“Well, that’s not the tactic I would have used,” Clay sighed, eyeing the devastation of the candy store.
“He’s nothing but a schmuck, Clay. Let’s get him back to the hotel and wait for him to wake up there. Then we question the hell out of him.”
Daniels retreated from Moe’s Candy and began to retrace his steps, the body of the white-coated man flapping against his back.
Chapter 53
Daniels carried the unconscious man up the steps and into the hotel bar, where the other survivors awaited them, sipping languidly from their drinks. The moment Clay appeared, Alayna stirred. She knocked the rest of her drink back before slurring, “Who’s that?”
“Don’t know,” Daniels offered, dropping the man into a chair at the center of the room. “We should tie him up.”
“Tie him up?” Alayna asked. “What do you mean? Why is he unconscious?”
“It’d take too long to explain,” Daniels said gruffly. “This one’s sour. That’s all you need to know.”
Alayna searched Clay’s face, her lips parting with confusion.
“But he’s left behind, just like all of us,” Ralph mumbled. “What we should do is get him a room to sleep it off.”
“He assaulted us and tried to flee,” Clay said, reaching for several towels draped across the bar. He wrapped them around the man’s wrists, tying him to the wooden chair. “We need to talk to him before anything else.”
“Jesus,” Brandon scoffed. “What kind of loonies are you?”
Clay poured a large glass of water, sipped a bit from the top, and then tossed the rest over the unconscious man’s face. After a second, he began to sputter and cough, finding consciousness again. He blinked rapidly, assessing his surroundings.
“Who are you?” Clay asked him, his voice stern.
The man coughed again, stomping his feet on the ground, realizing he was tied. “Get me out of here!” he cried.
“Who are you?” Clay asked again, leaning toward him, his face mere inches away from the stranger’s.
“I don’t understand. I haven’t done anything wrong,” the man spat. He’d looked strong, dominant, and tall during his rush toward the candy store. But now he looked weak, like a child. “Let me go.”
“Listen here,” Clay said, his eyes flashing. “I’ve been a sheriff here for nearly fifteen years. Which means I know just about everyone here in Carterville. And guess what? I don’t know you. I don’t recognize your face.”
“What of it?” the man said.
“Tell me your name. Tell me who you are and why you ran. And then, maybe, I can consider letting you free.”
The man sighed, his eyes glancing toward the door. After a moment of brimming silence, he answered. “My name is Leland Jacobs. You don’t know me because I’ve only just moved here. For a job.”
Clay scoffed. “For a job. I’m assuming that’s selling sweets, then? Because you sure as hell don’t look like you belong in a candy store.” He assessed him, turning his eyes from his white shoes to the top of his gleaming forehead. “You’re dressed more like a scientist than anything. But we don’t keep your stock around here in Carterville.”
The man smiled, showing those bright, ominous teeth again.
“Yeah. Come to think of it, you don’t look like anyone I’ve seen around here, either,” Ralph said, coming out from around the bar. He stumbled but caught himself before falling to the ground. “And I’ve lived here my entire life.”
“Never seen him either,” Norah said, her eyebrows slanting.
“Tell us the truth, Leland,” Clay said, leaning even closer. His eyes penetrated Leland’s, causing the intensity to mount.
“Like you said, I work at Moe’s. My name is Leland Jacobs. And I’ve only just moved here,” the man said, brimming with confidence. “That’s about as much as I can tell you. Just like you, I am a simple man with simple habits.”
Clay crossed his arms over his chest and made momentary eye contact with Daniels, who made a slashing motion across his neck. It was clear this man wasn’t telling the truth. But why in the world would he be lying? Again, his gut felt stretched, giving him the sense that something was amiss. The Carterville he’d grown to know and love wouldn’t host someone like this. Leland Jacobs was surely a fraud. But how could he get to the bottom of it?
Chapter 54
Suddenly Daniels reached forward, grasping Leland’s forearm with tight fingers. The skin surrounding his grasp turned pale white and Leland’s eyes closed with pain.
“You’re going to tell us the truth now, Leland,” Daniels said coldly. “We’re done fucking around. You understand?”
