The three troublemakers glanced around, expressions groping for answers from the hazy air.
When Lenny spotted Bryan, he said, “What you doing back here, son? You’s supposed to be inside with the rest of the kids.”
Laura said, “Um, yeah, that’s why we’re in here. We saw the kid sneak into the warehouse. Caught him trying to steal one of these boxes.” She snatched the box from a slack-jawed TJ. “But we stopped him. Here ya go.” She extended the box to Lenny, who hesitantly took it.
Lenny hooked it under his arm, giving it barely a second thought. His gaze never leaving the three adults, he said, “Bryan, go into the hall. Wait for me in there. Okay, son?”
Bryan eyed his box, started to ask for it, then dropped his chin, obeying the towering muscle man. How he hoped he’d get his box back.
Chapter 3
The speaker’s words were mishmash in Jessica Thompson’s ears. With her red-rimmed eyes and thin mouth in a perpetual dive, she appeared in desperate need of seriously strong coffee. Or grief counseling.
The small windowless conference room brimmed with residents. In normal conditions, the space comfortably seated twelve or so. Today, easily double that number crammed into the claustrophobic confines, leaning against walls or stuffed in cozy chairs circling the table. The room had grown stuffy with blustering breath beneath the shallow, sterile fluorescents.
Nearly everyone was present, save for a middle-aged woman tasked with babysitting the small children, and three young adult newcomers assigned to perimeter watch duty. David was absent, recovering in a room down the hall.
Leonard Knight, the Janitor’s right-hand man, had slipped out about five minutes ago at the old man’s urging. The Janitor asked him to check on the trio outside, make sure everything was still kosher since the meeting had been running for quite a while. The request was the last thing said that had registered with Jessica. Until now.
“How many have you killed?”
The room stood silent, the attendees awaiting Jessica’s answer to Dr. Luz Gonzalez’s pointed question. Jessica didn’t respond, her gaze focused on nothing and no one.
“Jessica.” The young, thirty-something Hispanic woman slapped the table, her Spanish accent very pronounced and sharp. It was clear English was her second language, but she’d adopted it well. “I asked you a question.”
Jess blinked her eyes, then looked directly at the doctor sitting across the table from her. “I’m sorry, what?”
Luz sighed deeply, tossing a glance of aggravation at Gabriel Jones, the Janitor. “How are we supposed to come to an agreement when you people won’t pay attention? How long do we have to sit in here, jammed together like sardines in a stinky can, and go over this? When are people going to start taking this seriously, huh? Just how are we—”
The Janitor held a palm to Luz while simultaneously dipping his chin, “Calm down, Luz. She’s been through a lot.”
“She’s been through a lot? Are you kidding me, Gabriel?” Dr. Gonzalez glared at Jessica, crossing her arms. “You poor, poor dear, you. You’ve been through so much. Maybe I could get you something. Would that be nice for you? Maybe a massage and pedicure… some Xanax, maybe perhaps? Fine wine? Would you like that?”
Gabriel’s rich voice dropped an octave, if that were possible. “Luz.” He squinted an eye at her. “Please.”
Luz huffed, rocking back in her chair, cursing in Spanish under her breath. She never cursed in English, only in Spanish, her native tongue.
A man standing directly behind the doctor spoke. “She still didn’t answer the question.”
“Roy,” Gabriel started, “I don’t see where that question is relevant to—”
“Well?” Roy interrupted. “How many? How many people have you killed?” Accusatory tones leapt from his tongue like throwing knives.
Jessica’s mind was returning, back from its out of body experience. She just found it so incredibly hard to focus, her rattled emotions still coming to grips with her husband’s untimely death. Thirty-nine and a widow. Sure, she’d planned to leave Mitch. Had actually intended to pull the trigger over a year ago. Leaving him was one thing. Someone murdering him was another. And she was in full-on mourning mode.
“They ain’t people,” Jess whispered.
Randy Phillips, Mitch’s former best friend, stood behind her, and he laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Squeezed.
“What?” Roy said. He held his bandaged forearm. “We didn’t hear you, young lady.”
