Clay found some inner strength. He drew himself up and even puffed out his chest a bit before speaking.
“No, Judge, I don’t guess I do. I’ve already spoken my piece when I testified, and it was the truth. But I guess nobody believes me, so do what you gotta do.”
Seth paused and waited to see if Clay had anything further to say, but Clay was finished. Seth interlaced his fingers and took a slow, deep breath.
“Mister Fleming, I want you to know I listened carefully to your testimony. I listened to everyone’s testimony. I found some more truthful than others.” When he made that statement, he stared pointedly at Hermione.
“I have been thinking of this case ever since I received the summons to officiate in this proceeding. The law is clear in my responsibilities and my authority. Back before, the judicial system had what is known as a bifurcated trial system. If a defendant is found guilty, a sentencing hearing is then held. We will now be having a sentencing hearing. Under the laws set forth, there are three possible options. One, I can set aside the verdict. Two, I can sentence you to death. The third possible sentence for this charge as set forth in the Mount Weather bylaws is banishment. I will now hear arguments from the prosecution.”
Connie stood. “Your honor, I will make this brief. The facts of the case have been heard and the jury has delivered a verdict. I will not belabor the court with a repetition of the crime and will rely on the wisdom of the court to pass the appropriate sentence.”
Connie gave a solemn nod and returned to his seat.
“Thank you, General,” Seth said and turned to face Rochelle. “Counselor, do you wish to present any mitigating factors on behalf of your client?”
Rochelle stared and appeared at a loss for words. After a moment, she realized she needed to say something. She picked up her legal pad and fumbled through it before looking up at Seth.
“My client is innocent, Judge. There is ample proof of this, and the verdict should be set aside.”
I could see Seth’s jaw muscles tightening. I’m sure he wanted to berate Rochelle; tell her she had not helped her client one iota. Instead, he composed himself before speaking.
“Thank you, Counselor, you may be seated.” He waited until she sat before continuing. He then focused on Clay.
“As I previously stated, when I received this appointment, I realized this was going to be the first major case to be tried during what is known as post-apocalyptic America. It is a historical precedent and it was incumbent upon me to ensure there would be no errors, no oversights.
“It is with this mindset that I directed Mister Gunderson to act as an amicus curiae. Do you know what that phrase, Mister Fleming?”
“No, Judge, I don’t believe I do,” Clayton answered.
“It is a Latin term that means friend of the court. When I was appointed as the judge of this trial by President Stark, I exercised my judicial privilege and named Mister Gunderson amicus curiae, and as amicus curiae, he was tasked to conduct an independent investigation of this matter. He has performed extensive research and prepared a brief on all parties involved in this court action, including you, Senator VanAllen. The briefs have been very informative, to say the least, and I have used this information to render what the court believes to be the verdict.”
Seth paused a long ten seconds. “Clay Fleming, it is the decision of this court that you be banished from the Marcus Hook community and all other communities associated with the United States provisional government. Bailiffs, take charge of the prisoner.”
He then banged his gavel and dismissed the court. As soon as he did so, the crowd once again erupted. The verdict itself seemed to be an afterthought. The conversations I heard had more to do with Mount Weather, the government, and the incumbent politicians. A few people stopped talking when they realized I was listening.
I gave a polite smile and walked out. That’s the way it was now that my title was Director of Operations. Some people were suspicious of me now.
Chapter 24 – Team Joker
The rooms were furnished with standard generic hotel furniture. The solitary bed had no linens. Joker inspected it. It looked dusty and decided it’d be better if he turned it over. The bottom side did not appear to have any ungodly stains on it, so he stretched out and made himself comfortable. He remained dressed, his weapons lying beside him.
As was often the case when he was on mission, he had to will his body to relax and force himself to sleep. The sounds of the nocturnal birds certainly helped, and within a minute his whole body jerked, giving up that last bit of tension all at once and he was soon asleep.
For some reason, he started dreaming of ducks. He was feeding some ducks with pieces of bread. He wasn’t sure, maybe on a riverbank or in a park, but at some point, it changed to where he was crouched down in the middle of a road. It started with a momma duck and her baby ducklings. He heard other ducks coming. He looked up to see hundreds of them coming down the road. Their webbed feet were making thumping noises and several of them were either wheezing or snarling. He looked back down, and the pieces of bread had changed to bloody fingers.
Joker sat up suddenly and looked around. His brain came to life and reminded him he was in an abandoned hotel off exit 19. He rubbed his eyes and reached for his water bottle but stopped before taking a drink. Those sounds he thought he was dreaming about were not a dream.
He silently rose from the bed and made his way to the window. The light of the full moon enabled him to readily see several dozen zeds ambling down the road toward them.
The Fitzgerald men were in an adjoining room. One of them was snoring. The other was supposed to be on watch. He walked through the open door and saw the silhouette of Little Joe sitting in front of the open window. Joker walked up beside him.
“I was just about to wake you,” he whispered. “They came from nowhere, dude. It’s almost like they know we’re here. I mean, they probably heard us driving by earlier, but how did they find our ride?”
