Deadlocked 7

by A. R. Wise

“We can start our search there,” said Jerald.

  “Don’t waste your time searching,” said Covington. “Just bomb the whole area. Be done with them once and for all.”

  “Bomb them?” asked Beatrice. “Bomb them with what?”

  “With our planes, of course,” said Covington. “We’ve got quite the air force here, my dear. You didn’t think we’ve spent the past two decades just sitting on our hands, did you? Beatrice, while you’ve been planning your little bioterrorism attack on us, we’ve been gearing up for war.”

  “You’re insane,” said Beatrice. “Levon was right. This has gone too far. You can’t possibly believe that what you’re doing is…”

  “Is what?” asked Covington, his voice cracking as he screamed. “Is right? Is ethical? Look who’s casting aspersions now! Look how the devil dares feign righteousness.” He was like a mad preacher, proselytizing and intoxicated by his own power. “The Age of Reason is ending, Beatrice. The lords of the realm will cede to my reign.” He clenched his fist hard enough to crack the fragile, scarred skin of his burned palm. Blood trickled down his arm as he grimaced in front of his captive. “I am not the madman here. I am not the malevolent force at work in the world today. I am the cleansing. I am the salvation.”

  His bombastic mannerism ceased and he looked at Beatrice calmly, almost as if he had sudden compassion for her. “I am no prophet.” He smiled and chuckled as if he was having a lighthearted conversation with an old friend. “I am no saint.” He paced and sighed plaintively. “Beatrice, I say this with the most humble of hearts.” Then he stared at her, and his madness was evident in his eyes. “I am the new God.”

  * * *

  Early morning, August 28th

  At the rehab center, near Castle Rock

  Arthur handed Abe his gear. They weren’t planning on being gone for long, but it was always hard to know how long it would take for The Department to answer the call. They were headed to a hotel that was on a cliff overlooking the town of Colorado Springs, where Jules and his men spent most of their time. The hotel was equipped with a large, kerosene fueled lamp that could be shuttered and was designed to alert The Department that there were people looking for them. Anyone who knew how to contact The Department would light the lamp, and then shine it down into Castle Rock in half hour increments. Eventually, someone from The Department would come to see who was visiting. Without following this procedure, searching for Jules and his men was a useless task. They rarely stayed in the same place for more than a few days, and didn’t like uninvited guests.

  “Are you sure he’ll help?” asked Zack.

  “No,” said Arthur. “But it’s worth a shot. We’re going to need all the help we can get if we’re planning on going after Jerald and the rest of his group.”

  “Well, be careful,” said Zack as he hugged his nephew.

  Arthur stumbled, nearly losing his balance on his crutch.

  Zack glowered at his broken leg. “I wish it was someone else going.”

  “I’ve got a good relationship with Jules. If anyone can get him to help, it’s me. Besides, I’ll have Abe along for the ride. What could go wrong?”

  “Oh Lord,” said Zack as he looked at Arthur’s companion. “I guess I’ll start building the caskets.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” said Abe.

  They were near the entrance of the facility, where there were no lights. They were careful not to give any exterior signs of their presence, even limiting the use of fire to the basement to avoid heat signatures. It had been four days since they escaped the church, and each of those days had been spent ensuring that the rehab center was a safe place for the survivors. They had emptied their trucks and then drove them a few miles out to abandon them, before hiking back. It was a sad goodbye to a way of life they’d enjoyed for a long time, although many of them felt those days weren’t quite over yet.

  “Daddy?” called David from the stairs that led to the basement.

  “Hey buddy,” said Arthur. “What are you doing up here?”

  “I wanted to walk you out.” David crossed the space between them swiftly, even on crutches.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get as good at using these as you are,” said Arthur as he waved the foot of his own crutch in a circle.

  “Come here, kiddo.” Zack hefted David into his arms so the boy could kiss his father.

  “Be careful, Daddy.”

  “I always am,” said Arthur as he kissed his boy.

  “We’ll walk you out,” said Zack.

  Abe was forced to carry their supplies, a bag over each shoulder as he led the way to the entrance. There was a car on the side of the road outside of the rehab facility that they would use to drive the forty miles south to Castle Rock.

  “Are you going to take care of Aunt Annie for me?” asked Arthur.

  David nodded. “Of course. I’ll do whatever Clyde needs.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes sir.” David saluted his father.

  “Okay, good. I want to see her up and in good spirits when I get back.”

  Abe stopped in front of them and set the bags down. They were still inside, a short distance from the set of wooden doors at the entrance.

  “What’s up?” asked Arthur. “Those too heavy for you?”

  Abe looked at them concerned. “Do you hear that?”

  Arthur did. There was an unnatural roar to the wind.

  Zack set David down. “David, get back downstairs.”

  “Why?” asked the boy. “What’s wrong.”

  “Go, now,” said Arthur as he pointed to the stairs. “No arguments.”

  Abe went to the double doors that led outside and opened them both. A rush of wind came in, bringing leaves and twigs in as well, as if they’d suddenly welcomed a coming storm. The unidentifiable roar they heard a moment ago was now unmistakable.

