Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

  “Reggie, boy. Hey, buddy, can you wake up?” Frank shook Reggie until his eyes opened.

  “What are we doing? Are we here?” Reggie asked.

  “We’re here. We need to walk the rest of the way, okay? Can you get up for me?”

  Reggie nodded and Frank put his son’s hand in mine. I pulled and Frank guided him from behind and together we got Reggie out of the car and on his feet. I offered a hand to Frank and pulled him out of the car, too.

  “Is that it?” Reggie asked. He pointed at the gate.

  “That’s it,” Frank said. He nodded at me. “Let’s go.”

  The four of us started walking slowly toward the gate. My heart was beating twice as fast as my feet were moving. I tried to remain calm and keep my emotions in check, but coming from our last experience at District 7-1, I already knew the worst was possible. Reggie was calm. He didn’t look scared. I don’t think he understood how horrible things could get. I’m sure in his head he thought the people ahead were friends. No matter what, they were good guys.

  Frank was nervous. He kept his hand near Reggie’s shoulder ready to jump away and protect his son. No matter what, he was going to protect his son. Zach wasn’t scared. That machine confidence and steadiness was plastered on his face once again. He was prepared for anything. This situation we were walking into probably could go bad in any of a hundred ways, and Zach would be prepared for all of them.

  “Here we go,” I whispered to them. I put my hands in the air. “Excuse me! Excuse me! We come in peace!”

  “We come in peace?” Zach broke his stoic expression.

  “Shut up. I don’t know what to say,” I said.

  “We aren’t aliens,” he said.

  “Would you both shut up,” Frank said quietly.

  “My name is Kurt Elkins!”

  “Stop right there!” said one of the guards. He stepped around the barricade and held an awfully big automatic weapon. He didn’t point it at us, but he didn’t have to. We already understood he was serious. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “Okay. You got it.” I stopped. The others did, too. “Like I said, my name is Kurt Elkins. I was on the bus that got here two nights ago. The that was attacked.” I didn’t want to sound accusatory even though they were the ones that attacked it.

  “I don’t remember you,” said the guard.

  “I know. I don’t remember seeing you either, but it is true. I was the one driving the bus. We were here yesterday.”

  “Where’d you go? Why did you leave?”

  Zach scoffed. “Stop,” I said to him. “We left after the attack. We were split up and we escaped the border. We didn’t mean your people or your community any harm. You attacked us and…I just want to know if my people are still here.”

  “How many people were on the bus?” he asked.

  “What?” I heard him, but what was his reason for questioning?

  “How many people were on your bus? You said you were driving the bus, but I do not remember you. How many people were on the bus?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me, man?” Zach blurted.

  “Zach, stop,” I said.

  “You think we are just random people who just happened to guess a bus rolled up here and that you shot it up and killed some of us?”

  “I’m not talking to you, son,” the guard said.

  “Zach,” I urged him to stop.

  “You are talking to me now,” Zach said.

  The other guards at the barricade came out. There were two others. Three in total. The other two had their automatic weapons as well. If things got out of control, they’d be able to kill us and fire off another couple hundred rounds before I was able to get my gun out.

  “Shut the fuck up, Zach,” I said. I turned to the guard with a quick step. They didn’t like that. I put my hands back up in the air. “Haylea, Jack, Heather, Emily, Scott, Nick, Dan. Those are their names. Those people were on the bus. Call it in and ask. I just want to know if they are still here.”

  The guard looked back to his partners and then back toward us. He took a step closer to me and from the looks of it, he tightened his grip on the gun. I swallowed and was shaking where I stood, but I held my ground and waited.

  “Your people are still here,” he said calmly. “I can bring you to them, but before I let you on the premises, I need to take your weapons.”

  “What?” Zach asked.

  “Your weapons. Are you armed?” The man in charge waved the other two soldiers to come closer to us. I saw Zach widen his stance. He took this as a bad thing, but they were just doing their job.

  “We are armed. The three of us are. We each have a gun.” I reached behind me. “I’m going to show you mine.” I took it out and held it up with two fingers.

  The guard waved each of the men over to us.

  “I’m going to ask that you give the guns to my men. I can’t let you on the property with weapons.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Zach asked. “The last time we did that, things did not go very well. Kurt, we aren’t doing this.”

  “My wife is here, Zach. Kylie is here. So, shut up and if they want your gun, give them the God damn gun.”

  Frank took his out slowly and handed it over to the guard. I handed mine over. Zach didn’t move.

  “We don’t even know if they’re here, Kurt,” Zach said.

  Was he right? I didn’t object to what he was saying. He was right after all. We didn’t have any official, concrete proof that they were still here.

  “Sir,” the guard said to Zach. “Your weapon, please.”

  “Wait,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “Call them. Call them and let me hear one of their voices and hear it straight from one of my people that they are safe and that everyone is alive and accounted for.”

  I nodded at Zach and he returned the nod. It was enough for him and it was enough for me. He was right. If we gave up our guns and Haylea and the rest of the group were already dead, we would be joining them soon. Now there was at least a little bit of leverage and something good going for us.

