Dead Judgment

by Flint Maxwell

  I go to the opposite wall and knock three times, hard.

  After about a fifteen-second delay, the same pattern comes back to me. That’s good.

  “I’m escaping!” I yell.

  “Good luck!” Abby yells back.

  25

  It’s not hard getting out of the subway car. Not with Roland’s help. Together, the two of us are able to loosen one of the seats from its rusty bolts. I do most of the work, yes, but I couldn’t have done it without him. We stack the seat up against the window, as zombies scrabble at the glass the closer we get.

  “They don’t care if we get out of the cars,” Roland says. “I once saw a guy who straight up jumped to the edge and pulled himself up. He cut his fingers to hell—I think he even lopped his pinky clean off, matter of fact. When he got up there, he was losing so much blood that he got all woozy, like a drunk, you know, stumbling and bumbling about. If God was kind, He would’ve made it so that fella fell backward into the hole, then all he’d have to deal with was a sore back and a missing pinky. But no, our God ain’t a just God. The guy, when he passed out, went forward, right into the welcoming arms of the zombies. This was early in my stay, too. I couldn’t even look. But I heard. Oh Lord, did I hear.”

  I look out the window, past the swarm of dead, and next to Helga’s ripped and bloody clothes, I see another stain of blood on the concrete. The prisoner’s, no doubt. Maybe someone else’s.

  “So he got out, but he was injured. Let’s just make sure we aren’t injured,” I say.

  Roland shakes his head. “How you can have such confidence in a world like this, man, I just don’t understand.”

  “Me either, Roland. Me either.”

  I grab onto the seat and give it a wiggle. It’s not firmly in place, but it’s good enough. Then I take my shirt off. In the reflection of the window, I see what looks like the ghost of myself. I don’t look much better than Roland, here. It’s a tough old world.

  “Uh, son, I ain’t like that. I’m not that lonely,” Roland says.

  I laugh. “Don’t worry.”

  I tear off the sleeves of the shirt and wrap them around my hands. Not much, but it’s better than nothing. I put the shirt back on, my cloak on top of it. The cloth stinks to high heaven, and it’s wet—with what, I don’t know.

  I scale up the seat bench, careful to sway with its instability. It’s not easy, though nothing in this world ever is, but I’m up. At the top. Ladders always tell you not to stand on the top step. I wonder what the warning would be on this piece of work. ‘Just don’t do it’, probably.

  The thought makes me smile, which feels odd in all the gloom of this prison.

  Using the sleeves for cushion, I pull myself up. On the sharp edges, I see caked blood here and here, and there’s piece of flayed skin there. The metal stabs into my palm, but the pain is almost nonexistent. I roll over on top of the car and take a deep breath. The stench of the tunnel fills me up, and I cough it out.

  “Now you,” I say to Roland.

  He looks at the rickety bench with hesitation. For a moment, I think he’s going to cower back toward his corner. He’s been in here so long that getting out might seem crazy. But he doesn’t. He stands up a little straighter, puts his foot on an armrest, and presses downward, testing the strength of the ladder. There’s not much—I could’ve told him that—but he seems satisfied enough.

  I hand him the shirt sleeves, and he slips them around his fingers. He begins his ascent. When he’s halfway up, I grab him around the shoulders and ease him over the edge, onto the top of the car. I’m gentle, but he cries out and clutches his waist.

  He’s cut. Blood trickles down his dirty jeans.

  “You all right?” I ask him.

  Grimacing, he says, “I’ll be okay. I think before this is all said and done, I’ll have more than a drop of blood to worry about.”

  “True,” I say. “Just wait here for a minute.”

  Roland looks over the side. The zombies are staring back at him. Those that still have distinguishable features on their faces snarl. Their eyes light up, as their mouths hang open. The jagged bones around their lips are barely in the shape of teeth, but they get their point across…the point being that they’re hungry. Very hungry. Always hungry.

  “Sons of bitches, aren’t they?” Roland says.

  “The worst,” I reply, but even I know it’s not their fault. This is just their nature. They’re wired this way. It’s like blaming a lion for killing a gazelle.