  Bombers, hundreds of them, were flying low overhead. Their black silhouettes hid the stars, and the moon cast their shadow on the earth.

  “Are they here for us?” asked Zack as the roar of the planes grew louder.

  “If they are, we’re fucked,” said Abe.

  Arthur walked outside and watched the planes fly over. He looked south and knew where they were headed.

  “They’re headed for the Springs,” said Arthur. “They’re going to take out Jules.”

  “Oh shit,” said Zack. “Without those guys, we don’t stand a chance.”

  Arthur watched the planes pass by. “I’m not sure we ever did.”

  * * *

  Under Denver International Airport

  Celeste held her breath the second the gas started to fill her room.

  She could hold her breath for 124 seconds. She practiced often, counting each time, and had checked the difference between a resting heart rate and an accelerated one. She knew how many steps it was from the bed to the false wall. She could be blind and still fight anyone that came into the room with her.

  “This is getting old, Celeste,” said her avatar as the room filled with the gas.

  The false wall slid open and a soldier walked in. To her horror, he wasn’t wearing the same suit that the others had. This soldier had a breathing apparatus, but there were no exposed tubes for her to grip. They had caught on to her plan.

  She lunged and wrapped her arms around the man anyhow, determined to expose a weakness in his armor. The concussion of hitting him caused her to expel the air in her lungs and she inadvertently breathed in the noxious gas. She was frustrated with herself, but wanted to make the most of the seven seconds she had left.

  It always took seven seconds for the gas to incapacitate her.

  She put her fingers on the man’s helmet, and then grasped the pack on his back. He grabbed her by the waist and yelled for her to calm down, but she ignored him and continued to search for a weakness.

  Her mind began to spin and she felt her muscles weaken.

  Her seven seconds were up.

  As she slipped i
nto unconsciousness, her hand fell down the side of the guard’s suit. It got caught against a soft piece of fabric on the man’s side, between two plates of armor. As he hoisted her, she felt his muscle tense beneath the fabric.

  A thin piece of fabric between her fingers and the man’s vulnerable flesh.

  Celeste smiled as she fell asleep.

  She dreamed of Hailey in the sunshine. She dreamed of the place called Juniper that the boy named Griffin had told her about. She dreamed of freedom, and of watching the sunrise.

  There was just a thin piece of fabric between her and freedom.

  God help anyone that stood in her way.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  It breaks my heart to say it, but the Deadlocked series is quickly coming to a close. When I decided to write the fifth book in the series, I did it with the intention of having the eighth book as a final chapter. I wanted to explore a lot of unanswered questions from the first four books and expand the story in some new and exciting ways. The past three books have been far more rewarding to me than I ever thought possible, but that doesn’t change the fact that the fourth book has always been meant as a finale. You are just one book away from the end now.

  When I started Deadlocked 7, the theme I settled on was the affect the past can have on us. The over-arching theme of the entire 7 books so far has been the importance of family, but one untouched idea thus far has been what sort of legacy our forefathers leave for us. This theme is pretty blatant in some parts of this book, with the actions of the past having direct ties to what happens in the future; but then also a bit more hidden, such as how Beatrice and The Electorate are pushing to have a lasting legacy.

  When I first planned out the story, I thought that I would spend the beginning half of the book exploring the past. I was going to let the time frame flow naturally, from what happened right after book four leading up to where we left off in book six. However, I quickly realized that couldn’t work. Not only would I be limited by a static timeline, but I would also be leaving readers in the lurch about what happened after the end of book six. That’s when I settled on the idea of splitting each chapter in two, which is a technique I also used in my book, 314. This really opened up the storytelling for me, and allowed me to flip flop through time periods. I was able to include some scenes in this book (like much of Annie’s backstory – which I loved) that wouldn’t have made it in anyhow.

  My hope is that the back and forth between the time frames started out for the reader as a bit discombobulating. Whenever you’re telling a story about the past, the reader is a little cheated because they already know important details: like who is going to live through it and who will die. I hope that switching between the present (so to speak) and the past eventually melded the reader’s sense of intensity to the point that they started to forget not to be worried about characters when the book was telling a story from the past.

  Also, I played a little with the knowledge of Reagan’s death. Ever since book five, we’ve known that he died, but didn’t know how. As this book went along, I wanted the reader to get caught up with just when Reagan was going to die, and how it would happen. That was the crux of the tension throughout those parts.

  Usually, I spend time in the Author’s Note going over some hidden meanings in the books, but this one is replete with them. There are far too many to go through, so instead I thought I’d spend a little more time with a few of the characters to give you my thoughts on what they’re going through. These are only my opinions, because I think these characters all have a life of their own.

  Annie Conrad: I love this little red head so much. Her backstory, and how she struggled as a child in the Rollers, just made me fall head over heels for her. I think she’s lived in her sister’s shadow her whole life, content just to be a wallflower (albeit it a rowdy one) as her sister took charge. Now Kim is dead, and Annie is thrust into a prominent role that she’d never held before. She becomes a figurehead for the Rollers as she stands on that steeple, guarding them from the helicopters. I think one of the most powerful scenes of the book is when Laura looked up at her daughter, not with pride, but with terror. She knew that Annie would die trying to avenge Kim, and that terrified Laura.

