Dead Lost

by Flint Maxwell

  “Look!” I say, pointing.

  Abby wastes no time in looking. Lilly, on the other hand, says, “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s—” But she’s looking now, and her face goes pale beneath her mask of dried blood. “You gotta be kidding me. I’m not—”

  “It’s either that or we get tortured and killed by the District!” I say.

  “Jack, that thing hasn’t been used in fifteen years and it’s not even on our level. We’ll have to jump—” Lilly is saying.

  “That’s a risk we’re gonna have to take. I’ll go first and see if I can get it any closer,” I say.

  “Jack, you’re going to kill yourself,” Lilly says.

  I shrug, trying to mask the fear that is close to consuming me. As hard as I’ve become that fear is always there. I can’t let it stay, though. I have to be the leader, I have to step up.

  “Stand back,” I say.

  Reluctantly, Lilly and Abby do.

  “Open up!” a guard yells.

  “You’re dead!” another echoes.

  I don’t bother aiming, I just pull the trigger. A burst of shots shatter the large window. The glass falls for seemingly forever. A blast of wind musses up my hair and then tries to pull us to our death with a roaring whoosh. We resist it as much as we can.

  “Jack!” Lilly says, but I’m already on the edge of the window, crouching, ready to jump.

  Don’t look down don’t look down don’t look down

  I do.

  The glass is still falling. The waning sun catches on the shards as they tumble over and over. Lilly is still shouting my name, the door is still being pounded on, but I can barely hear it over the wind.

  Wind. So much wind.

  No more thinking, Jack. Just do it! Norm would do it. So can you.

  You can do this, Jack. It’s Darlene’s voice and it’s exactly what I need to hear right now.

  I jump, and for the split second I’m suspended over thin air, over nothingness, my heart stops beating, my blood stops pumping, and my brain shorts out.

  Then my hands close over steel, cold steel, and my fall is cut short. The scaffold groans under my weight. I’m screaming, or am I? Who the hell knows? Everything is lost in the wind.

  Somehow, I manage to pull myself up, and as much as I just want to lie here and catch my breath or never fucking move again, I can’t.

  Seeing that the controls on the scaffold are rusted to the point of me not being able to press the buttons, I try anyway.

  Nothing but drifting flakes of rust to show for it.

  “Abby!” I shout.

  A sudden queasiness stirs my guts. What if I’m too late? What if they’re taken already?

  But Lilly’s head pokes out of the window, then Abby’s right above her.

  “You have to jump!” I yell, voice lost in the wind.

  I see Abby and Lilly exchange a glance, worried, scared expressions on their pale faces. Words pass over Lilly’s lips. I don’t hear them, but I’m adept enough at lip reading that I get the gist.

  Fuck it, is what she says.

  And fuck it is right. Lilly springs forward. She gets good air under her and makes the jump much easier than I did. I help pull her up, putting the sudden dip on the scaffold that nearly knocked me over the edge to the back of my mind. Can’t let that fear consume me.

  “Wooo! Holy shit!” Lilly says.

  “Come on, Ab!” I shout once Lilly is safely behind me.

  Abby shakes her head. Fuck it, on her lips, too. She jumps. Everything moves in slow motion. She seems to float for much longer than she actually is. The metal hook sending sparkles through the air, her arms and legs swimming.

  A thud.

  Me screaming with joy and fear and confusion.

  Abby holds on to the railing with her good right hand while Lilly and I each have a fistful of her jacket. The seams rip. I can almost hear them.

  Heaving, we pull her over.

  I hug her fiercely. But during this hug, the scaffold dips a whole floor. Now we’re face to face with the dirty window to the left and below the window we just came from. We have to get off this fucking thing before we fall to our death, or before the District starts picking us off with their rifles.

  “Controls don’t work,” I say.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Abby says, her hair blowing wildly. She points to the cables. They’re fraying, twanging as each twine unravels under our combined weight and its years of neglected maintenance.

  Thinking fast, I aim the gun at the window in front of us, seeing our warped reflections. It looks like I’m sticking up a grizzled old man with a graying beard and his two girl friends.