Joker did not answer. It was true. Zeds were attracted to noise. Once they heard something, they were drawn toward it and kept going in that direction unless something else attracted them. But they’d been parked for more than a few hours and they had made little noise. So, it begged the question—how did the zeds find their SUV? None of them were swarming the hotel yet, so they did not know of Team Joker’s presence. At least, not yet, but how long before they figured it out? As he watched, two of them climbed onto the trailer they were pulling.
“Wake your father,” Joker directed.
Little Joe did so by walking over to the bed and tapping his father’s foot. Trader Joe came awake instantly. His son whispered to him for a few seconds. Trader Joe quietly put his boots on and joined Joker at the window. The horde had reached the Cracker Barrel restaurant now. They’d stopped and seemed to be looking around. Joker could have sworn a dozen of them raised their noses and began sniffing. Little Joe saw it as well.
“Are they actually able to smell us?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” Joker replied. “Maybe they can smell the diesel fumes, and that’s how they found the car.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Little Joe said. “Still, that’s a damn good sense of smell. I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Joker muttered.
As they watched, the zeds seemed to come to a group decision. Several of them suddenly split from the crowd gathered around the SUV and began shuffling toward the hotel. The three men traded concerned glances.
“What do we do now?” Little Joe whispered.
Joker grunted. It was a good question. They could make a run for it and abandon the SUV, at least for the time being, or, they could wait it out. He was about to tell them to make a run for it when Little Joe gasped and pointed. Another group of zeds emerged from the opposite side. It effectively cut them off from the interstate.
“There must be a hundred of them now,” Little Joe whispered. “What the hell are we going to do about this?”
/>
What indeed, Joker thought.
“The Cranstons live about a quarter-mile from here. There’s no way they’re still alive with a horde this size so close,” Trader Joe surmised and shook his head in sadness.
Chapter 25 – Team Flash
“I’m seeing differences,” Erin remarked.
The team had arrived in Richmond after three hours of travel time and had spent the next two days using the maps provided to them by Zach to scavenge in areas of the city that had not yet been searched by any Mount Weather team. One of the things thought up by Zach was the placement of shipping containers in prominent locations. That way, a scavenging team was able to drop off anything they could not transport back to Mount Weather. Later, they’d send a semi or a bus out to pick it all up.
At the end of the second day, they had cleared an entire grid section, which was impressive, considering that specific grid had over two hundred houses. They’d found numerous kitchen items, bedding, clothing, shoes, a half-dozen home first-aid kits, a couple of hunting rifles, various types of tools, a garage full of mechanic’s tools, and a Ford F-650 truck with a flat-bed gooseneck trailer loaded with well-digging equipment. The truck’s location was noted, and they stored the rest of the loot in one of the shipping containers. They had encountered only a few zeds, easily killed them, and settled down for the night in an abandoned house.
They rolled out early the next morning and were now stopped on I-64 near Chesapeake.
“What differences?” Flash asked.
She pointed. “See that Cadillac? My uncle had one just like it, that’s why I remember it. It didn’t have its windows broken out the last time I saw it.”
“Are you sure?” Sully asked.
“I’m certain,” she replied.
Sully drove the SUV closer and stopped beside the Cadi, a black XLR convertible. There was nothing notable about it, aside from the smashed front windshield and indecipherable lettering scratched into the paint with a sharp object.
“I suppose it could be an indicator that somebody’s been around here, but it’s hard to tell how old the damage is,” he said, frowned, and slowly shook his head in disgust. “I don’t get it though. We are literally living through an apocalypse and one would think that it’d be better not to destroy anything unless you had to, but nooooo, we have idiots everywhere that randomly destroy shit just for funsies.” He waved a hand around. “I mean, what kind of asshole…” He suddenly stopped talking and stared down the road.
“What?” Flash asked. Sully responded by pointing in the direction he was staring. Flash and Erin followed his finger and saw what appeared to be a person flopping around in the road, struggling to stand.
“Is it a zed?” Erin asked.
“Could be,” Sully said. “It looks like someone’s wrapped it up in duct tape. That’s weird.”
Flash and Erin agreed.
“Drive a little closer,” Flash said. “Watch out though, it might be a trap. Be ready to speed off.”
Sully eased his foot off the brake and proceeded slowly down the littered interstate. He stopped when they were twenty feet away. They were now on the bridge going across the Chesapeake Bay. There was nothing else around, but they were in the open. A good sniper could be on either side of the bridge, ready to take them out. Flash and Erin exchanged a look. Flash’s response was a shrug.
“I’ll wait here in case we need to get out of here in a hurry,” Sully said.
Flash nodded. He and Erin exited the SUV and slowly approached. The person was completely wrapped from the waist up in duct tape. Their feet were bare and scraped up. Their clothing, what they could see, was grimy and torn.
“Holy shit,” Flash muttered.
At the sound of his voice, whoever it was stopped struggling and froze. Flash squatted down beside it and inspected it closer.
“Is it a zed?” Erin asked.