  Annie’s fall from the steeple is obviously symbolic, as is her eventual resuscitation via defibrillator by Clyde. Laura isn’t just watching Annie near death, she’s watching her daughter turn into who Laura had become so many years ago, on the dock in Georgia. Also, for Laura, she’s realizing that Kim went through the same sort of transition, which eventually led her to her death.

  Laura Conrad: Everyone is welcome to interpret this book in any way they choose. However, where most people might see Laura’s turn to war near the end of the book as a rallying cry, I wrote it as a sorrowful moment. She has always been the most vocal member for peace out of the Rollers, and now she has decided to take Billy’s side and lead them into a hopeless struggle. It’s a dark turn, and one that’s amplified by the raging storm that comes over them as she talks to Kayla near the highway. The direction Laura is choosing to take them is fraught with conflict, death, sorrow, and war. In our culture, we often applaud the desire for revenge, but it’s a dark path. Laura makes the point that she has always wanted peace, until it was her child lying dead in the street. That will always be what drives us to war. Every bomb dropped creates more enemies than it kills.

  Billy Hendrix: In a lot of ways, I see this as Billy’s book. He’s a character that we learned to love in the original series (books 1-4), but ever since he appeared in the second series, he’s always been an unlikeable person. This book finally gave me the opportunity to help explain what happened that turned him into the war hardened, angry person that he’d become. Here we see him acting much the same as he did in the original series, but events slowly work to harden him until we understand why he was so focused on revenge through books five and six. I see this book as Billy’s redemption, and I hope readers come away from this with a newfound respect for him.

  However, we also see his dark side emerging. No scene better exemplifies this than when he is leading Clyde through the dark apartment complex. Clyde is blinded in the dark and relies on Billy to lead him, which is an allegory to Billy’s time as the captain of the Rollers. Clyde follows along as Billy talks callously of killing, and then as they come into the light Clyde realizes what Billy is leading him into. That scene comes off as just two characters walking from one spot to another when you first read it, but there’s a heck of a lot more meaning hidden in it.

  Levon Kline (our good old Hero): Hero was used almost exclusively for exposition here, but what fun exposition it was. I love having him just sit in a room and talk to someone. He is by far the most entertaining character in the series for me, and despite how tough he acts, I think we all know the guy is all heart. I can’t go into how I feel about him in this book, or what developments were important, because they all have so much to do with the next book. There is a lot revealed about his future here, but you’ll just have to wait to find out what I mean by that.

  Hero’s best scene, in my opinion, is the reveal about the gun tattoo on his neck. It really opens the door of his entire character. He’s a man that has a tough exterior, and can be hard to like at first, but when you get to know him you’ll fall in love. I think by the end, even Beatrice is being won over by him. Okay – I can’t talk about this anymore without revealing things that are coming in the next book!

  Kim Laporte: Getting a chance to spend a little time with Kim here was a gift for me. I was so heartbroken by her loss, and I wanted to make sure that her sacrifice in the last book wasn’t just glossed over here. A lot of books seem to kill off characters and then have the heroes moving on with their lives just a few pages after. Here, I really wanted her death to have a huge impact.

  And of course, there’s the reveal about the true father of her son. I was really hesitant to include that part because I think rape is a touchy subject, and one
that is used lightly in entertainment far too often. However, the scene is there because I felt it was an important part of Arthur’s character development (and BELIEVE me, it pains me to say that the rape of a female character is being used for the character development of a male character. That being said, I still feel it’s too important to leave out.) When you find out that he is not David’s father, and that he’s kept it a secret from everyone for so long, it changes everything about how you view him.

  Charles Reagan: The return of one of the greats. Ever since book five revealed that Reagan had died, readers have clamored to discover what happened. I hope the truth was satisfying.

  The big reveal here was that Reagan’s son had been one of the original Dawns. It’s something that’s hinted at way back in the original series, but only now came to light. Reagan’s role here is the very essence of the title: Legacies. Reagan not only started the Rollers, he was also the reason they were all allowed to live, unbeknownst to any of them at the time. His life had a lasting effect on everyone around him, both literally and figuratively. His immunities were transferring to the others, and his legend held strong even with the children of the Rollers that were training with Kim and Annie so many years after his death.

  There are two scenes with Reagan that just murder me. There’s the scene in the apartment where he talks about the love of his life, and then there’s when he says goodbye to Billy and Hero. I’m going to miss that old guy.

  Arthur and Zachary Laporte: These two characters were introduced in past books, but this is where they really get to shine. Arthur is a man whose talents we’ve barely been introduced to. In book six there’s a scene where Arthur takes part in the murder of various members of the Wolf Pack, but the reader isn’t witness to the event. It’s just put out there as an aside. It’s not until now that we really get a sense of how dangerous he is. Arthur is one of the very few Rollers that were invited to join The Department, and now we know why. However, he has always sided with Laura as wanting peace for the Rollers. In the next book we’ll get to spend more time with him, and see that, despite his talents, he’s a man that knows the true outcome of violence.