Dead Last, Vol. 3

by Quaranta, Marc

  I made it to Frank’s place in one piece. I didn’t pass out, I didn’t get bitten, or shot. I walked through the front door slowly. Their house was in pretty good condition. Nobody shot out the windows or had any altercations on the inside. Everything was still clean. There were some empty beer bottles on the porch. That could have only been Jack.

  Frank and Reggie were sitting peacefully on the couch. Peacefully may not be the right word. They looked scared. They looked like they couldn’t move or that they were in some sort of trouble.

  I walked into the living room to see why that was.

  Zach, of all people, was sitting there with a gun pointed at the two of them. I couldn’t believe it. It shouldn’t have surprised me though. I knew about the horrible things he’d done in the past, and watching him break Kendrick out of jail was the final straw. Nothing should have surprised me anymore about Zach. But still, I was a bit surprised to see that he would even be holding a kid at gunpoint.

  “Hey, Kurt.” He looked at me and kept the gun on the other two. He nodded his head to come into the room. “I just knew that if I wanted to see you again that I should come straight here. Put the guns down or I’m going to shoot the kid.”

  I believed him now. I set the rifle on the coffee table and pulled the gun from my back and set it down right next to the other.

  “Yeah, good guess. What are you doing?”

  “Sit down. Let’s talk.”

  “Zach.”

  “Sit down, Kurt.” I didn’t reject his offer. “Remember my little story about what happened back on the farm? With my family?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t true?”

  “Fuck, I wish it wasn’t. No, it was all true. Every detail of that story. See, Frank, I had to kill my entire family. Picked them all off as they stood in the living room.”

  Frank held on tightly to Reggie.

  “I think that was the moment where I just lost touch with everything. I tried so hard to care. About everything, but…After you live through something like that, hell, after you do something like that, it’s hard to find that inside of you again.”

  “In my head, I always referred to you as this machine. You just kept going.”

  “Thank you. Yes,” Zach interrupted.

  “Monster is more like it.” That took the smile away.

  “Monster,” he repeated. “Man, what happened to Bryce was awful, wasn’t it? To see that poor kid suffer like that. Honestly? Didn’t bother me. Kid was no good for my Kylie. So, no that didn’t bother me. But I did have a soft spot for Kylie. I did…did. Since we got back, you know how many times I’ve seen her? Two. Family just isn’t a thing anymore, I guess.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, Kurt, it isn’t.”

  “Yes, Zach, it is. And you’re messing with my family.”

  “Oh, Kurt, I didn’t know any of this was going to happen. I came here thinking I’d love it. A chance to start over and maybe reclaim some of those lost pieces inside of me. I was a cop. I was a real fucking cop and what work does Glen put me on? Bring lunch to Kendrick. Sure, I was security as he called it, but every day. I brought the inmate lunch.”

  “I thought it suited you quite nicely.”

  “Kurt, that’s not nice,” Zach said. “Anyway, I started sitting with Kendrick. Thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. I started talking to him. I wanted to find out why he did what he did. That’s a smart guy. Did you know Glen was the one responsible for all of this? All of it?”

  I looked at Frank. Frank didn’t know, but I did. I nodded.

  “All of it, Frank,” Zach said. “Not just building this place, but thousands more just like it. This fucker brought on the God damn plague. And we’re walking around treating him like the President. No! That man does not deserve that power. He doesn’t deserve our respect. And Kendrick knew that. But nobody would listen. Nobody would pardon Glen or fire him or whatever it’s called. And Glen wouldn’t step down. So, we fixed it.”

  “You think what you did is fixing it?”

  “Absolutely. What do you do with a world that shouldn’t have been built in the first place? You burn it down. Destroy it. So, we did. That man ruined our world. So, we ruined his.”

  “And hurt and killed a lot of innocent people in the process.”