Clay took a step forward. The tension in the room was palpable. “That’ll be enough, Lieutenant.”
But Daniels pressed on, ignoring Clay’s order.
“There’s . . . nothing . . . to tell,” Leland winced in pain. “I have nothing to tell you.”
These words fueled Daniels, causing him to untie the towels from the man’s wrist and lift him into the air once more. Anger made his muscles writhe. He began to stretch Leland’s arm behind his back, twisting it. Beside Clay, Norah placed her fingers over her mouth in horror.
“Jesus,” Alayna gasped. But still, Daniels stretched the arm back farther. Leland’s face drained of color. He looked moments from passing out. He began to squeal with pain, the noise echoing off the walls.
Brandon ran from the room, storming down the hallway. He slammed a door, clearly frustrated. But Ralph egged Daniels on. “We don’t have time for this. Break his arm! He’s a coward and a criminal.”
Suddenly Alayna burst forward, wrapping her hand around Daniels’s massive arm, shaking her head. “Stop, Adam,” she whispered, her voice like a lover’s. “Please.”
Daniels’s grip immediately loosened. Leland closed his mouth, halting his scream. Alayna peered at him with calm eyes. “It’s clear that he’s hiding something, but torture is not the way. Not today,” she said. “Maybe we isolate him in a room while we work some things out. We can’t be rash.” She gave both Clay and Daniels a dark look, causing Clay’s stomach to flip. His anger receded evenly. “Both of you should know that,” she said firmly.
“I’ll take him,” Clay said, stepping forward and grasping Jacobs’s arms, pulling them lightly behind his back. Something about Alayna’s words remained in his mind, spinning, causing him endless shame. Always he and Alayna had been united. Did she see him on the other side, with Daniels? He hated the prospect.
“And if there’s one, there might be more,” Daniels said, eyeing Jacobs with a sideways glance.
Clay nodded reluctantly. “Agreed,” he said, regaining his composure with every passing minute. “After Mr. Jacobs here is tucked away, let’s go back out there and see if there are any more.” Clay watched as Alayna’s expression changed ever so slightly. It wasn’t anything perceptible to the others in the group, but it was enough for him to notice.
Clay led Jacobs down the hall to the farthest room, stumbling lightly as he tried to keep the man upright. “I’m not sure what your real story is,” he said, his voice harsh, “but I don’t think you fully grasp what’s at stake here.”
“Enlighten me, then.” Jacobs said. “You’re leaving me in the dark here.”
Clay’s words came quickly. “In just a few hours, a chemical bomb will go off, with the potential to destroy us all. There’s a security perimeter set up around the entire town, and we have no way out. One of the rescued citizens took the device that was our only way of deactivating the perimeter and then disappeared. Now we’re trapped.”
“You mean we’re trapped here?” Jacobs asked, his voice rising high.
Clay loosened his grip, sensing Jacobs’s question was weighted. Did he know something? He didn’t respond, allowing silence to stretch between them. Down the hallway, Clay heard the survivors collapse at the bar, exhausted, requesting refills.
Clay and Jacobs reached the door, and Clay led them into the musty hotel room, cross
ing his thick forearms across his chest. Jacobs assessed him quietly. “How are your symptoms, anyway?” he asked coyly.
With a quick motion, Clay whisked his palm over the top of his head, feeling the coolness of his scalp through his thinning hair. “You noticed?” he whispered, incredulous. “I—I haven’t felt exactly right since—”
Jacobs nodded, keeping his eyes focused. “Of course I noticed. I’m not blind.”
Clay’s voice became hushed. He closed the door halfway, eyeing his captive with suspicion. “It was vomiting and shivers and sweating at first. But now that seems to have ceased. I’ve been losing hair like crazy, sure. And my color must not be quite right.”
Jacobs didn’t speak for a moment, tracing his eyes down Clay’s face and upper chest. When he spoke, he didn’t offer an opinion.
“Do the others know, or are you deceiving them unfairly? Jacobs asked.
Clay felt smacked. He turned his eyes toward the ground, his arms hanging loosely. Why did he suddenly feel that Jacobs was questioning him now? He was ignorant, lost, the sad leader of a troop of survivors.