  I go from my car over to Abby and Lilly’s. They’re sitting across from each other on rickety seats. The opening in their car is slim enough to make me wonder how they fit through without getting gutted by the sharp metal. Somehow they did, though, because they’re in there, which means there’s definitely a way to get them out. I’ll just have to be careful.

  The girls aren’t talking. Lilly’s eyes are closed, while Abby stares out at the zombies.

  The zombies have, pretty much, aside from a few stragglers, congregated around the car Roland is sitting on. I see him leaning over the side, looking at them with scientific curiosity.

  “About time,” Abby says. “How did you get out without cutting your hands?”

  I pull my cloak over and show her my ripped sleeves.

  She chuckles. “A muscle shirt is meant to be worn by people with actual muscles.”

  I turn around. “Okay, I’ll just let you hang out in here a little longer. Sound good?”

  “Jack, you know I’m kidding,” she says.

  Lilly snorts. “Your banter makes for some pretty solid entertainment,” she says.

  “Thanks,” Abby says.

  Now I have to figure out how to get them out. None of their benches look particularly loose. I tell Abby to feel around, see if she can knock any of them off their bolts.

  She says, “Don’t you think I tried that? If they were, I would’ve been out of here long before you.”

  From one of the other cars, a woman cackles. It’s a hair-raising sound. I’ve almost forgotten about the other prisoners. I think there’s about three more in their own cars.

  “Give me your coat, Abby,” I say. She’s wearing a thick leather jacket that’s dusty and grimy, despite being picked up only a few days ago.

  “It’s kinda cold in here, you know,” she says.

  I tap my wrist, indicating our lack of time. “Lilly, your pants, please.”

  “Is that how you talk to all the gals, Mr. Jupiter?” Lilly replies.

  I smile awkwardly. “Just trust me.”

  “I’ve heard that one before…” Lilly says. “At least buy me a drink first.”

  “When we get out of here. Promise,” I say.

  “Okay, don’t look,” she says.

  I turn away and begin unlacing my boot. About five seconds later, her jeans drape over my shoulder. I place it next to Abby’s jacket. Once my boot is off, I tie Lilly’s pant leg to Abby’s jacket sleeve in a knot that my older brother taught me many years ago, a knot that Norm Jupiter swears is unbreakable. I give it a tug, and am satisfied.

  “Roland?” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “Come over here and give me a hand, please.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I place my removed boot on the edge of the upturned metal. The leather should hold up and protect the rope, otherwise I think the opening is sharp enough to saw right through Lilly’s jeans and Abby’s jacket. Now I lower the makeshift rope down the thin opening, making sure the boot doesn’t get dislodged.

  “Lilly, after you,” Abby says.

  “No, I insist, after you,” she replies.

  “Ladies first,” Abby says.

  “Will you guys just hurry up. We don’t have much time. They’re gonna come in here any minute,” I say.

  “Geez, Jack,” Lilly says. “At least you’re not the one trying to escape some demented prison in your underwear. You’re already out. Don’t complain.”

  “Lady’s got a point,” Roland sa
ys.

  I roll my eyes in the most Abby way I can muster, and Lilly grabs on first. She climbs until she’s at the edge. Luckily, her hands find a sliver of smoother metal—which is still pretty sharp—and Roland and I are able to drag her up to the top.

  “Lilly, Roland. Roland, Lilly,” I say, out of breath.

  “Hi,” Lilly says. She shakes his hand. “Don’t mind my ass hanging out for everyone to see.”

  Roland chuckles at this, but remains gentlemanly and doesn’t even glance below her waist.

  “Why couldn’t we have used your jeans?” Lilly asks, furrowing her brow as she gets up.

  “Well, I’m not wearing underwear,” I reply.

  Lilly shakes her head. “Too much information, Jack.”

  With Lilly to help us bring Abby up, the second ascent goes a lot smoother. It takes a minute to get Lilly’s pants unknotted from the jacket, but once she gets her jeans on, she seems to be in a better mood.