  “Give me one minute. I’ll see what I can do.” The main guard in charge walked back to the barricade and to the boxed phone that was attached to the gate.

  We stood back with the other two guards in an awkward silence. I looked at them and they were both roughly my age. Perhaps a couple of years older. It was hard to tell anymore who fell between what age gaps. I looked at Frank and then down at Reggie. I smiled at him and put my hand on the back of his shoulder.

  “Any weekend plans?” one guard asked the other.

  “I might see a movie.”

  “Oh, nice. With Becky? How’s that going?”

  “Yeah. We’re working things out, ya know? How about you?”

  “Are you two fucking kidding me right now?” Zach looked at them stupefied.

  I ignored what was going on in front of me and watched the other guy continue his phone call. What he was saying was just barely audible from where we stood, but it sounded like everything was going according to plan.

  Then he turned around. We couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. We couldn’t see the expression on his face. We couldn’t read his lips. He had turned his back to us and lowered his voice and could have been talking to anyone and saying anything.

  “Zach,” I said. I could see the look on his face. While I had a quick thought they were going to betray us, he’d just manifested an entire scenario in his mind. “Zach. Do not.”

  It was of no use. Zach reached out as quick as a gunshot and chopped the guard in the back of the neck. At the same time, he was able to pull the guard’s handgun out of his holster and shoot the guard in front of me in the leg.

  He fell down and cupped the wound and screamed. Zach kicked the back of the kneecap of the guard in front of him and dropped him to his knees. He reached out and pulled the gun off of the guard who was shot and within five seconds had pulled a Liam Neeson and had both guards lying in front of us unarmed.


  “Woah! Hey!” The other guard dropped the phone and pulled his gun on us. “What do you think you’re doing?” He moved toward us.

  “Put your gun down!” Zach yelled. “Put your gun down or I swear to go I will kill both of them.”

  “Zach! Stop!” I yelled.

  I moved back and Frank swooped Reggie up into his arms and moved back toward our car.

  “We had a deal,” the guard said.

  “Yeah, and who were you just talking to? You’re trying to fuck us!”

  “Boy, you’ve lost your damn mind. This was your plan. This was your idea.”

  “New plan,” Zach said. “I shoot you three and then we go check that our friends and family are alive. That way you don’t ambush us and get to kill any more of us.”

  “I wasn’t planning an ambush, son.”

  “Shut up!” Zach yelled.

  “Zach, stop. We are not doing this right now.”

  “Put your gun down!” Zach yelled again.

  The guard listened and lowered his automatic weapon slowly to the ground. He released his hold on it and spread his fingers wide as his arms moved to the sky.

  “That is enough. Stop,” I begged Zach.

  “Kurt, open your eyes! These people are not who they say they are. They fucked us over once and they’re doing it again right now. I’m not letting it happen! Just let me do what needs to be done.”

  “Zach,” I said calmly. “Zach, okay. We’ll do it your way”

  I walked over and grabbed the assault rifle the guard had dropped. I waved Frank over and handed him the gun. I picked up the other two rifles and strapped one around my shoulder. The third one I reached out to hand to Zach.

  “What’s the call?” I asked him.

  He hesitated for a second, but then relaxed and took the rifle. He should have hesitated longer.

  As soon as his guard was down and my hand was free, I reached back and punched him in the face. He fell off balance and I grabbed the rifle back from him. I tossed it to the side and pointed my rifle at him.

  “Stop. Don’t move.” I held my aim on him. He stood up slowly and shook his head. “We are not doing this. We are going to trust these people. They are going to take me to Haylea, you to Kylie, and we are going to meet up with the rest of our group.”

  “They’re going to kill us. You’re killing us right now,” Zach said.

  “No, I’m not. Nobody is dying. We don’t kill anyone, Zach.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  I lowered my gun. It was probably stupid, but I didn’t think Zach would shoot me. I rubbed my head and looked at the three guards. One had a bullet in his leg, the other rubbed his sore neck, and the one in charge stood off to the side with his arms in the air.

  “I don’t know, man. I hope I’m not. I just…I don’t want to kill anyone anymore, Zach. We don’t have to keep doing this to people that don’t deserve to die. I just want to find my fiancé and I know you just want to find your niece. After what we just saw. What those fucking people did to Bryce. I’m not doing that anymore.”

  “Just,” I continued calmly, “just, come on, man. Trust me. For once in our fucked up, strained relationship just trust that I am doing the right thing and that it is going to work out. We don’t have to kill anyone. No more killing.”

  A few seconds passed by, but it felt like a hell of a lot longer than that. Zach nodded. He put his gun into the back of his pants and agreed that I was right. For one time, he agreed with me. And it was probably at the most crucial time where I needed him to.

  “Look out,” Frank said.

  The guard in charge had a handgun hidden on his uniform. He pulled it out and was looking to drop us right there. I managed to fire off several bullets of the assault rifle. I wasn’t aiming at anyone, I just wanted to fire them off and scare the guards. The two guards on the ground covered themselves and the man in charge dove off the side of the road and fell down a hill to protect himself.