“Tell me more about this device,” Jacobs said after a pause. “Listen, I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you that the device must be found. When was the last time it was seen?”
Clay shook his head. With a quick step back, he said, “That’s quid pro quo” and then flung the door shut in Jacobs’s face. He stood huffing, his eyes wide and bleary. Still, he sensed that Jacobs was still standing on the other side of the door glaring toward him, waiting for his response.
What on earth did this man know?
Chapter 55
Daniels marched down Main Street while Clay eyed the horizon. Their final inspection passed without speaking. It felt as if the town of Carterville had always been this barren—that the world he’d once inhabited had never truly existed. It was all a fantasy. Something for his mind to cling to for its own survival.
They’d scoured the final section of houses over the previous few hours, hardly discussing their next move and not mentioning the futility of it all. Without the device they felt useless, dead. Their wandering, searching for Megan and any other survivors, was an excuse to get them out of the hotel, where depression had cloaked everyone. The future felt grim.
They arrived back to the hotel and slogged through the door, Clay tapping his toe against the doorframe. Caked mud dropped on the once-fine and gleaming foyer floor. Upstairs, music boomed from the bar, a jangling tune that made Clay suspect it had been Ralph who’d chosen it. He’d lost his wife, and he was acting reckless, seeing nothing as human or real any longer.
Clay couldn’t blame him.
Daniels and Clay climbed the steps, entering the bar to find Alayna, Brandon, Norah, and Ralph leaning sloppily on barstools, each with a drink in hand. Alayna’s eyes glittered as Clay entered, happy for the familiar face.
“How’d it go out there? Did you find her?” she murmured as he passed. Her breath smelled of whiskey.
Clay allowed a stiff smile to form on his face. Morale was low, achingly so, but he needed to remain positive. “Nothing. No sign of Megan or anyone else for that matter. Probably means everyone else paid attention to the warnings. Good news, really.”
Brandon scoffed, shooting some tequila down his throat. “Or they’ve been eaten by those monsters. Just like Brittany.”
Clay and Alayna made eye contact. A small tear formed before rolling down her cheek. “Something happened,” she said. Norah placed her palm on Alayna’s back, rubbing at the tense muscles.
“What is it?” he asked. He felt his heart rise in his chest. “It wasn’t Leland, was it? I locked the door—”
Alayna shook her head. “Ralph went in to check on Dr. Miller. But he passed.”
With all the madness, Clay had nearly forgotten the sick doctor, stuck away in that sour-smelling hotel room. He pressed his lips together, understanding the dismal morale now, and almost embracing it. His chest constricted. He collapsed beside Alayna, sick with the knowledge that they’d lost another one. Then a sudden fear overtook him. “Did he—”
Alayna shook her head. “There was nothing we could do,” Alayna said. “He died in peace and was completely still when we found him.”
“We took care of it,” Ralph said, a burp erupting from between his lips. He staggered forward, his steps sloppy. “Didn’t want him polluting the rest of us, or decaying. So we wrapped him in plastic and put him downstairs. In the big freezer.”
The image of that emaciated, faded man slumped over in the freezer, waiting to be buried, chilled Clay to the bone.
“It was the only thing we could think to do,” Alayna said. “Till you got back.”
Clay nodded. He leaned forward, wrapping his fingers around the whiskey bottle, and then tilted the bottle to his lips. The liquid burned as it went down. Hunger pangs filled him, strange in the place of such sadness and desolation. As he continued to sip, fear of the unknown pulsed through him. The jangling country album finished, and deadly silence began. Norah finished her drink and hung her head sadly. Her wrinkles looked deeper, pushing her eyes far back in her skull. She’s lived a long life, Clay thought.
After several minutes of silence, Ralph smacked his palm against the counter, momentarily energetic. “Fuck it,” he scoffed. “Fuck all of this. I say we go down and cook up some of those amazing steaks we just saw in the freezer. Cook up whatever we can find in the kitchen, for tonight. Goodness knows we all need a meal. We’ve been sustaining ourselves on nothing but the drink for days, it seems.”