  Then I pull the trigger and the reflection explodes inward.

  “Go! Go!” I shout, guiding them to the open window. Upstairs, unmistakable even over the roar of the wind, are gunshots. The guards have given up on the idea of busting the door down and have shot it instead. About time.

  I jump in and Abby is telling me to shoot the cables. I don’t think about this, I just do it. It’s only when the gun clicks after my last two rounds send the scaffold to the surface nineteen stories below that I realize what she has just done.

  She’s bought us time. The guards will think the scaffold gave out…with us on it. Either that or we’ve somehow sprouted wings and flown away. Judging by their relative slowness of shooting the door open, they won’t think we’ve found our way back into the building. I think.

  It’s crazy enough that it might just work.

  Abby leads us out of the door to an empty corridor. If any guards we’re on this level, they’re gone because of the blaring alarm—which still blares, by the way. I’m thankful for that because it probably has masked my gunshots.

  We hit the stairs.

  So many steps later, Abby leads us through another door. At this point, I’m practically gasping for air.

  Lilly is doing fine, so is Abby. Old man Jack Jupiter hates cardio, even when his life depends on it. Through this door is a glass tunnel leading to an attached parking deck. A guard runs through it and toward us, and I nearly trip over my own feet. He’s snarling like a rabid dog, but when he sees Abby, he stops and salutes.

  “The alarm,” he says with an urgency that he’s trying to control.

  “Prisoners have escaped on level 19,” Abby says. “I’m going to cut them off on the ground. Is my truck filled up?”

  The guard looks confused here. “Miss Cage,” he says, “I don’t—”

  But Abby swings her pistol and knocks the guard out cold. She looks at me, shrugs. “Still got it,” she says.

  “That was…awesome!” Lilly screeches.

  Smiling, Abby turns and jogs to the door the guard has just come out of. I step over the guard and follow.

  In the parking deck is an array of cars. Really, all types of vehicles, and there’s a pretty good chance that they all work.

  Abby honks the alarm on a Ford truck. It’s a mammoth, four doors and huge tires. “Say hello to Sheila.”

  I laugh. I can’t help myself. This is madness. “Sheila like—” I begin to say, but Abby cuts me off.

  “Like Norm’s old Jeep,” she says.

  Lilly looks at us. “You guys are weird.”

  “Oh, you’ll soon join in on the weirdness,” Abby says as she opens the door. “It’s inevitable.” Then she motions to me. “Want to drive?”

  “God, yes,” I say.

  “Too bad,” Abby replies.

  All I can do is shake my head. Maybe it’s not such a good idea that I drive. Didn’t work out to well for me last time I was behind the wheel.

  We get in the truck and she starts it up. It purrs to life smoothly, almost soundlessly. She doesn’t turn the lights off. A few others are in the garage now, getting into their own rides—armored Chryslers, trucks on tires as tall as me, vans with spikes on their bumpers—all to go catch the escaped prisoners.

  Abby lets them pull out, their tires screaming on the asphalt, then she pulls forward as n
ormal as day, as if nothing’s happened.

  We are back on the road. She turns right when everyone else turns left, leaving the District’s Black Towers and downtown Chicago behind.

  Hopefully forever.

  In front of us, I see the shimmering lake, and a road of possibilities beyond.

  33

  “My first question,” I say to Abby as we get on a stretch of open road, “is how?”

  “How what?” Abby replies.

  Lilly is in the backseat. She has this big, goofy smile on her face, as she should. We did just escape death three times back there. Nothing new for the old Jack Jupiter, though.

  “How did you un-brainwash yourself?” Part of my mind, that old writer in me, knows Abby is smart, smart enough to not get brainwashed, but that newer Jack who’s lost all hope can’t believe it. I’ll just have to find a middle ground.

  Abby laughs.

  “I was never brainwashed.”

  I run a hand through my beard. “Never brainwashed.” So the old Jack was right. Maybe I need to start trusting him more often.