Jessica raised her voice, enough so that everyone in the tiny room could easily hear. “I said, they ain’t people.” Then she lowered her voice again. “Not anymore.”
Roy cocked his head, crossed his arms. “Oh, really? You saying my boy Scotty ain’t a real person? That he’s just a confounded figment of my fucking imagination? Huh? Is that what you’re trying to say, missy?”
“Roy,” the Janitor said. “Enough.”
“No, Gabe. This is why we’re here, ain’t it? I mean, we can’t have murderers running rampant through the halls, now can we? Christ almighty.”
“They ain’t sick,” Jessica said. Nodding at Luz, she added, “You of all people should know that.”
Luz pursed her lips. “You still haven’t answered the question, Jessica.”
The room grew quiet again, the air pushed and batted around by bated breaths.
Fuck these people. This was a bad idea coming here. David was wrong. Lenny was wrong. Randy was wrong. These people are messed up assholes.
“None.”
“None, what?” asked Luz.
“I haven’t… killed… anyone.”
“I don’t believe you,” Roy said.
Gabriel stood. “I said enough. We ain’t here to accuse and condemn. We’re here to figure this shit out. What we’re gonna do with them.” He motioned at the wall with a jerk of his arm, toward the implied direction of the back field.
Roy started again, the conversation winding him up like a lawn mower pull cord. “I’ve already said we should—”
“No,” Gabriel said. “For the hundredth time, ain’t an option.”
Luz said, “And why not?”
“Why not? Ain’t room, for starters. Plus, it’d be pure d’plum crazy. You Infirmary folks may not see it, but those… things… ain’t just sick. They’re dangerous. Deadly. Deadly to us.” Patting his chest, he shook his head with conviction. “Nope. Ain’t gonna happen. I won’t allow it.”
A scowl lit Roy’s ruddy, glistening face. He scratched at his bandage again, mumbled something about you Infirmaries. “Ain’t fair to ‘em, Gabe. Ain’t fair.”
“Fair?” Gabe said.
Roy nodded vehemently. “That’s right. Ain’t fucking fair. My boy’s out there right now, baking away like overdone cornbread in the Texas sun. What about his health? His well-being?”
“He’s dead, Roy.” The words slipped over Jessica’s tight lips before she’d even realized it.
Roy’s chest heaved, blowing him up like a balloon. “Fucking bitch.”
“Roy—”
“Murdering, fucking bitch!”
Jessica stood, her chair launching behind her, catching Randy’s legs. He let out a groan.
The tension in the room crackled and buzzed like an overloaded power line trying to drink from a water puddle. Everyone started talking at once. Hands arced. Fingers pointed. Jaws yapped.
The Janitor held his arms out to his sides, raised his voice to be heard over the blustering roar. “People, people. Calm down.” The small room served only to amplify the clamor. “People! I said cool it!”
Like a wave slipping down the sloping sand and back into the ocean, the din died down to a manageable murmur.
“Folks,” the Janitor said, “We’ve been at this for almost three days, cooped up in this room, making no headway—”
“And whose fault is that?”
The Janitor ignored the unsolicited comment. “We’ve got to come to a rational decision. Sitting aroun
d, fighting about this… things that need doing ain’t getting done. We’re two days overdue for a supply run. Resources ain’t been tallied. Hell, we’re running generators like they ain’t never gonna run outta gas. I love the air conditioning as much as the next fella, but we’ve got to start thinking and acting responsibly if we’re gonna make it to the Fall.”
For several seconds, no one said anything. Not even under their breaths. Eyes darted about the room. A couple of men rolled up on the balls of their feet several times, rocking nervously. A few others pivoted back and forth in their chairs.
“So,” Gabriel said, “we’ve got to come first. Not them. Not the dead or the sick or the in between. Us. The positively living.”
Roy piped up again, sucking the air out of Gabriel’s pep speech, sending it fluttering to the floor. “So we’re just gonna ignore the sick? Let ‘em just rot on those tennis courts and swimming pool, while we sit in here in the air conditioning?”
