Reunion at Walnut Cherryville (The Eternal Feud Book 1)

by Lauren Salem

“But Billy-Bob could be dead,” the guard said. “We should get him to the medical wing because it looks like he lost a lot of blood.”

  “We’ll get someone to clean that up. If he survived the fall, he’d push his medical button.”

  “But, sir, his arms were severed by the grates—”

  “Instead of whining about something you can’t fix, call in another guard to get up on that roof and continue judging the competition!”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard sighed.

  “What is the meaning of this?” An older woman with a firm voice said from behind us.

  Everyone turned around, gasped, and took a step back.

  “Mom,” Kenneth said, surprised. “What are you doing out here…I-I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “This is counterproductive, and I never approved any of this! Why is there a dead man smeared across the Chair Trials building, and what are you doing with all those grits?”

  “It’s an execution, Mom; the guard just fell off the building while he was judging the competition because a box of grits hit him in the head…twice,” Kenneth replied nervously.

  “You killed a guard during another one of your silly games? What’s wrong with you? As government officials, we don’t just go running around playing games, wasting food, and killing people by accident! This is not a proper execution,” his mom said sternly before she slapped Kenneth across the face. She reached into the pocket of her sunflower dress and pushed her red medical button. “I want all this cleaned up, the grits go back in the kitchen, and everyone will return to work right now!”

  As the crowd walked away, Veronica and I headed after them.

  “But, Mom, what about the execution?” Kenneth whined. “Those two abandoned the village, and now they’re trying to run away again.”

  “You want to see an execution…This is how we do a proper execution!”

  A gunshot fired, and I saw Veronica suddenly bleed out from her stomach before she tripped forward into the sand. As I turned around, a bullet lodged into my shoulder, and I fell on my back. While I groaned in pain, the print of Governor Quinton’s sunflower dress engrained in my mind and haunted it every time I closed my eyes. When I blinked, I saw images of sunflowers alternate between images of Kenneth walking toward me. All of a sudden, Kenneth stopped in his tracks when his mom said, “Leave them to rot in the sun; let’s go.” He turned back and followed his mom into the glass building.

  With my eyes closed and chest panting, I put pressure on my shoulder, using my free hand to slow down the bleeding. After several seconds, the sunflowers in my mind disintegrated into the dark depths of blackness. I opened my eyes again and saw Veronica vomiting blood…I could taste a little of it myself. I failed…I failed Laura, and now she was stuck marrying a mad man, who was whipped by his mom while I baked in the sun and bled. “Are…are you all right?” I mumbled to Veronica before I passed out.

  * * *

  By the end of my first year at Sonoran Correctional, my so-called lack of attendance and irrational behavior were problems that my counselor and teachers wanted resolved; if that didn’t happen soon, then the principal was going to call my parents in for a conference. Normally, teenagers like Collins, who were sentenced here by the court, got financial aid and a considerable discount on the yearly rate, but teenagers like me, who were enrolled here by their parents, had to pay the full price, which was a whopping $40,000 per year (this included tuition, room and board, food, books, and other fees).

  Counselor Hank was tired of me lying on his couch, tearing up pieces of paper, and rolling them between my fingers while I lied to him about how I felt. By the end of my counseling session, his floor was spotted with paper balls flicked in every direction, and his notepad revealed nothing but contradictions. I pretty much answered every question he asked with whatever lie I could make up on the spot. One day, Hank became so frustrated with me that he snatched the paper out of my hands, and as a result I didn’t talk at all. My silence was killing him, so he gave the paper back to me, and the first thing I did was flick a paper ball at his face.

  The next counseling session began with Hank calling my parents and telling them about how bad my behavior was and how I wouldn’t cooperate during counseling.

  Their response to me was, “Vincent, we pay a lot of money every year for you to go to this school, and we expect results. You will not return home until you are healthy. Every time we receive a bad report or grade from the school, we will sell one electronic item in your room, and we know you have a lot of them. Consider this your first warning…Do it again, and your laptop is the first thing we sell.”

  Noooooo! Not my laptop…I’ve got all my camera footage saved on there! I never said I wanted to go to this stupid, expensive school…Why the hell did my parents have to fuck up my life like this?

  Every class I had during my first year of correctional school was so boring that I could barely stand to keep my attendance rate above 50 percent. Instead of going to geometry, I slept on the floor in the fetal position underneath the water fountains in main hall. Usually around the hour of when I had English, the scruffy janitor would come around and sweep the floors. When he finished sweeping main hall, we’d go into the janitor’s closet for a smoke and small talk, where he told me stories about how he used to play lead guitar in a rock band. Apparently his addiction to drugs and pussy were his ultimate downfall, which led him to go to rehab before he was reborn as a janitor. I spent a lot of time in detention back then…always getting written up for something.

  When I did attend classes, I never took notes or paid attention to the lectures. If I happened to show up on a day there was a test, I circled any answer if the test was multiple choice, doodled in the space allotted for short answers, and wrote poems in the space for paragraphs. This was how it was for every class except my favorite elective, computer science, which was the only class I actually enjoyed giving 100 percent attendance to. For that class, I always listened to the lectures, did my homework, and put in a little extra, which paid off when final report cards were due to be mailed to parents.