  Abby shakes her head. The truck thunders by a group of zombies, their dead heads turning in our direction. We are nearing the entrance to Highway 41. Pretty soon we’ll pass Soldier Field without any traffic. Coming up on our right would be my old apartment building, Pathfinder Pointe. I try to put this to the back of my mind, to focus on Abby’s story, but I can’t.

  I never liked Chicago, thought the big city life was too much for me—not to mention too expensive. If it wasn’t for Darlene’s job downtown, I would’ve lobbied to live somewhere in the suburbs. Maybe buy a house, white picket fence, backyard, two car garage—you know, the works. But as much as I disliked Chicago, I can’t help but think of all of Darlene’s stuff in that apartment, all those sweet reminders of her, all those pictures, mementos.

  If I could just see it one more time—

  “Jack?” Abby says. “Did you hear me? Are you all right?”

  I shake my head. “No, sorry. Spaced out. Car accident before we got taken hostage.”

  She arches an eyebrow at me.

  “I love how you say that like it’s not a big deal. Never been in a car accident in my life until I got into a vehicle with Jack behind the wheel,” Lilly says.

  Abby chuckles. For a second, she’s the old Abby like I’m the old Jack Jupiter. Nothing has changed. Everything is good.

  Except it’s not. Never will be.

  “I said,” Abby says, “long story short, I pretended to be brainwashed. Worked my way up to the top. Couldn’t let myself get killed.”

  “Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em type of thing?” I ask.

  “Was at first,” Abby says. “But I’ll admit, Jack, I was too scared to stand up to them. They’re insane.”

  I nod. I know all too well.

  I’m looking out of the window. The apartment building is right there, tall, twenty stories, green glass shining in the sunset.

  “Jack?” Lilly asks.

  I can’t do it. I can’t drive by the old apartment and not see it, not when I’m this close. “Can you take this exit?” I ask, pointing ahead.

  “Exit? Jack, you can’t be serious,” Abby is saying. She’s slowed the truck down considerably.

  “I used to live there,” I say, pointing at the building. “With Darlene. That’s where we lived, in those apartments.”

  “Jack,” Abby says but I barely hear her, “I know how you feel and all. I lost Mike, but we can’t stop. Not yet. They’ll be scouring the city for us. Probably have eyes on the truck right now. They’re crazy, Jack. Crazy.”

  Lilly leans forward. Her scratched up arm rests on Abby’s shoulder. In a soft voice, she says, “I know stopping is dangerous and stupid as hell, but he needs this, Abby. He needs this more than anything.”

  Abby sighs. I’m still gazing dreamily at the old apartment building as it slowly rolls by, out of my life forever.

  Abby cuts the wheel, jerking me out of this fugue state I’m in, and then we’re going down the exit ramp.

  34

  The apartment is just how we left it. Fifteen years ago. The smell is even the same. Faint, but there. Strawberry shampoo, vanilla-scented candles. I think there’s a lingering hint of the spaghetti I cooked for Darlene in the days leading up to our departure to Woodhaven.

  I’m probably just imagining all this, but still, the memories and phantoms smells are as sweet as ever.

  Tears roll down my face, but I’m not sobbing. Abby and Lilly are outside of the door. The apartment is on the second floor. There was a dead guy in the stairwell. He looked vaguely familiar, but had rotted beyond certain recognition, like a neighbor or a landlord. I guess I’ll never know.

  Here is a picture of Darlene and I in San Francisco sitting on an end table by the floral couch. I’m holding my necklace as I look at it. The picture shows the time we visited her parents on winter break in college, when we were both starry-eyed students at Ohio State. We are posed in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. She wears sunglasses. I wear a stupid hat I thought was cool at the time and a puka shell necklace. God, I was so lame.

  I swipe the dust away from the frame, and there’s her beautiful smile beneath it. There’s the love in my eyes, the total blissful happiness.

  A tear falls on my wrist.

