Issue 7
“I thought I made it clear that we would be back every week to collect another,” Jackson said. His voice was surprisingly higher in pitch compared to Truex’s, but it could’ve been that he sounded sarcastic most of the time.
Jackson was obviously a younger man. He couldn’t have been older than thirty and the only reason that Kyra was guessing that was because his face showed some age. His body, however, did not. He was as fit and muscular as anyone could get without being considered an actual body builder. The definition in his chest alone made him seem huge, but then when you saw his arms you could understand why nobody in the community wanted to mess with him.
Truex stood by the open doors of the gymnasium. His face wasn’t shock, but rather disappointment. Everybody knew that he wasn’t to blame for what these men were doing, but Truex felt like that anyway. He put the community on his shoulders and felt as though everybody was depending on him to make every right decision for them.
It was true that Truex had done that to himself, but nobody knew why. A lot of people assumed that he was the first to find the school and others had joined him. At least, that’s what Tom had told Kyra during her first day tour. In the last month alone this little community at Colonie Central High School had grown from a few dozen people to a few hundred.
Tom said that when he arrived, Truex was already there and in charge. Other than the events that transpired with Wesley’s escape, Tom had agreed with Truex’s leadership in every way. Still, though, he didn’t believe that Truex should’ve been putting everything there is to blame on himself and that only a bad result would come from that.
It was honestly worse than Kyra thought. The way that the men stormed in and directed everybody to the gym was unexpected and fast. Kyra had just gotten back to the classroom with Tom, where his wife Cathy was taking care of the baby girls, when they had arrived. Kyra took hold of her baby sister Kassidy while Cathy held Sara and they were escorted into the gym.
There was nothing they could do. There had to have been twenty of these men and every one of them was armed with an assault rifle that looked very similar to Wesley’s. Kyra could see how the misconception of Wesley’s involvement with these guys happened. Some of them even wore leather jackets like Wesley did too. That didn’t change the feeling in Kyra’s chest though.
From the moment that Wesley told her that she had given up, not just for herself, but for the babies as well and that the only reason he had stopped to save her was for them, she had felt awful. She wanted to apologize, but everything happened so quickly. Wesley had walked right past her without saying another word before he was escorted off to his bike that he left on the freeway where he had first found her.
The only thing that kept circulating through her head was how disappointed her father and mother would’ve been in her for giving up. Kyra was in the act of allowing Wesley to die for her own justification of everything that had happened in her life. How dishonorable was that? It was for certain, in her mind, that that moment was her rock bottom. She had failed, time and time again, and now she had to start all over.
“Jackson,” Truex pleaded, “We can’t keep doing this. Can we please go into another room and discuss a solution?”
“What do you think there is to discuss?” Jackson replied without looking in Truex’s direction, “Listen, pal. The way I see it, we have the power to wipe every single one of you out. You don’t give me any reason to keep you alive in my territory.”
“This isn’t your territory, though,” Truex argued, “We need to be able to have somewhere safe to stay as well.”
“Once again,” Jackson answered, “There isn’t anything to discuss.”
Jackson swiftly turned around and approached Truex. His steps were aggressive, but he didn’t have any actual intent of hurting Truex. The approach was meant to intimidate Truex into ending his argument. Truex had argued for a solution every time that Jackson had made one of his surprise appearances and, at this point, Jackson was tired of it. Still though, Jackson’s aggressive approach to get into Truex’s face didn’t even receive a flinch on Truex’s part. He wasn’t scared of Jackson.
Once they were face to face, Jackson spoke to Truex in a whisper to avoid all of the people overhearing the confrontation. He aggressively said, “If you wanted to find a safer place to stay then you could’ve gotten into your shit vans in the back and found somewhere else.”
Jackson stared into the eyes of Truex knowing that what he had just suggested was not a real option. There were hundreds of people here and the true vehicle count was lower than you would assume. Because only a few of the people in the community, such as Tom, left the school for supply runs, Truex was forced to syphon gasoline out of the other vehicles in order to provide the vans that they actually used with fuel.
To make it simple; it would be physically impossible to load everybody up and leave. Jackson knew that.
Jackson turned back to the crowd of people, who had been silent with fear, and shouted, “My people provide you with a secure place to live and we expect to be compensated properly for doing so! If you don’t like it, then you can leave! I think that is as simple as it gets! Now,” Jackson once again turned to face Truex and very sarcastically said, “I would like to choose my next woman.”
“We have food,” Truex argued, “A lot of food. We have gas. I can get you anything you want, Jackson. Let us provide for you, but don’t…”
Jackson was tired of it. In the process of Truex beginning to argue, once again, Jackson had already begun a second approach. He was much stronger than Truex and could easily manhandle him despite being ten years younger. That was how physically empowered Jackson’s body was. He didn’t even let Truex finish speaking before he grabbed him by the collar and began pulling him to the side of the gym.
Two of his goons, armed with their own assault rifles, followed him through the doors that led into the hallway to the rest of the school. Jackson tossed Truex to the ground and handed his assault rifle to one of his men as he began to roll up his sleeves. Truex was not preparing to fight, however, and instead stood up and began to try to bargain with the man once more.