  I knew that I couldn’t let my parents see my report card as it was because they’d sell my entire room and rent it out to someone, so something had to be done to change it. Besides earning an A in computer science, I learned a lot about computer hacking, so I decided to hack my way into the system and change my grades.

  Once the teachers submitted the final grades, only the principal was allowed to change it officially in the system. With a little Dumpster-diving, Internet searches, and algorithm work, I was able to find out the principal’s password and guess the answers to his security questions within two days. The password was RedTie3413. Principal Brock went to Clifton High School, Mittens was the name of his first pet, and Thompson was his mother’s maiden name…so easy. I cracked all the codes, found my grades, and changed the classes I didn’t pass to a C. My GPA magically increased from a 1.2 to a 2.0 in seconds. I didn’t want to go crazy and give myself all As because then it would be too noticeable that someone tampered with the grades. I just needed to bring my average high enough so it was barely passing.

  When my parents saw my report card, they were proud of me. They always knew I was smart and had the ability to do well in school but just didn’t have the drive. They figured that Sonoran Correctional had straightened me out and showed me why I needed to care about my studies. Everyone in school was surprised I passed the tenth grade, and I kept them guessing about how I did it. That was a secret I’d never tell anyone. Some students congratulated me because they thought I had sex with my teachers. If that were the case, they must also have thought I was bisexual, since not all my teachers were ladies. Many believed, like with Kat’s death, that my parents had something to do with it. I heard rumors floating around the cafeteria about how my parents were large contributors to the institute and that they bribed the school into changing my grades. People who believed that rumor thought I was a rich prick who got everything he wanted, so they sho
wed they resented me by knocking my books down, slipping angry rants into my locker, and shoving me in the halls. The fact that I passed tenth grade made even Collins upset.

  One morning Johnny, Collins, and I were getting dressed in the locker room, when, out of nowhere, Collins just exploded with antagonism.

  “You know what really makes me upset,” Collins announced as he opened his locker, “are people who make good grades without trying or even bothering to show up to classes.”

  I rolled my eyes…Here we go again, another hater.

  “I know you cheated,” Collins continued as he sprayed himself with Axe. “I don’t know how, but I know that there is no possible way you could have passed without cheating because I was in half your classes! You never showed up to most of them, and when you did you reeked of cigarettes.”

  “I’m sorry the fact that I’m naturally smart upsets you, Collins,” I replied as I zipped up my black skinny jeans. “Next year, I’ll try to be more stupid so you can feel better about yourself.”

  “Fuck you,” Collins said before he pushed me against the locker.

  Johnny quickly grabbed Collins’s arms and held him back so the raging bull couldn’t use me as his punching bag. “Hey, guys, settle down!”

  “Did you hear what he just said to me?” Collins asked Johnny.

  “Yes, I heard, and Vincent, that was very inappropriate.”

  “I wanna kill this motherfucker!”

  “Collins, you don’t want to kill anyone…You know you can’t let a teacher hear you say that in school.”

  “I’m not joking, Johnny; I’m sick of him! The next chance I get, I’m gonna kill him!”

  “What are you going to do? Pop a cap in my ass or put rat poison in my water?” I blurted out.

  “Don’t you make fun of me, boy!”

  “Sorry, Vincent, you’re on your own on that one,” Johnny said before he let Collins go.

  Collins pounced on top of me and beat me to a pulp…I ended up having black and blue marks everywhere.

  After fifteen minutes, Johnny decided to step in and help me by restraining Collins. “That’s enough, Collins. You proved your point; now leave him alone,” Johnny said as he pulled Collins away.

  I finally got to tell Collins and Johnny why I was mad at them for so many months. “Now you know how it feels to think that someone doesn’t deserve something…I didn’t deserve to take all the punishment for that stupid prank we all pulled on Principal Brock! The first time I was ever sent to detention was because of you two, and all I could think about was how Collins and Johnny deserved to be here just as much as I did. It was your idea, Collins, and you participated, Johnny, yet neither of you cowards stepped in to claim some of the punishment. Collins, you pretended to be my friend and then threw me under the bus when there was a risk that you’d get a bad mark on your permanent record. Being Switzerland never gets you anywhere in life; Johnny, you’re going to have to start choosing your battles. When you try to please everyone and keep the peace, it pleases no one at all, and that’s so annoying.”

  “What does any of that have to do with you cheating?” Collins asked.

  “I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one,” Johnny added.

  “None of you understand,” I mumbled before I grabbed my T-shirt out of my locker, slammed the door shut, and left the locker room.

  * * *

  Beep…beep…beep…beep…The sound of a heart monitor woke me from my sleep. I rested on top of a sleeping bag and pillow in a windowless room lit by a floor lamp. The scent of rubbing alcohol filled the musty air. My body was sticky with dried-up blood, and I felt a bandage taped over my wound, along with an IV placed in my arm. I looked toward the light and saw a Latino man, who wore a white, blood-smeared coat, sitting in a chair and holding a bullet in each hand.

