are bad people, but we’re all afraid to go against out leader.”

  “Thanks.” was my only response. I got up to walk toward the house he pointed me to.

  “Hey.” he called me. “Don’t tell anyone about this, if word gets back… they’ll kill me for it.”

  “I know.” And I went on my way.

  The rest of what you heard is true, I did make it back to town and get stitched up, but that’s what really happened.”

  “Well isn’t that charming? We had a traitor.” Barry cut in.

  “Wait I’m not finished yet.” Mark replied to the intrusion. “I knew that the ‘X’s were going to keep trying to kill us, so I fought to make sure that we defended ourselves. However, when Jake and I got Davidson killed, I remembered those words. So I started to think that maybe the rest of them weren’t that bad.”

  “Yeah I got that, you were moved by the touching sentiment of one person being a coward, great.” Barry was being sarcastic.

  “I said I wasn’t finished, so shut up!” Mark looked at Barry defiantly.

  “You… are going to talk to me? Like that?” Barry was angered and amused at the same time.

  “You’re going to kill me anyway, so now you’re going to get pissy when I answer your damn question?”

  Barry tilted his head and squinted at Mark. He considered his response. “Very well, I can wait a few more minutes. What happened next?”

  “After the leader of the ‘X’s fell, I knew that there was a chance that some of them weren’t all that bad. So when it came time to go out and find the rest, we were told to deal with them. But I made sure that I was put in charge of the mission to scout for them.

  Even though most of the ‘X’s fled after the death of Davidson, it didn’t take too long to find where the majority of the survivors were. My men came upon an old bank building and a firefight started. I don’t know who shot first, but I wasn’t there when things started. I rallied my men and converged on the sounds of gunfire. It got ugly real fast. One of our men got shot, but as the fight raged on I noticed that the shots were getting further and further apart. They were running low on ammo.

  One of my men had an idea to get rid of them. “We can block ‘em and let them burn.” My subordinate said while fashioning a Molotov cocktail out of a bottle and some rubbing alcohol. It seemed like a good plan, and I didn’t want any more of my men to get hurt so I was going to let him do it. But then… I saw someone inside. It was the man who spared my life back at the creek. I grabbed a hold of my comrade just as he was about to throw. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Hold on.” I said. “Just wait a minute.” I yelled at the people inside the building. “Hey! Stop firing!” They didn’t listen at first. “I don’t want to have anyone else get killed, let’s talk this out!”

  There was silence for a few minutes as I heard them talking to each other inside. “How do we know that it’s not just a trick to get us out?” they called back.

  “I’ll come over there… unarmed! If that is what it takes to talk to you.” I was not pleased that I had to take such a risk, but I knew that there was no other way.

  My men looked at me like I was crazy. “You can’t be serious Mark?” one of them asked.

  There was a long pause, then they replied. “Ok! But just one man unarmed!”

  My heart was racing when I dropped my gun to the floor, and stood up slowly. “Don’t shoot now!” I said, and raised my hands in the air. It was only about fifty feet, but hopped up on adrenaline like that, it was a long walk. I could feel their guns pointing at me.

  When I got inside they surrounded me, and patted me down to make sure that I didn’t have any weapons. “Alright what do you want from us?” they asked me making sure that I didn’t move.

  “Nothing.” I said back to them. “I just want the fighting to end.”

  “So leave.” one of them shot back at me snidely.

  “No, I mean I want peace between our people.” They looked at each other for an answer. Then I realized that the man I recognized didn’t know who I was.

  “Right, I don’t see how that is possible. Even if it were true, there is no way that we could trust you.” I heard one of them say.

  I knew that I had to remind that man what he had done. My mind raced over the conversation we had all those years ago, till I found the words. “You’re leader is dead… Are you sure that some of you weren’t just foll
owing him?” I saw the memories flash before that man’s eyes.

  “Screw this-”one of them started to say but was cut off by the man that I knew.

  “Wait.” he said and took a close look at me. His eyes lit up, he remembered. “Holy shit… after all this time… Alright we’ll stop fighting.”

  The rest of the men’s jaws dropped. “You have got to be shitting me Burt… We can’t trust him.”

  “Yeah we can. I know this man. He’s not going to let anything happen to us, and besides… he owes me one.”

  I collapsed on my ass, much to the men’s laughter. “Phew, I can’t believe it. I am so glad you remembered.”

  “Yeah me too.” Burt replied.

  We worked out a deal to take them in as refugees, to which they were more than happy to accept when I called off my own men. I thought it was strange that they changed their tune so fast, but when they started pulling women and children out of the back of the bank, it made a whole lot more sense.”

  A look of revelation came over the faces of the men surrounding them, all with the exception of Barry. Dale was more affected than any of the rest. “For fucks sake Barry we were in that bank.”

  “I know, that doesn’t matter!” Barry shouted back harshly.

  Mark tried to give an expression of empathy to increase the impact of his words. “You see, I didn’t just fight to save the lives of the ‘X’s. I was the one that spared them.”

  “They were going to burn the Bank Barry! He saved our lives.”

  “That doesn’t change anything! Have you forgotten what they took from us in the first place?” Barry was getting angry fast as his men started to question him, which was successful in scaring the men back into line. “That’s enough of this, open the trucks!” The men followed their orders. Pressing the buttons they had rigged up to open the back of the trucks. The machines whirred to life and the doors slowly opened.

  “Well shit I tried Jake.” Mark said.

  “I know. This is it…” Jake fell silent as he prepared himself for a fight he knew they were going to lose.