“Will it really matter?” Brandon said. “We’ll all die tomorrow.” His sarcasm pulled the morale down another notch.
But Norah lifted herself from the stool, wiping her fingers across her dress. “I’ll go down, take the steaks out, and get some water boiling for a side.” Her limbs creaked, but she moved swiftly, descending the steps with Ralph following lazily. Somehow this motion to feed everyone—even if it was the last thing they did—rejuvenated them. Gave them purpose. “Come on, Brandon. You’re part of us now. You’re gonna learn to cook,” Norah said as she disappeared through the doorway.
Clay shrugged languidly at Alayna, who placed a secret hand upon his knee—a reminder of the once-comfortable life they’d shared at the station. “You want to grab another drink?” she said, eyeing Daniels, who stood near the window. “Both of you?”
Daniels agreed heartily, taking quick steps toward the bar and pouring them each doubles of whiskey. “We better die soon,” he scoffed, a strange smile stretching across his face. “Otherwise, we’ll run out of booze and start killing each other.”
Chapter 56
In the kitchen, Norah began to order Brandon and Ralph, noting that both were sloppy drunk and staggering into pots and pans, their elbows flailing. “Why don’t you men learn to control yourselves?” she bellowed, thinking back to her old days at the library, when she’d spent hours alone, wandering through shelves. She’d kill for that kind of solitude now.
“Let’s organize this kitchen before we get started,” she said, rubbing her wrinkled hands together. “Brandon, grab that big pot over there, fill it with water, and bring it to a boil. I found a large vat of pasta in the pantry, and I think it would be a nice side.”
“We got sauce?” Ralph asked, eyeing her wearily. “I won’t eat it without sauce.”
Norah stifled an eye roll. In all her years at the library, she hadn’t seen Ralph pass through the shelves, questing for knowledge. Surely he’d spent much of his days with that sour woman, his now-deceased wife, wasting time at the bar.
But the time for judgment was now over.
Norah passed the freezer, shivering, remembering the way Dr. Miller’s body had hung, lazily, dripping from his sores, as Ralph and Brandon had carried him to the freezer. Her stomach had churned, reminding her of her experience reading countless adventure or apocalyptic books. Always the hero had found a way to push through to the end. But they lost so many straggler
s along the way.
And what kind of irony was it that the very man who’d stayed behind to keep them alive was now dead in their freezer?
“Ralph, would you mind getting the steaks?” she asked lightly.
Ralph marched forward like an army private following his general’s orders. But as he placed his hand upon the freezer door handle, the three of them heard an unmistakable thud coming from inside.
“The hell?” Brandon cried, dropping a pan on the floor. It whirled around, clanking against the tile. The three of them stood staring.
“Do you think he’s still alive?” Ralph rasped. “Can’t be. We all checked his pulse. Right?”
No one spoke. In the moments that followed, the banging picked up again, but with more intensity.
“We shouldn’t open it,” Brandon said quickly. “We should just go upstairs. Keep drinking. This is stupid, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?” Ralph cried. “We put a man in there. If he’s alive, we need to get him out. He’ll freeze to death.”
Norah cupped her hands together, her eyelids fluttering. This was a nightmare. She would wake up soon, wrapped in her blankets, with the sun spilling in through the open window.
Ralph eased forward and flung open the freezer door. There, at the far side of the freezer, leaning against the wall, was Dr. Willis Miller—the very man they’d covered in plastic and laid to rest. But he was standing. And he was banging his head against the galvanized metal surface, purple spurts of blood oozing from his ears, the plastic tarp rumpled at his feet. Terrified, Norah jumped back. The sound of his head splattering filled her with agony.
“What the shit?” Ralph said, still holding on to the freezer door, glaring. “What’s gotten into him?”
As his words echoed throughout the kitchen, the figure in the freezer stopped his manic self-defacing and suddenly burst toward Ralph, his eyes crazed. His nose oozed something unrecognizable and his eyes were sunk far in his shattered skull. An eerie smile crept across his face, showing blackening teeth.
Humanity's Edge- The Complete Trilogy Page 15