  “I believe this one is yours,” he said as he got up from the chair and placed the bullet in my hand. “It was lodged in there pretty good.”

  As soon as I sat up, my shoulder started hurting again. To my right was a pile of medical supplies that sat in a puddle of blood on the concrete floor. Where was I? It seemed like the doctor operated on me in some sort of basement. Who was this guy? Was he even a real doctor? Veronica was sleeping to my left, and across from me was a row of five computers, flashing WCV Security screensavers. This was definitely not the medical wing.

  “What’s going on? How did we get in here?” I asked.

  “Hello, Alejandro,” Veronica said with a groggy voice.

  “Veronica, it’s nice to see you again. It’s too bad we can only see each other when you’re injured, but nevertheless it’s time spent together.” Alejandro handed Veronica her bullet, hugged her lightly, and kissed her on both cheeks. “How are you feeling?”

  “Ah…”

  “Como mierda,” he laughed.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “This is the doctor,” Veronica said, smiling. “Doctor, this is Vincent.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said, grabbing my hand and shaking it aggressively.

  “Ouch, your grip is a little tight.”

  “Lo siento. Hey, is anyone missing an intestine?” he asked as he held up a drippy intestine with his bare hands. “Ooops…I must have forgotten to sew it back in after I took the bullet out.”

  My eyes widened, and I looked shocked as Veronica checked out the stitches on her stomach. “You didn’t,” Veronica said.

  “Don’t worry, it’s just a fake; see, it’s a replica soaked in blood,” he laughed.

  Veronica laughed with him, but I stayed silent with a straight face. “Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Oh, he no like joke,” Alejandro said with a dramatic sad face. “Some friends and I saved you from roasting in the sun. We dragged you here, and I operated on you and her, but I did her first because her wound was more severe. You don’t have to worry; I’m part of the resistance, even though I’m a doctor. Normally, I’d operate in the medical wing, but I had to take you down here because the governor shot you, so to the government, you are considered dead.

  “We told the government that we buried you in the graveyard, so that means you are confined to this room unless you have a perception filter. I don’t currently have one on me right now, but I’m sure I can get one for you soon. For now, my friends and I will bring you everything you need. As you are aware, you’ve just been shot, and you both were fairly dehydrated, so you need to take it easy and rest. Please don’t remove your IVs. This is the basement of the glass house, and we are currently underneath the medical wing. There are hallways down here that lead to other parts of the basement, but I want you to stay here.

  “The entire basement is not occupied by only the resistance; some of it is still being used by the government. and the resistance only uses the parts of the basement that are blocked off as not structurally safe. These parts of the basement are where we keep our supposedly dead people, who are hiding from the government, so please don’t be too loud or do anything that would compromise their position or yours. When you can walk longer distances, I will show you the way out.

  “While you’re here you might hear the wall creak some, and you may notice that the ceiling has cracks and there is sand practically everywhere. This room used to be filled to the ceiling with sand, since it was blocked off by the government. Little by little, the resistance carried most of the sand out of the room one bucket at a time to make a security room of our own. Those are old security computers that government security used to use before they got new ones and threw the old ones out. Maintenance recovered them for us, but we didn’t have anyone who knew how to fix them until now.” Alejandro took two folded pieces of paper out of his pocket and handed them out accordingly. “You understand everything I just told you?”

  “Yes,” Veronica said as we took the papers. “Alejandro, do you know if Johnny Cockit-Gilbertson is down here in the basement somewhere? He recently died, and I was wonderi
ng if anyone saved him.”

  “I’m not sure, Veronica, but if I hear anything I’ll let you know. Those papers are the orders from above…When I come back to check on you later, you will be asked whether or not you accept the mission. If you don’t accept the mission, be prepared to provide a valid reason why you can’t complete the mission. Don’t be afraid of the resistance, Vincent, we don’t hurt or kill anyone unless they are traitors and have alliance with the government. Veronica, you know what to do. I’ll see you guys later.”

  Alejandro climbed up the ladder in the back of the room, pushed on a square section of the ceiling, and lifted himself out before he closed the door.

  I looked down at my assignment.

  Vincent:

  The first part of your mission will consist of two parts:

  (1) Fix the zombie computers.

  (2) Hack into the government security feed, and redirect it to the zombie computers in the basement.

  If you accept this mission, you will later be assigned a further mission. When your first mission is complete, notify the doctor.

  I folded the paper up and slipped it in my pocket before I pulled out a chair and sat in front of a computer.

  “So, Veronica, how long have you been part of the resistance?”

  “I was recruited when I tried to escape from Walnut Cherryville several years ago.”

  “How come you didn’t tell us about the resistance before we tried to escape?”

  “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. As a recruiter, I have to pretend to be a neutral party in order to test your allegiance.”

  “So everything we went through could have been avoided…Is that what you’re telling me?” I said as I shook the mouse and glanced at the desktop. There were no icons remaining on the desktop, and the hard drive was wiped clean.

  “No, it had to be done. If I told you about the resistance from the start and you decided to side with the government, you could infiltrate the resistance, expose us to the government, and all the resistance members would be dead.”