Despite wanting to stay out of it, to not get involved, Jessica said, “Are you listening? Do you hear what he’s saying? What he’s implying?” She let her gaze fall on several of the residents, forcing them to make eye contact with her, to drive her point home. “We are going to be just as dead as those things on the tennis courts and swimming pool if we don’t get our shit together. This place will deteriorate in a matter of days if all we do is sit in here and fight and argue about the obvious all day.”
“The obvious?” Luz said. “And what do you mean by that? That we’re wrong?”
“No, that you’re wrong.”
“Bullshit,” Roy said. A few others nodded, uttering agreement in unison.
Jessica glowered at those nodding and siding with Roy and Luz. “Have you people been out there? I mean really been out there?” She pointed at the door. “Have you seen those shufflers in action? What they’re capable of? They are biological killing machines. It’s like they’re… programmed… or something to just… kill. They’re the murderers. Not me. Not us. They are.”
“They aren’t in their right minds,” Luz countered. “That’s why we have to restrain them. Until this whole mess blows over.”
“It’s not gonna just blow over, Luz. Don’t you get it?”
A hint of a smile peeked out from under Gabriel’s push broom mustache.
Jessica continued, “These ‘people’ you think are sick are deader than doornails.”
“Impossible.”
“Impossible? Shit, you’re the doctor. You hold a stethoscope to their chests? You give ‘em a physical yet? What would you prescribe to them to make them well since you think they’re just sick? Huh? What would that be, because I’d really like to know.”
“The last time I checked, dead people didn’t walk around.”
A hush rushed into the room like a vacuum.
Taking advantage of having the floor, Luz added, “It’s like a cancer. You don’t just cure cancer.”
“Really. That’s your diagnosis? Cancer?”
For the first time that morning, Randy Phillips spoke up. His tone was light, soothing. “I didn’t believe it at first, Dr. Gonzalez, that they were… dead.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got some EMT training, so I’m no doctor like you, but…” He averted his eyes, as though he didn’t want to sass a superior. “Well, my professional opinion is in line with Jessica’s and the Janitor’s.”
The doctor huffed. “You’re just saying that because she’s your friend. And you’re right, you’re not a doctor.”
Randy twisted his lip through his thick beard, and rubbed at his own bandage covering the gunshot wound he suffered in the gunfight with Sammy and Guillermo.
Jessica’s temper knocked, beating at the door. She was over it. Over the fighting, over the name calling and insinuations and… just all of it. She glanced up at Randy, and could tell Luz had stepped on his feelings, walked all over them, his opinion nullified by a supposed professional. He was retreating within himself, and this upset her.
Jessica muttered, “You’re so full of shit.”
“Excuse me?” The doctor’s eyes went wide, lids flipping like window shades yanked and released.
“You heard me.”
A smug smile crossed the doctor’s face. “I’ll bet you enjoy killing them, don’t you? Wasn’t it your cousin—what’s his name?—ah, David, right? Wasn’t it David who came up with that plan to massacre the masses with that death machine out in the field?”
Jessica’s heart drop-kicked her sternum right out of the ring. Her vision pulsed with every pump. Her eardrums slammed with every thump. And she got more and more pissed with every punch. Her face and neck flushed with fury. She could already feel Luz’s tangled tresses between her clenched fingers, Jess yanking and flinging and pulling and—
“I supported the idea,” the Janitor said. “Hell, still do, truth be told. We know they’re dangerous, folks. I’ve seen it, and I know most of you have, too.” Folding his lanky arms across his thin chest, he shook his head. “Leaving them out there like that… it’s a big gamble. Plus, them being out there’s drawing more of ‘em. I’m not willing to risk any more injuries trying to wrangle ‘em up, stick ‘em in the pool or courts.” He glanced at Roy. “And they ain’t coming inside.”
Roy just tightened his arms across his chest, blood seeping through the bandage on his right forearm.
“What happened, Roy?”
“Hmm?”
“Your arm. What happened?”