  “Just like he did.” Zach looked over to Reggie. He smiled at him and Frank turned Reggie’s head away. Zach didn’t seem to appreciate that. “I guess, Glen and I are the same type of monster, huh, Kurt?”

  “No. Glen tried. He was careless and stupid, but thoughtful. He was trying to help. You and Kendrick, you’re the monsters. I’ve seen a lot of horrible shit since the outbreak. I’ve seen rape, murder, the dead come back to life, people torn limb from limb. I’ve seen so much. You’re the worst fucking thing of it all.”

  “Kurt,” Zach said. “That’s not nice.”

  The gun sounded and I felt the puncture of something horrible in my chest. It was different from the first time I’d been shot in the chest. My head slowly dropped back and I rolled off the chair and fell to the ground.

  My vision was blurry and I needed that spirometer thing more than ever. I couldn’t catch my breath. I tried to slow my breathing, and it actually cleared my vision too. My head was ringing and the pounding was worse than a migraine.

  Zach walked over to me and looked down. There was no blood coming from me. He pulled up my shirt and looked at the vest that I had put on underneath. He nodded.

  “That’s clever. Oh, well. I guess I need to use two shots.”

  He stood up and the muzzle of the gun moved above my face. It was centered between my eyes and was going to splatter my brains onto the floor.

  Kylie jumped from around the hall and stabbed him in the back of the neck. Zach screamed and dropped to a knee. Blood dripped from his neck. I reached out and grabbed the gun from his hand. He tried to stop me from taking it, but I kicked him in the stomach and then pushed him back with all the strength my leg could force.

  He fell back and looked at me. I wasn’t in the talking mood or the forgiving mood anymore. I pulled the trigger once, twice, three times and watched his life end in an instant when all three shots penetrated his skull.

  Frank swooped Reggie up and they came over to my side.

  “Are you okay, Kurt?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. I coughed and tried to regain my breath now that there was a free moment.

  “I can’t believe you came back,” Kylie said.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked her.

  “She’s been babysitting Reggie most nights. She was here when the explosions started going off.”

  “Thank God.” I reached out and held Kylie’s hand. I squeezed it and owed her my life now. “Are you okay?”

  She was looking down at Zach. “I’m okay,” she said. “He stopped being my uncle a long time ago.

  I hugged her tightly and then the four of us readied to head back to Glen’s. I handed Frank one of the handguns, gave the other to Kylie, and then made sure the rifle was loaded and ready to fire.

  We left the house and I started going through rounds. The stragglers were everywhere. I was firing off every bullet I had to clear a path for us to get through. Luckily, I had the bag of ammo with me. I reloaded and kept on firing.

  We managed to make it to Glen’s place without any problems. Frank never had to shoot. He carried Reggie with his hand over his boy’s eyes the whole time. Kylie fired off a couple of rounds, but the path I cleared was good enough to sprint through.

  We were on the steps when I saw Kendrick leaving a house and piling into a jeep. They drove away. I knew the direction they were going was only leading to one thing; a way out of District 7-1. He was leaving. He’d burned the place down just like he wanted and wasn’t sticking around to watch.

  As the jeep drove by, I saw Scott walking hopelessly around. He dropped onto a bench and stared at all the destruction around her.

  “Scott!” I yelled. “Scott!
Come on!”

  He looked up at me but didn’t show any initiative that he was going to run to us. He shook his head. He just shook his head. From behind him, I recognized another face. A face that Scott was familiar with.

  Elyse was walking up from behind him. She was holding a knife. She raised her hand and slowly, although I was far away I could see how slowly, pushed the knife into his neck. Scott fidgeted a little, but he didn’t react like somebody that had just been stabbed.

  She pulled the knife out of his neck and that’s when he finally reacted. He reached up and covered the wound. Blood poured over his hand, between his fingers, and down his neck, shoulder, and back.