  “Time to go,” I said to them.

  I waved Frank over and he once again scooped Reggie up and the four of us darted off the road as fast as we could. We ran by the barricade and off into the woods hoping we were going in the right direction.

  I could hear a couple of gunshots from behind us, but they stopped after just two. The guards weren’t chasing us and they weren’t firing at us either, but it was too late. We were on the run once again in a community that was protected by its own army.

  After a short minute of our run into town, an alarm went off. It sounded like a tornado siren. It was loud enough for anyone in the next town to hear. It surely would attract a few stragglers, but they didn’t care. They had an army that could take care of those stragglers. They also weren’t afraid of no damn tornado.

  The siren was for us.

  21

  Emily Clark

  I headed across the street back to my house. I wanted to check to see if Elyse was home, yet. I also needed to give Jack some free time on his own. I told him to exercise or do something that would release some stress and frustration. He, of course, made some valuable claims about this place, but we were going to have to ride it out to see what it really was. We needed to do that together.

  Kylie was still sitting on the couch watching Dawson’s Creek. I said hello to her just like I had before, and just like before she’d barely made any effort in responding. I wanted to ignore it and to concentrate on my own daughter and my own issues, but that is the thing about being a mom; you can’t turn it on and off.

  I walked around the furniture and sat down making sure to leave some space between us. I leaned forward and picked up the box and read the back of it. My goodness, she was already on season three. She hadn’t moved in hours.

  “You’ve watched three seasons of this in two days?” I asked.

  “I started at the beginning of season three. I’d already seen the first two seasons.”

  “Oh, okay. Did you have this back at your home?”

  “My mom had them. She used to be obsessed with this show, at least that I what my dad told me.”

  “I can’t say I ever watched them before. I wasn’t much for TV, though. I was a bit of a nerd.” I put the box down and sunk into the cushion.

  “She was probably around your age,” Kylie said.

  “Oh, really? So, you’re saying she was really youthful and beautiful? She wasn’t an old lady,” I joked. My joke was not received. “I’m sorry for asking, Kylie, I just want to get to know you a little better since we’re going to be living here together, but if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

  “No, it’s okay. What would you like to know?”

  “Your mom. Was she…” I didn’t know how to ask about her mother. This was a vulnerable teenage girl and the wrong wording would drive her away.

  “She died before the outbreak. Right after I was born, she was in a car accident. I don’t remember anything about her.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s never easy,” I said.

  “It’s okay. Whenever my friends’ parents would get divorced or when one of them would die, I would just always think it really is easier to have never loved at all than to have loved and lost. Isn’t that the saying?”

  “Something like that,” I responded.

  “Yeah, well that’s how I felt. I didn’t know my mom. Sure, I love her, but I love more of the idea of a mom than my mom. It’s hard to love someone you don’t know.”

  “Your dad never remarried?” I asked openly.

  “No, he never did. He spent so much time worrying about his career and taking care of me. He had girlfriends, but I don’t think he was in the market for anything serious ever again.”

  “Sounds like he loved your mom very much,” I said.

  “Or loved the single life too much to ever give it up again,” she said. It was sad to hear such calloused feelings come from such a young girl.

  “Kylie, I know we just met and this is the weirdest, quite possibly worst situati
on anyone could ever be in, but if you ever need anything, you can come to me. I would never try to replace your mother, but if you need me,” I stopped.

  “Can’t replace something you’ve never had.”

  “Right,” I said. Again, so sad. “You know what I mean. Anything you need. Do not hesitate to come to me. I’m a pretty good mom.”

  “I’m sure you are. Thank you. I don’t mean to be so cold, I’m just trying to…you know?”

  “Right.” I didn’t know what she meant, but I left it at that and headed back to the kitchen.

  I so badly wanted to be a good mother to Elyse and to help her and guide her through the beginnings of adulthood and through this hell of a world as best I could, but I couldn’t. And now my motherly instinct was kicking in and all I wanted to do was accept Kylie into my family and be a mother to her as well.

  So, essentially, I had two daughters and neither one of them wanted to talk to me.

  Jack walked in without knocking and before I saw it was him, I hoped it was Elyse. He saw the look of hope in my eyes and asked me about it.

  “I thought you were Elyse,” I answered.

  “No, sorry. She still hasn’t come back, yet?” he asked.

  I shook my head and tried not to get too upset about it. I looked him up and down. He didn’t look out of breath or sweaty or anything that someone that had just worked out could look like.

  “I thought you were going to work out,” I said.

  “I thought I’d try something else,” he said. “Found a good book and read for a little.”

  “Anything good?” I asked.

  “Flowers for Algernon.”

  “Really? That’s what you were reading?”

  “What? It is a classic,” he said to me. He looked back at Kylie and lowered his voice. “She doing okay?”

  “I think so,” I said. I nodded, too as if the words weren’t enough. I could tell he didn’t believe the words or the nod.

  He reached out and put his hand on the small of my back. He guided me out of the kitchen and into the other room.