A Good Distance From Dying

by David Carroll

  I looked up into Daniel’s eyes. He was watching me, waiting for his answer. He asked me if Veronica or Amanda could do Judy’s part in this plan. The answer was no. Amanda was too rough, she would scare our young guard. Veronica was too soft. He would feel guilty, but safe in telling her that he really couldn’t let her out. He was sorry, but he had orders. Only Judy could take that motherly tone with him that I was betting would shock him into doing as he was told.

  Maybe Veronica could assert herself enough. Maybe Amanda could just put her foot in the door when the kid opened it and take him out right then and there.

  “I guess one of the other girls could...”

  “No. They won’t.” Judy said. Her tone was mad and she looked at me as if I had just slapped her across the face. “I am not some fragile little thing that you have to protect, Charlie. You told me my part, and I aim to do what is needed of me. Now let’s get this done and get out of here.”

  I looked from her to Daniel and back to her. “Yes mam.” was all I could think to say. As she walked towards the door I looked back to Daniel who just shrugged his shoulders and frowned at me. I followed her towards the door but pulled up about four or five feet short. I just wanted to be close enough to hear what was going on. Judy knocked on the door but the boy wouldn’t answer it. Judy knocked again, still no answer. Judy banged on the door like she was a cop at three in the morning and you had better get your butt to the door and do it now. This time the boy answered.

  “Look, I’m really not supposed to open this door. I could get in a lot of trouble.” The kid said.

  “I know, and I am sorry young man, but I, and the two other girls, need to go to the restroom."

  There was a pause and a loud sigh. “Gee, I don’t know, I’m really not supposed to.”

  “Look, I know you’re concerned, but you have that gun and it’s just us three girls. I really don’t think we could overpower you.” Then Judy lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “Do you see the girl by the table? I really don’t think she has to go. I think she’s looking for an excuse to be able to talk to you. She’s been telling us how cute you are since we got here.”

  That was brilliant. I could imagine the boy looking at Veronica and suddenly seeing a lot of things Judy’s way.

  “Well, you promise you won’t try anything? I really don’t want to get in trouble for this.”

  “I promise you all I am going to do is go to the restroom.”

  “Okay,” The kid said and Judy turned towards the other girls and waved them forward. I had already decided it was time to spin around and watch what would happen next. Judy walked out into the hall, which she wasn’t supposed to do. Amanda followed her out and Veronica went out last but she leaned up against the door and didn’t let it shut.

  “Hey handsome,” She said in what I had begun calling her southern belle voice.

  “H…hello.”

  “And what’s your name cutie?”

  “My, my name is Jim.”

  “Wow, my first boyfriend was named Jim. He was a great kisser. I read in Cosmo that everybody with a one syllable name was a good kisser. Do you think that’s true, Jim?”

  “I’m not really sure. I haven’t kissed many girls.”

  “Really?” Veronica said. “I figured a cutie like you would have the girls lined up waiting for a chance.”

  “No mam, I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

  “Reeaallyy?” Veronica was pouring it on at this point. I could only imagine that meant Amanda was only seconds away from making her move. I began to slide down the wall so I could see out the door better.

  “I’m in the market for a boyfriend as we speak. I’ll tell you what; if you’re as good a kisser as I bet you are then you can be my new boyfriend.”

  The kid’s eyes widened at this and I almost laughed. It was like something out of a movie. He leaned forward and planted a kiss right on Veronica’s lips. Veronica grabbed his head with both her hands and held him just as Amanda brought her pistol across the back of his head. Jim was unconscious before he hit the floor. Veronica let go of him as he fell. She looked down and asked, “Did you see stars?”

  I decided Veronica was a lot more like me than anyone else in the group.

  Turning back to the others I nodded my head. Sass and Shawn entered the hallway and bound Jim’s feet and hands with his own shoelaces and then shoved a little decorative pillow that had been in the conference room into his mouth before locking him on the other side of the door.

  “Okay, grab your weapons. If you don’t have a weapon look around on our way out. If you see something that you can use, grab it. I doubt that the king will just let us go. We may be fighting scouts as well as zombies as we make our way out of Gray.”

  “You didn’t mention that part before,” Daniel said in a whisper.

  “I know. Too late to turn back now.”

  As we entered the main body of the store we found it empty. My plan seemed to be working perfectly. Amanda stood to my right and I could see her shaking her head.

  “Something wrong?”

  “They didn’t take any of the ammo out of my guns. Everything is exactly as I had left it.”

  “Well, in his defense, he’s really new to this whole king business.”

  We slid back the metal panel as quietly as we could and made our way to the back door. Once we were all at the door the process of unlocking the slide locks and dead bolts commenced and I said a small prayer that the door wouldn’t creak as we opened it.

  I took a deep breath as I opened the door which did so quietly.

  “Lead them out, Amanda. Get us heading towards the interstate.”