  He stood up, but Elyse kicked him from behind and pushed him down to the ground. She watched as stragglers came up quickly onto Scott and dropped down to him on the ground. He couldn’t have been alive for longer than another ten seconds. They tore his body apart and bit into him as if his skin, muscle, and bones were thin as a Lays potato chip.

  Elyse touched the blood on the knife. Scott’s blood. She looked at it drip down her finger and then turned the knife on herself. She plunged it into her chest, but it didn’t kill her instantly. Instead, she, too, was pulled down by stragglers coming up from behind her. They ate on her. First, there were two, and then a few more came over. I could hear her scream from the bottom of the pile. Until the scream wasn’t there anymore

  “Holy shit,” I said to myself.

  “Come on, Kurt.” Frank grabbed me from behind and we all ran into the house. We sprinted down the stairs and banged on the vault door.

  When it opened, Haylea was on the other side and I jumped into her arms. I wanted to believe that she was going to be okay, but the truth is whenever I separated from somebody, I never knew if I was going to see them again. We had to go into every situation knowing it was a fifty-fifty chance. But here she was.

  Glen was already back, too. He sat off to the side with his head down. Heather rubbed his back and spoke to him softly. She looked up at me and shook her head. Glen didn’t come back with anybody.

  I stepped back and looked into Haylea’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  My eyes were closed tightly as I pressed her back in for a hug. When I opened them, there was another man I wasn’t sure I’d see. Jack stood at the far end of the armory leaning back on the wall. He saw me, but there was no smile. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him smile again.

  I walked up to him and looked him up and down to make sure he was okay. He reached out his hand to me slowly. I took it in mine and we stayed there for a second. But I’d already said it many times, we were family. That wasn’t how I was going to greet family anymore. I pulled Jack closer and hugged him like a brother I was glad to see.

  46

  Jack Scoville

  L oss never gets easier. No matter the circumstance or situation. Losing somebody can tear you apart on the inside. It can be slow and methodical making you think each next day will be better than the last only to know that it actually is getting worse. It can be quick and painful. Squeezing at your heart and lungs so that every breath is a struggle but still secretly hoping that there won’t be another breath to bear.

  Emily quickly became the reason I was still breathing. Survival was important to me, but I was learning that surviving was only important so that I could spend it with the people around me. Haylea was becoming a good friend, a person I cared for. Elyse, before everything, was like a niece or a daughter. Kurt was the brother-in-law that I tolerated, but would never truly care for because he wasn’t good enough for my sister. Frank and Reggie were neighbors that I would know for thirty years and would watch Reggie grow up to take care of his father.

  Emily was the love of my life. She was the one I was going to spend every minute of my life with. We were going to have not so wild nights of playing games and drinking wine until my head cracked open. We were going to invite Haylea and Kurt over to play Charades or Trivial Pursuit. She was going to be the person I cooked for, took care of when she was sick, and loved every morning and every night.

  That girl that was becoming like a daughter took her away from me. I couldn’t even think about the circumstances that lay before me. Scott doing what he did to Elyse, Elyse doing what she did to me and telling Scott to kill me, and then Elyse finally snapping and shooting the love of my life. Killing her in front of my eyes and showing no remorse for it at all.

  Was that going to be the moment that finally destroyed me? I’d fought for so long to survive, first for me and then for her. Could I really go back to trying to survive for myself? If there is nobody else to fight for, what’s the point in fighting? Why should I prolong my life just to spend it alone?

  I looked around the small master-closet sized room at the people that were left. Haylea and Kurt I was going to fight for. There probably wasn’t a single person closer to me now than those two were. Frank and Reggie were there. Reggie was just a kid, he didn’t deserve any of this. He deserved a good life. Frank was a great father, and I respected him for forgiving me for what I did to his brother. Frank was good.

  The others I didn’t have the same connection, too, but they were a part of this family. Heather had never been somebody I was a big supporter of. She whined too much, she annoyed too many, and she helped out not enough. But she was one of us. Glen caused everything that went wrong. He fucked up. But I also know that he worked hard to try and put things back together. He didn’t mean to destroy the world. Another case of a smart guy trying too hard.