  “Glad you’re making friends, Jack,” Abby says. “Even in prison.”

  I shrug. “We need all the help we can get.” I look in the direction of the cackling woman in the farthest car. The cackling soon turns into screaming.

  Lilly is brushing off the dirt from her pant legs. It’s not coming off. Whatever it is, it’s there to stay. “You can’t seriously be thinking—” she begins.

  “I am,” I say. “C’mon and help me.”

  “As long as I get to keep my pants on,” Lilly says.

  26

  We go around to the other cars and offer the prisoners a chance to escape. There are three left, all emaciated like Roland.

  The cackling woman doesn’t reply to me when I stand over her car and tell her I’m getting her out of here. She recoils into the corner, and hisses at me over and over again.

  I don’t hang around trying to convince her. I know a lost cause when I see one.

  Of the three that are left, two of them accept our offers. One is a small Mexican man. He has a terrible scar on the top of his head, parting his jet-black hair with pale flesh. He’s wearing an old US Air Force uniform. His name is Roberto, but he tells us to call him ‘Nacho’.

  I ask him how he got here, and he says, “I tell you the truth, man. I no lie any longer, I see no point. I killed many. They recruit me for the air fleet. I say no.”

  “Many what?” Abby asks.

  “Many District.”

  Abby steps forward and shakes his dirty hand. “Then you’re all right by me, Nacho.”

  “Also,” Lilly adds, “cool fucking name.”

  “Thank you,” Nacho says.

  Turns out that Nacho flew jets in the Air Force before the shit hit the fan. The Overlord sought him out for his own army, and Nacho refused, killing a handful of guards in his attempt to escape. He failed. That’s why he’s here.

  The other prisoner we bring to our cause is a woman. She is taller than me, taller than any woman I’ve ever seen before. Her name is Mandy. Before I can even ask, she tells us, “I’m six-five, and yes, I played basketball.”

  “Professional?” Roland asks.

  Mandy shakes her head. “No money in professional women’s basketball. NBA players made millions, while WNBA players barely made a living wage. They had to get second jobs. No. I worked at Best Buy. Geek Squad.”

  “That’s something I haven’t thought about in a long time,” I say.

  “What’d you do to get put in here?” Lilly asks.

  “Hacked into the District’s mainframe computers outside of Indianapolis,” Mandy says. I imagine I’m looking pretty surprised because she continues with, “I’m more brains than brawn, trust me.”

  We shake hands, introduce ourselves to the new members of our band of rebels.

  “So, you got a plan, friend?” Nacho asks me.

  I shrug. “Thought we could wing it.”

  “That’s always Jack’s plan,” Abby adds. “But I gotta give it to him, he’s still alive. Somehow.”

  “Luck,” I say.

  “Well, we’re gonna need a hell of a lot of that luck, I think,” Roland says. “And then some.

  27

  Hours pass. No guard comes in. There’s no noise from the outside at all.

  Mandy says, “They’re watching us. Somehow.”

  I look around the vast cavern that was once a subway. I see no cameras. The lights running along the walls are barely lit, but they are lit. That means they’re plugged in somewhere.

  “They know,” Mandy says.

  “How?” Lilly asks. She is thinking exactly the same thing I am: How can they watch us if there are no cameras?

  We wait a little longer. We don’t talk. Our silence, however, is drowned out by the gurgling of the zombies. By the shuffling of their feet. Their moans. At the end of the train, the woman cackles again. What she is cackling at, I have no idea.

  The walls seem to be closing in. The zombies seem to be getting taller and taller. Soon they’ll be able to reach us with their blackened, flame-rigid arms.

  I have to get out of here.

  “We have to get up on that platform,” I say.

  “Too high. Already thought of it,” Abby says. She sits cross-legged in front of me. She looks oddly at peace.

  Next to her is Lilly and Roland, one on each side. Mandy and Nacho are sitting next to me.

  “Don’t give up before you even try,” Mandy says. Normally, this kind of attitude would elicit a harsh reaction from Abby, but Mandy is so damn big, not even she will talk back. “If I gave up, I wouldn’t have gotten into the Overlord’s mainframe.”