  Amanda did as I asked. Sass and I were the last two to exit the building. As we turned our back on the king's castle we saw that the others had went left and up a slight rise in the road then Amanda had jogged left again into Food City’s parking lot. This route would make us circle around the Gray safe house, upping our chances of being spotted or even caught. As I closed in on Sass I could see what had made Amanda take this path.

  Across the road from Food City is a long row of apartments. It seemed all of the residents had been turned into zombies by this point. I only say this because the majority of the occupants of these apartments were out in the yard or in the road directly ahead of us. They hadn’t noticed us yet, but I knew we wouldn’t be able to sneak past them without drawing their attention. If that were to happen we would most likely lose a few of our own fighting them off. As badly as I didn’t want to circle around through this parking lot, it looked as if we had no other choice.

  Amanda had brought the rest of the group to a stop and was waiting on us to catch up to them.

  “We are in trouble,” Amanda said.

  “Already?” I asked.

  “There are scouts out. I saw them walking toward the safe house. Once they get there and find the back door unlocked they are going to raise the alarm. We need to decide if we are going to run or if we are going to fight.”

  “I say we run like hell.” There were many nods to my suggestion. But it seemed as if my opinion was meaningless as I heard a voice behind me say, “I believe it’s a little too late for that to work Charlie.”

  Looking behind me I saw the king with Randy on one side and Charles on the other. He smiled at me as he watched understanding wash across my face.

  “That’s why you had a kid guarding us.” I said.

  “Yes. That would be why,” the king said as he leaned back against a car. The handgun he was holding was not pointed at us, but his two scouts had their rifles drawn. I motioned for people to get behind me and found that it was Sass, Amanda, Shawn, and I in the front row with Veronica and the Craigs standing behind us. Sass looked to be trying to find a weakness, some flaw to exploit. Amanda had that wild look in her eyes that said, “I will take at least one of you down with me.” She didn’t have her rifle out. Instead she had both of her pistols drawn and each one was pointed at a scout. Shawn looked scared, but
determined to not let himself be hampered by that fear. I was attempting to make myself look as cool and non-concerned as possible. I wanted to show this king that even though this wasn’t how I had planned it, I was not worried about the likes of him.

  The king looked around and said, “You know, it’s kind of fitting that all of this goes down here, in this parking lot.”

  It dawned on me what he was talking about. The cop and the shop owner.

  “You think you’re going to have the same luck with us?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, you will all die, and you will die very soon. Although I won’t have to alter any of you after the kill. After all, you escaped to try and signal the rest of your group so you could carry on with your planned invasion of Gray. You seven, it seems, were just an advance group of a much larger threat. We will have to shore up defenses, and I am sure I will need to institute some more rules after this. But it will all be handled in time.”

  “With so few of us remaining alive, how can you justify killing people? Life should be precious now more than ever.” Judy said. The king laughed at her.

  “Life? Precious? Please. Life is nothing more than a tool to use against the weak or weak minded. I don’t care if ninetynine percent of the population of the world have become those things, I will kill anyone who gets in the way of my power. All you are to me is more weapons to put in our cache.” The king looked around again at the spot where we were having our standoff and smiled. He walked about five feet across the parking lot and looked down at two big red stains on the asphalt. “It’s really funny if you think about it. Right here, on this spot, is where I killed those other two trusting fools in order to secure my power. Now I will kill you seven to make sure that my power will be secure for months, or even years, to come. Your deaths will make me invaluable to my community. And I owe it all to you, Charlie. You played your part beautifully. I knew if I told you the truth about everything that you would want nothing more than to pack up your people and get out of here. Your little play to make me angry was a good idea, and it may have worked had I not already been playing you to get you to escape. Your rant did earn you a special distinction though.”

  The king pointed his gun at my head.

  “You will be the last to die. I will take great pleasure in killing you slowly.”

  “Are you trying to scare me, my king? You must have forgotten I’ve heard Daniel say things like that to me all day. After a while it starts to lose its impact.”

  “Really?” The king said. “Really? You are going to tell me that having this gun pointed at you doesn’t scare you?”

  “No. I’m not scared in the least. It’s not a lack of fear of the weapon though, it’s the shooter.”

  I was hoping one of my guys would see an opening and make a move, but that had yet to happen. The king was going to kill me. It was going to happen very soon; of this I had no doubt. I half wondered if Daniel was smiling as he watched my final moments play out.

  The king stepped closer to me saying, “Well then, I guess it would be prudent for me to demonstrate why I am the one person in this entire world that you should be scared of.”

  I still thought that he wouldn’t pull that trigger yet, but then again, he did have that look in his eye. I needed to keep him talking.

  “What happened to saving me for last so you could enjoy killing me slowly?”

  The king looked at me with regret and slowly shook his head.

  “It would seem that there are things in this world which we are afforded the opportunity to do and things that we are not. I wanted your death to be a long and torturous event just as you had wanted to escape my clutches and run to Johnson City.”