“Just tell me what you want and we can make it happen,” Truex said, but Jackson was already zoned in. He threw a punch into the gut of Truex, knocking the wind completely out of his lungs.
Truex gasped for air as he fell to his knees. Jackson looked down on his prey before grabbing him by the back of his shirt and slammed him face first into the hard wall. He turned Truex around and wrapped his fingers around his throat. It was clear that Jackson did not like to be argued with, but more importantly than that, it was clear why he was the leader.
Jackson was the biggest of the men that followed him. He was also probably the only one that didn’t need to have an assault rifle in his arms to be dangerous. This man was a walking weapon. He didn’t have a perfect fighting skill, but he was big and inhumanly strong. If he got his hands on you, then you had no choice but to go along for the ride.
Truex knew that if he wanted to, he was fast enough and skilled enough in hand to hand combat to beat Jackson in a true fight, but what was the point in that? Jackson’s men were all armed with military grade machine guns and who knows how unstable they could get if their leader got his ass handed to him. It wasn’t worth the risk in Truex’s mind. He was willing to take a beating for his people especially if it meant that he was fighting to keep the woman safe.
With Jackson’s hand around Truex’s throat, he spoke to him in a frustrated and annoyed tone as he said, “You are really getting on my nerve. If you keep back talking to me in front of your people like that, I will literally beat you to death as they watch.
Do you understand me?”
Truex was losing oxygen, but he still tried to speak through the choking, “I’m trying to make a deal with you.”
Jackson, with one hand, easily turned and threw Truex back to the ground. As Truex began to pick himself up, he found Jackson’s right fist punching him so hard in the jaw that the world started to swirl. Truex was disoriented and probably concussed from that single punch, but he could feel Jackson’s tight fist wrap around his collar and begin dragging his limp body across the floor.
It was too easy for a man like Jackson. He had the brute strength and he had the fire power to enforce his law on anybody he wanted to. Unfortunately for Central Colonie, it was them that Jackson had found and chosen to treat like slaves. They were at his will to do anything that he wanted and there was nothing that they could do about it.
The entire gymnasium watched Jackson drag Truex out of the hallway, through the doors, and onto the floor. He continued to drag Truex all the way to the center of the gymnasium, literally, through the crowd of Truex’s own people. It was designed to show how weak and pathetic their leader was compared to the big, strong man that Jackson was. It worked.
The men of the families forced their wives and daughters to hide behind them as if that would actually protect them from Jackson’s choosing process. It was truly random, but if you were a pleasure to look at then your chances certainly increased. He thought of himself as a beautiful man and therefore he deserved a beautiful woman. Regardless, anybody’s opinion of why he did it didn’t matter to him. It was his world and they were just living in it.
Jackson finally released Truex’s limp body at the center of the floor. Originally, Kyra was in the middle of the group with Tom, Cathy, and the babies and she was having a hard time seeing what was going on. Now, however, they were in the front row of a little circle that had formed around Jackson and Truex.
“This!” Jackson shouted to his audience, “This is what I call pathetic! Let me make one thing clear to each and every one of you. I don’t give a shit who you were, what you did, or where you came from. The world that you live in now is simple! The strongest survive and the weak will fall. Now, you can either be weak now and we can kill all of you and take every one of your supplies or you can be weak on a later date when I’m tired of playing with you and I’ll kill you then.”
Jackson turned and made eye contact with Kyra. Every fiber in her body told her to look away, but what he was saying was disgusting her to the core. It should’ve been him in the batting cage with the zombies. He was a bully that was taking advantage of a fallen world.
Jackson smiled upon meeting eyes with Kyra. He glanced at the baby in her arms and said in a softer tone, “Either way, you’re all weak.”
It felt like he was speaking directly to Kyra, but the message was clear. Don’t mess with him or his crew. He wanted Central Colonie to give in to whatever he wanted and if they didn’t he would kill them all. Kyra found herself questioning how a person like Jackson could even exist, but she knew that they always had. She had just never met one.
Jackson raised his tone once more and looked away from Kyra as he finished his speech to the crowd, “I will give you one chance to sacrifice a woman to me now or I will choose one myself.”
The gym fell silent. No man, woman, or child made a sound as Jackson waited patiently. He knew that nobody was going to give themselves up to him. That was the fun of the game for Jackson. He wanted to make it seem fair for everybody and then remind them just how unfair he was. Ten long seconds of silence went by before Jackson spread his arms out on each side and laughed.
“You want it the hard way?” Jackson shouted, “Fine with me.”
His movement was quick yet fluid as he shifted his body and began searching through the crowd. It did not take him long to find a woman that he thought suitable. Jackson grabbed a younger woman, probably in her twenties, by the arm and began to pull her towards the doors that their trucks were parked outside of.
The woman must’ve been alone because nobody seemed to fight for her upon being grabbed by Jackson. It was horrifying to watch for Kyra as people quite literally separated to make room for Jackson as he dragged the poor woman away. She, however, was fighting for her life. She swung with meaningless punches against his arm and kicked and screamed for help. She didn’t want to be Jackson’s next victim.