  Here’s our bedroom. My feet move, but it feels like I’m walking on clouds. Our molded sheets, the bed unmade. Here, Darlene was not a firm believer in the making of beds. I chalked it up to laziness; she said it was because no one cared if our bed was made or not. Back in Haven, she always made the bed, said it was a good thing for Junior to pick up, said he wouldn’t do it unless he saw Mom and Dad doing it. Lead by example. The thought brings a grin to my face.

  Then I see a smutty romance book lying face-down on the nightstand, and my grin gets wider. A muscle-chested stud stares back at me from the cover with a buxom lady clutching his arm. I pick it up. She left off on a dog-eared page 138.

  In this moment, everything is in a type of stasis, everything is waiting for us to come back, and knowing that Darlene and Junior never will hits me harder than ever. A Mac trunk barreling toward my heart, plowing through it, then backing over it.

  Again. And again. And again.

  The tears come with a noise this time. I’m sobbing despite trying to keep control of myself.

  Outside of the apartment, through the cracked door, I hear a raised voice. A spike of fear sends a chill up my spine, and my hand automatically goes to the gun hanging on my side. I lost my sword, but I’ll never lose a gun for long.

  The voice registers. It’s Lilly.

  “Are you serious?” she says. “You need to tell him this. Like right now!”

  “No, I’ll tell him after,” Abby replies.

  Footsteps. The door creaking open. More footsteps.

  “Lilly, wait!” Abby is saying.

  “Jack!” Lilly says. She stands in the threshold of my old bedroom, where a pile of my old dirty underwear and clothes sits in the corner by the dresser, where the bed Darlene and I once made love on sits behind me. I’m holding the picture in one hand and a smutty romance novel in the other with bleary, bloodshot eyes. I can’t imagine how this looks.

  But Lilly pays it no mind. She has a smile on her face and hope in her eyes.

  “Jack,” she says, “Abby knows where your brother is.”

  “What?” My brother, I’m thinking, I don’t have a brother. But I’m tired, I’m heartbroken, I’m scared. It takes me a moment, but of course, I do have a brother.

  “He’s alive?” I say in a whisper so quiet it’s barely audible.

  Lilly nods.

  In comes Abby. “I do know where he is, Jack,” she says, “yeah. But he’s brainwashed. Worse than them all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s the Overlord’s right hand man,” Abby says. “The Shadow’s shadow.”

  My mouth goes dry. I’m backing up, trying to speak, but my throat seems to
be swelling shut. “You mean…”

  “He may not be able to come back from it,” Abby says. “He may be gone for good.”

  I’ve heard that before, haven’t I?

  In this moment, I feel Darlene’s presence. She’s here with me in this room. So is Junior.

  Hope, they say.

  Never give up hope, Jack.

  Never, Dad.

  I shake my head. “No. We can save him. I know we can.”

  Lilly still smiles. Abby doesn’t. I’ll have to convince her, I know I will, and I know I can. Suddenly, my heart pounds, my blood pumps. I’m alive. I’m alive and I can make a difference in this world even if it is beyond repair. Just like Darlene would want me to. Just like the old Jack Jupiter thought he could.

  “Ohio,” I say. “We’re going to Ohio.”

  Abby sighs. “I see there’s no convincing you. Same old Jack. Never change.”

  I offer her a grin as I look around the room.

  My time here is done. I have the picture in my hand and the locket around my neck. It was good to come home, to see all of this, but I know it doesn’t matter. It won’t bring Darlene or Junior back from the dead. And the more I think about it, I could leave all of this stuff—the picture, the book, the locket, everything—because I know they will be with me wherever I end up.

  I raise my hand and touch my chest, right above the heart I thought died a long time ago. Darlene and Junior will always be right here.

  I look down at the romance novel, close it, set it on the nightstand.

  The story has ended for now. But I’m still chasing my happily ever after, and I won’t stop until I get it.

  Want to find out how the zombie apocalypse ends the world? Sign up for Flint Maxwell’s mailing list and receive your free copy of Test Subject 001!

  Get Your FREE Story Right Here!

  Like Flint Maxwell’s Facebook Page Here!

  Please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Reviews help awesome readers like yourself find books. Thank you!