  He took a few more steps as he said this, and now he was pressing the gun barrel against my forehead.

  “But that, Mister Collins…”, he said with a sigh, “…is not how this ends.”

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S E V E N

  On April the tenth in the year nineteen hundred and three a baby was born to a dancer and a violinist in New York City. This little girl would eventually grow up to be a magazine editor, playwright, author, and serve in the government, to name just a few of her accomplishments.

  Her name was Clare Boothe Luce and one of her many quotes is “There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.” This was what popped into my mind as I felt the cold metal of the gun press against my head. I knew this was it. I wanted to close my eyes and wait for the bang which would be the last sound I would ever hear, but I refused to.

  “There are no hopeless situations.”

  I wondered if Mrs. Luce ever had a gun pressed against her head. It was possible. In the nineteen forties, she had traveled to Europe to report on World War Two. I’m not sure how close to the battle front she got, but it is possible at some point her life was put in danger. Personally, however, I don’t think so. I think if she had ever had a gun pressed against her forehead, she would have rethought the whole thing about there not being hopeless situations.

  “There are only men who have grown hopeless about them.”

  Had I grown hopeless in my situation? Had I already decided that I was soon to be no more and simply given up? Had I given in to what fate had in store for me? Was I to go out defiantly, but still with a whimper instead of a roar? It was a lot to think about. If Mrs. Luce were standing here with the king’s gun pressed to her head would she simply stand and wait or would she fight? Would she try to beat the odds and win her life? I think she would, but then again she also said, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

  Taking that quote into account, I am sure she wouldn’t be surprised that I was now facing death. She would laugh and wink at me in acknowledgement that I had it coming. She would say, “One good deed too many I’m afraid, old boy,” as she waved goodbye to me. Then I could imagine her taking a long sip of her sun tea as the king pulled the trigger and BANG! I would be no more, but at least the tea would be good, especially on this nice fall day.

  I am sure Mrs. Luce would have fought, but one man, or woman, facing off against three men with guns is never going to win. You can do the whole macho routine of at least I went out swinging, but the fact remains, swinging or not, you still went out.

  I’d rather not do the whole going out thing if I could avoid it, but as it turns out, I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop the king from pulling that trigger. Amanda, Sass or nobody else could save me either. I was out of options. I thought this was it, but then something happened that I bet even the worldly Mrs. Luce would have never seen coming.

  Somewhere along the lines of twelve miles down the road a disaster had been approaching for hours. It had been racing to this moment like the train that flattened Casey Jones. It was exactly as I had feared; Kingsport was not a safe place to be.

  Rewind the clock about five or six hours and you can imagine the situation as it was. People had been on shift for a couple of hours at the chemical plant. They were into that part of the workday where you have gotten your orders, you’ve ironed out the kinks in the machine and you’ve started that slow coast to shift change. Suddenly you start to hear people screaming. You check your machine, things are running smooth, surely you can step away for just a second and see what’s going on. You’re not supposed to, you really shouldn’t, but hell, this thing practically runs itself and it has all kinds of fail safes built into it. Things will be okay. Besides, you won’t be gone but a few seconds.

  You step away and then you either get attacked by a zombie or see them heading your way devouring everything in their path. You run. My God how you run. You haven’t ran this hard for this long since you were in high school and good lord, how long ago was that?

  You’re hurting long before you reach the way out, but you suck it up and keep running. By the time you reach the gate you know you’re dead. There are zombies on both sides eating everybody that gets near it. You know another way out, but you’re wiped from the run you just made. A couple zombies start he
ading your way. You can’t run. You’re too tired, but you can’t fight either, there are so many. After just a moment of rest you turn to run and find that you have been surrounded. You fight the best that you can, but it’s all over, they take you down and your last few precious moments on this planet are a blur of unimaginable pain as you scream and scream and scream until, at last, one of them bites through your throat cutting off your screams forever.

  However, that machine that practically runs itself is still running. You thought you wouldn’t be gone for no more than a minute tops, but you will never return. On and on it runs. Who knows what chemicals are in it? Who knows how long the process was supposed to take? Who knows if those fail safes are going to kick in or not? The plant is the size of a small city with building upon building full of these machines doing God knows what to God knows what chemicals. It’s a recipe for a very large and deadly boom.

  Now back to the present. The gun presses into my forehead. The king looks me in the eyes and says, “But that, Mister Collins, is not how this ends.” And then the machine that has been running itself has a small hiccup and a good sized chunk of Kingsport goes up in a fireball leaving a crater in the landscape large enough for the moon to be proud of.

  This explosion had varying effects on my situation. I was expecting a loud bang and then darkness, but what I got was a very loud boom and then I was almost jostled off my feet as the ground itself actually moved under me. Some of the glass windows in the front of Food City cracked and even broke into shards. The sky was suddenly red, and after a bit, the wind of the explosion’s shockwave hit us. At least it hit those of us that were still alive at that point.