Kyra felt something building in her chest. The overwhelming feeling of guilt that had shrouded her ever since Wesley proved that he wasn’t with these men. The knowledge that she had gained after seeing how truthfully awful these men were and what they were doing to these people. Kyra knew, in her heart, that the people needed to stand up to this bully. Truex couldn’t do it alone.
She looked down at her baby sister and acknowledged the fact that she had continued fighting for the sake of Kassidy and Sara. However, Wesley was right. She had given up hope on the highway. Not just for herself, but for the two babies as well. The will to survive inside of Kyra was gone and she truly did not know whether it would ever come back or not. She owed it to her father, mother, Jason and his wife, and Wesley to let the babies have a chance at life.
In Kyra’s mind, though, the best chance for them was in the hands of somebody else.
She leaned down and kissed Kassidy on the head before turning and handing her to Tom. At first, Tom didn’t understand what was going on but when Kyra said, “Please take care of them,” he immediately tried to argue. It was too late though.
Kyra had already begun running through the crowd towards Jackson and the woman that he had taken. Tom looked at Cathy in horror. They couldn’t believe what Kyra was doing, but all that mattered in Kyra’s mind was doing the right thing. She failed to do so before and she wasn’t going to let that decision repeat itself.
“Hey!” Kyra shouted as she met up with Jackson. She reached for his wrist and desperately tried to break his grip on the woman’s arm, but he was too strong. She screamed, “Let her go! You can’t take her!”
Jackson turned to see which one of the peasants was fighting back and was surprised when he met the familiar eyes of Kyra. The girl that wouldn’t break his stare. He partially admired that because nobody at Central Colonie had the courage to look him in the eyes, but he also despised being stood up to. Jackson used his right hand to push Kyra to the floor and then he looked down as he stood over her.
“Who do you think you are?” Jackson asked. He wasn’t expecting an answer. Instead, Jackson was preparing to start another monologue about the punishment for fighting back, but Kyra beat him to it.
“If you want to kill somebody to prove your power, you can kill me,” Kyra fought. She truly had given up on living in this new world. Now that the babies were in good hands, she felt that her only responsibility was fighting for what was right no matter the punishment. Even if that meant death. Kyra continued, “You don’t get to take another woman. Not while I’m here.”
Jackson opened his mouth to argue with Kyra, but he knew that she had already made him look bad in front of all of these people. It wasn’t a fact, but Jackson looked around the gym and actually believed that he could see the courage beginning to rise again amongst them. He grinned as he now was given an opportunity to prove just how serious he was.
He reached his hand out towards the man that he had originally handed his assault rifle to and, without question, the man gave it back to him. Jackson then, with one hand, pointed the assault rifle at Kyra and said, “You asked for it.”
Kyra closed her eyes and, sure enough, a gunshot went off. In a moment like that, Kyra found the sound of it deafening. She wasn’t sure what to think or feel, but it didn’t feel like she was dead. She opened her eyes and the barrel of the rifle was still in her face, but there was nothing that indicated that it had gone off.
Then, the body hit the floor behind her. Kyra turned around quickly to see a puddle of blood building beneath the head of a man. It was a man that was standing at the front of the crowd. Behind him was a wom
an that was close in his age holding a young boy. Both of them had begun sobbing uncontrollably. Like a statue, one of Jackson’s men was standing close to where the body fell with his hand still extended. In his hand was a small pistol that had smoke still leaving the barrel.
Kyra looked back at Jackson, who was now smiling from ear to ear, and opened her mouth to yell. It didn’t matter though. One of his men grabbed her from behind and, together, they began to exit the building. Jackson handed the woman that he had grabbed to one of his men and they loaded both her and Kyra up into the back of a pickup truck.
Just like that, they were gone.
The thing that worried Truex the most was not the fact that he knew that eventually Jackson would return for another woman, but it was the faces of his own people as they left the gymnasium that night. What was he supposed to do? Truex looked down at the dead body of a man named Walker. He was the father on an eight year old boy who now only had his mother to protect him.
Walker was shot at point blank range in front of hundreds of people just to make a point. Jackson would not be interrupted or stopped. He didn’t want a young girl showing him up and sacrificing herself. This man was determined to rule this lawless world now and there was nothing Truex could do about it.
It had been thirty minutes since everybody had left and Truex still wasn’t sure what to do with the body. Walker wasn’t the first man or woman that Truex had seen dead. In fact, he had probably seen more dead bodies in his life than everybody else that lived in the high school combined. This one, though, hit him harder than most because of the responsibility that he had to protect these people.
“Truex,” one of his men said. Truex looked up at Bill, the man that drove them back from the highway in the van as Bill continued to explain, “Our van is gone.”
Truex stood and walked out the doors with him to see that it was true. They had parked the van next to the pickup trucks that Jackson’s people had driven to the school. In all of the chaos of escorting people back to the classrooms, Truex, Bill, and the others forgot to check the parking lot. Bill had gone out to move the van to the back of the school when he noticed that it had been taken.
World of Dead | Vol. 1 | Issue 7 Page 1