“Um…”
Luz said, “He was helping me move a piece of equipment and cut his arm on it. I told him to get another person, but he insisted on doing it himself.” She shot a strange, nervous little glance at Roy.
“Um, yeah. That’s what I get for being a team player.” He laughed a light, uneasy laugh.
Jessica huffed.
Roy visibly bristled. “Least I ain’t a goddamned murderer—”
“Roy! Enough!” The Janitor’s voice boomed virulently, as if he were forty years younger and strong as ever—and ready to kick some ass. Almost everyone in the room flinched.
Gabriel raked back his long, iron-gray hair, exhaled a deep sigh. “Let’s take five, folks. I think we all need some air.” He paused a beat, then added, “I know I sure as hell do.”
“But Gabriel, we need to decide right—”
“Luz.” His voice clapped against the walls, and he gave a look that begged her to push it and see what would happen.
“Fine,” she said, slapping her palms to the table and pressing to her feet.
* * *
“Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick,” Randy said to Jessica.
They stood outside the tiny conference room, watching folks file out into the hallway, then wander off in a billow of murmurs and whispers.
When she didn’t respond, he said, “In other words, that was intense.”
Her lips curled back on her teeth, making her mouth a mere scar on her face. Her red-rimmed eyes were glassy wet.
Out of habit, he started stammering and apologizing.
Jess waved him off, her words trembling out. “Wasn’t you.” She swiped at her eyes.
“Right.” He sounded unconvinced, and she noticed him chewing at his beard, a nervous habit he’d developed years ago.
Randy, not now. Please don’t make this about you.
“Randy, I’m just really…” She ran her fingers through her short bobbed hair, then sighed. “Mitch’s death just really hit me and I’m worried about David… Then that.” Her hand dropped, slapping her own thigh.
“I get it. I’m sorry.”
She shot him an uncommitted glare.
“Right, sorry. I’ll quit apologizing.”
“Thank you.”
They stood there a few more moments, the last of the attendees slipping through the doorway. Several gave her disdainful looks, though she didn’t notice. Or care.
Nodding, Randy said, “Sure.” He glanced around, then added, “Well, guess I’ll see if I can locate Lenny. Bring h
im up to speed.”
He started away, but stopped when Jessica gently touched his wounded arm. He hissed through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay. Just still a bit tender.” He pointed a finger at her. “And no more, ‘I’m sorries.’”
“Right.” And she allowed a ghost of a smile to cross her lips. “Do you think…” She hesitated.
“Do I think what?”
“Do you think—” Someone passed by, and she lowered her voice to a strong half-whisper. “Do you think we should stay here? I mean, Mitch’s place was like an island paradise compared to this. At least in our own group, there were fewer people to argue with.”
Randy hooked his thickly bearded chin with his hand, mimicking the Janitor’s trademark pose, and thought for a moment. “Are you suggesting we go back to the trailer? Because I don’t think that would be a good idea. I mean, you never know when Sammy and Guillermo could show up again, and I don’t think it would be good for you, especially, because of… well… you know.”
Yes, she knew. It wouldn’t be good for her because Mitch was murdered out there. Buried out there. But at least she could visit his grave. She wanted to do that, eventually. Maybe when things calmed down. She craved closure. Needed it.
But for the sake of conversation, she shook her head. “No, you’re right, Randy. Wouldn’t be smart, and I wasn’t really implying or suggesting we go back there. But I don’t know how smart staying here’d be, either.” She was careful to keep her voice down, out of reach of prying ears. Leaning into him, she said, “These people ain’t right. The Janitor gets it. I think Lenny and Taneesha do, too. But it just seems like…”
Two people walked by, and Jessica stopped talking for a moment, eluding the eavesdroppers. After the men were out of earshot, she said, “It just seems like the majority of people here are messed up in their thinking and beliefs, ya know?”
“We had our doubts at first, remember?”
“At first. But we came around. Quick. Like within days. These people still don’t get it after nearly a month. Seems like their grasp on reality is actually worse now than before, like they’ve gone backward in their thinking.”
Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row Page 3