  “Then you wouldn’t be in here,” Lilly says. Her tone is almost bored. There’s no animosity in her voice.

  Good, I think. I have to keep the group together, prevent them from falling out before we can reach the surface.

  “Worth it,” Mandy says. “I know the District’s secrets now.”

  “Like what?” Nacho asks.

  Roland says, “They wouldn’t be secrets if she told us.”

  Mandy shakes her head. “No, no. I don’t mind telling.”

  “Well, like what, then?” Roland asks.

  “I know they have weapons. Big weapons,” Mandy says.

  “Obviously,” Abby says. “I was in the District for two years. I bet I know just as much as you.”

  “You were in the District? Like how?” Roland says. His bottom lip quivers, and his eyes go stony.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy. It’s not like that. She was held captive, too.”

  Not exactly a lie.

  Abby meets my eyes. There’s understanding in hers.

  “Yeah. Captive,” she echoes. “I know some things, too.”

  “Not as much as me. Unless you were a ‘Top Tier,’ as they call it, you don’t know squat,” Mandy says.

  “It’s not a competition,” Lilly cuts in. “Tell us.”

  “I know they have a store of weapons right here in this city. Why they’d bring more bombs to a place that has already been bombed, and is crawling with radiation, who knows?”

  To say a lightbulb turned on in my head would be an understatement. The idea that comes to me is more like a comet, burning bright. Or a supernova, an exploding sun. Abby mentioned that this whole place was an arsenal, but I figured that just meant guns.

  “Wait,” I say. “There are bombs here? Like, bombs that could level the whole city?”

  Mandy nods. Crosses her massive arms. “See? I told you I know a lot.”

  “We believed you,” Lilly says. She’s smiling as she adds, “Kinda…”

  “And if you get to these bombs, you can set them off?” I ask.

  Mandy doesn’t nod as quickly as before, and she shifts her gaze away from me to look out toward the milling zombies. Then she nods. “I guess I could. But we’d probably die. I don’t know how long we’d have before they blow.”

  “I thought you knew everything,” Nacho says.

  “I’d have to see them first,” Mandy says. “I didn’t se
e them, just the arsenal inventory list. I don’t know much about bombs, but I know their OS—that’s operating system—and I’m sure I could do whatever needs to be done.”

  “Why, Jack?” Abby asks, leaning forward. She’s about to grill me.

  I don’t like it when she gets like this.

  “What’s our goal?” I ask.

  “Get out of here alive,” Lilly says.

  “Well, yeah, that’s our immediate goal, but what’s our ultimate goal?”

  “Survive…” Lilly answers again.

  I shake my head. “No. It’s to take down the District, weaken the one-eyed man’s army until his back is up against a wall. We’ve hit one of their operations, and look how they reacted. Imagine if we took out one of their cities.”

  Abby shakes her head. “Jack, you’re crazy.”

  “Sometimes you have to be crazy to be successful,” I remind her.

  “Who said that one, Steve Jobs? Bill Gates?” Roland asks.

  I shrug. “Probably.”

  “So you want to get out of here and blow the place to hell?” Lilly says.

  “Hell yeah!” Roland says. “Death to the District!”

  This elicits a collective groan from the zombies below us.

  “Even they’re on our side,” Nacho says, pointing. “They’re on any side that can give them meat.”

  “We blow it up before they get here,” I continue with the plan. “Hopefully. We’re in enemy territory. I’ll have no luck taking down the Overlord here, we catch him on the run. We catch him someplace not crawling with hundreds of brainwashed District guards.”

  Abby nods. “I mean, he’s got a point. As much as I hate to admit that.”

  I’m grinning now, and Abby is looking at me like I’m radioactive.

  “So we get you to the place the bombs are kept, and you can set them off?” I say to Mandy.

  She nods. “I think so.”

  I don’t intend to take any of them to the bombs with me. I just need to know where they are, and then I can figure out the rest. There’s no guarantee that I can get them out before the bombs go off, but they need hope, they need purpose to keep them going.