  Ryan and Kylie were the last two. Kylie was Elyse’s age and Ryan was a few years older. They both had a lot of life left. They were a part of the future. I had no idea what that future was going to look like, but they were going to have to be a part of the reason why there was a future.

  The vault kept things quiet, but we could hear some of the destruction from the outside. We could hear gunshots.

  “What do we do?” Heather asked.

  Those of us that usually made the tough decisions could only look at each other. In the past, one of us always had a first instinct of what to do. Somebody always had a plan and spoke up quickly. Nobody spoke here. We stared at each other. Then we’d move on to the next person in line and stare at them.

  “Guys? What do we do?” Heather asked again.

  “This vault is indestructible. We’ll be okay in here?” Glen said.

  I fell to the floor and rubbed my face. This was the first time I really was aware of how disgusting my hands were. I knew whose blood was on my hands, but I couldn’t believe just how much there was.

  “For how long?” Kurt questioned the group. “How long can we stay here? Those things are still going to be out there. There’s plenty to eat out there.”

  “Kurt.” Haylea was grossed out.

  “I’m sorry, but you know what I mean. There are bodies all over. And who knows what Kendrick’s plan is. They may not be far away. We could sit here for two days and when we walk out, they may be sitting in the living room waiting for us.”

  “We don’t have any food,” Ryan said. “We can’t stay here.”

  “We have to kill them,” I said. I wiped my hands on the carpet, but most of the blood was stained onto my skin.

  “Kill who?” Ryan asked.

  “The stragglers. Kendrick if he and his men are out there.”

  “You want to run around and kill off of those things?” Ryan was not on board based on his tone.

  “Yeah, I do. Fuck, man. They probably drove a thousand of those things in here. Not to mention a couple hundred more are probably on their way here because of the bombs that went off. Face it, this place is going to be overrun for a while. There’s no reason to leave.”

  “It’s a great opportunity to get them all.” Kurt spoke to the ground. He was thinking out loud. “Jack’s right. We have to do this.”

  “How?” Heather asked.

  I looked at Jack and then the two of us started looking around
the armory. There were enough weapons in that small room to kill a million stragglers.

  “It’s too dangerous, guys,” Haylea said.

  “What?” Kurt asked.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Look at this place. We could take on a small army with these weapons, but what’s the plan? Go out for an hour or so and fight them off one-by-one, then come back in, reload, and go back out? It’s too dangerous.”

  “It could work,” Kurt said.

  “No, it can’t,” I said to him. “She’s right. There’s only eight of us and Reggie. There’s too many of them to go one at a time. Based on how things go, too, I wouldn’t count on every one of us making it back.”

  “Jesus,” Heather whined.

  “Relax,” I said to her. Her hysterical behavior was not what we needed right now.

  “So, what do we do?” Glen asked us.

  I looked around the room again and started touching each gun as if they would give me inspiration for coming up with a plan. If we didn’t come up with something, it was going to be the end of us. We were either going to walk out of the vault with no idea what to do, or we were going to die inside of it because we couldn’t come up with anything.

  “The bombs,” I said. Touching the weapons actually inspired me.

  “What?” Kurt looked at the wall of guns confused.

  “The bombs that Kendrick’s guys were using to blow up the fence.”

  “Holy shit, yeah,” Kurt said. “Glen, where are they?”

  “There is a security station where all the guards clock in and change and get their equipment. In the middle of town.”

  “Any chance we can make it there?”

  “Probably, but I’d bet my life that all of the bombs were used. There’s no way they left any behind. To blow the entire fence, they would have had to use them all.”

  “Do we want to risk it?” Kurt asked me.

  “I’d feel much more comfortable going out there with a full-proof plan. We don’t have time to guess and guess wrong.” I said.