“Not sure,” Flash answered, and then saw there was a gap in the tape at the person’s nostrils. He held his hand close to the nostrils and felt warm air.
“Whatever it is, it’s still breathing,” he said.
“What are we going to do?” Erin whispered.
“The eyes,” Sully said. “Cut the tape off its eyes. The eyes will tell you if it’s a zed.”
Flash nodded. Good thinking. He took a lock blade knife out of his pocket and began carefully cutting the tape. Soon he had one eye uncovered. It was bruised and swollen. He glanced at Erin a second before using a finger to lift an eyelid. Peering closer, he stared a long moment before straightening.
“It has brown eyes,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Erin asked.
She squatted down and conducted her own inspection. She then ripped a strip of tape off the other eye, which caused the person to emit a weak moan. Erin frowned a moment, and then took Flash’s knife. She slowly began cutting the tape away from the person’s face. When she was finished, a frightened woman stared up at them. Her face was bruised, cut, and swollen. It also looked like her nose had been broken.
“It’s a woman,” she said and gestured at numerous bruises and cuts on her face. “Looks like she’s had the hell beat out of her.”
“No shit,” Sully replied.
“Yeah,” Flash said and lowered his face close to hers. “Lady, can you hear me?”
The woman stared at Flash and breathed heavily, but she did not verbally respond. Flash motioned for Erin to give his knife back to him. When the woman saw this, her breathing intensified and she tried to wiggle away from Flash. Flash held up a hand.
“It’s alright. I’m only going to cut some of this tape and free you up,” he said.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Erin asked.
Flash paused and frowned. “You think we should leave her taped up and unable to defend herself? It wouldn’t be right.”
“We don’t know anything about her,” she rejoined.
Flash gently but firmly held the woman by the shoulder and waited until she made eye contact with him.
“I’m not going to hurt you, but you have to be still, alright?”
He waited until she gave a nervous nod. It took him several minutes, as there was a lot of tape wrapped around her, and occasionally she winced in pain while Flash worked. When her arms were free, she touched her face tenderly. One of her eyes was almost swollen shut and the movements had caused her nose to start bleeding again. Flash folded the knife and put it back in his pocket.
“There,” Flash said. “I got most of it. You still got tape in your hair, but I’ll let you pull it out.”
“Thanks,” she croaked.
“You sound like you’re thirsty,” Flash said. He stood, retrieved a water bottle from their vehicle, and handed it to her. The three of them watched her take several swallows and then splash some in her face.
“Alright, she’s free. Now what?” Sully asked.
Flash gazed at his two companions a moment and then dropped back down to one knee.
“My name’s Flash. What’s yours?” he asked.
She stared in a mixture of fear and suspicion for almost thirty seconds before answering.
“Norma.”
“Hi, Norma,” Flash said and tried for a disarming smile. “This is Erin and the guy sitting in the car is Sully.”
Norma stared at each of them but said nothing. This earned a scoff from Sully.
“The girl’s messed up in the head. C’mon, let’s get going,” he said.
“I’m not messed up in the head,” Norma said, coughed, and took another swallow of water. “Who are you people?”
“We’re from a place not far from here called Mount Weather,” Flash said. “We’re in the area looking for survivors and what not. What about you?”
She shrugged and began trying to pull off the remaining remnants of tape.
“He asked you a question,” Erin said. “Where are you from and how did you end up like this?”
“I don’t know,” Norma replied.
“Bullshit,” Sully retorted.
“Easy now,” Flash said and offered Norma another reassuring smile.
“You’ve gotta admit, if you were driving along and came across someone beaten and taped up, you’d find it a little strange too, right?” he asked.
Norma responded with another shrug. Erin was growing impatient. She dropped down to one knee beside Flash.
“Are you going to tell us what happened to you or not?” she asked.
“I was attacked, but I don’t remember much about it,” Norma said.
“Yeah, right,” Erin said.
“Easy, guys,” Flash said.
Erin scoffed. “She’s being evasive. That doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Me neither,” Sully added.
“She had the hell beat out of her and then wrapped up like a mummy. It had to be pretty traumatic,” Flash said.
“Alright, fine, she’s traumatized. We’ve saved her, now she can go her own way, right?” Sully said.
Flash held up a finger to Sully, who scowled, but at least held his tongue. Flash reached into the cargo pocket of his pants and came up with some food wrapped in a bandanna. He held it out to Norma. “I’ve got a homemade granola bar here. Are you hungry?”
Norma stared for maybe half a second before snatching it out of his hand.
“Enjoy it. Excuse us a moment,” he said and then gave a head nod to Erin. She followed him to the passenger side of the SUV and opened the door. The three of them huddled.
“Why are you in a hurry to get rid of her?” Flash asked in a whisper.
Sully stared back at Norma, who seemed to realize she was missing one or two teeth and was probing her mouth with a finger. Sensing they were looking at her, she stopped and stared back.
“I don’t know, man, but I have a bad feeling about her,” he whispered. “Like Erin said, she was being evasive to your questions. Something’s not right.”
Zombie Rules (Book 7): The Fifteens Page 15