“Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
Randy gave a snort of a laugh and looked around at me for the first time.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Randy, I know you’re just following orders and all that, but tell me just one thing, when you run out of excuses for yourself and you look at everything you’ve done since you got here today how are you going to live with yourself?”
“I will sleep just fine, trust me. And why would I want to put a stop to the king and all his delusions. I am second in command. I have it better here than I ever did in life.”
“You are aware he offered me your job, aren’t you?”
Randy stopped walking and turned to look at me.
“He what?”
“He told me that he wanted me to be his second in command. But if that’s your job then what do you think he has planned for you?”
“You’re mistaken, Charlie. He wouldn’t replace me.”
“Really? You really think that? You already know that he killed the cop and the shop owner to solidify his power here. If he ever thought that you were starting to become popular or powerful enough to put his position at risk, do you really think he would give a second thought to getting rid of you? You think he wouldn’t want to put somebody in your position that the community would have reason to distrust and shun? Somebody like, oh I don’t know, me.”
Randy stood looking at me with an appraising eye. He didn’t want to believe me, but I could see that what I was saying was making sense.
“Don’t wait for him to get you, take the initiative. Quit taking orders and take the lead.”
Randy started walking again. We were at the short hallway that led to the teenage boy holding the Uzi. Randy opened the door and looked directly into my eyes.
“Time to rejoin your friends, Charlie.”
I walked to the door, “Think about what I said, Randy. You know I’m right. It’s going to be you or him. Make the right decision.”
“You’ve given me something to think about, Charlie. I’ll talk to you about it later.”
At that he stepped aside and I walked into the room. I heard the door lock behind me
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - S I X
Walking into the room I saw that Judy and Daniel were sitting at the table. Veronica was sitting on the table talking to Judy. Sass, Shawn and Amanda were a bit away from the others deep in some conversation. I winked at Veronica and made my way towards Sass.
“I’m sorry man.” Sass said. “I was wrong about this place. We need to get out of here, like now.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Sass. Is everybody in agreement?”
Amanda sighed heavily at my question, “I think Veronica could care less either way. She’s going to go where we go. Judy trusts us and what we think, but Daniel isn’t going to leave this place. I think it would take the lord God almighty strolling into the room, doing a miracle or two to prove who he is, and then commanding us to leave to make Daniel agree.”
“I have something that will make him want to leave,” I said with a look to the table. Daniel was looking right at us. “Let's go on over there and have this talk; we’re on the clock.”
We sat at the table and I could feel Daniel mentally preparing himself for the fight that he was about to bring to me. That was fine. He could have his say but, in the end, he would be seeing things my way.
“Okay guys, I’m going to tell you what happened during my talk with the king, but we need to do this as quickly as possible because we only have an hour before Randy comes back.”
“What happens when Randy comes back?” Judy asked.
“We have to have an answer for him. Do we stay or do we go?”
“I would have thought the answer to that question would be easy,” Daniel said.
“Well, actually Daniel, there is no answer because the king told me that he would not let us leave. We stay and become part of Gray or we do things, as he put it, the hard way.”
The table grew quiet. It was Shawn that asked the question on everyone’s lips.
“What’s the hard way?”
“I’ll save you the specifics but the end product is he kills everyone but Judy and Veronica.”
Veronica cheered and clapped her hands saying, “YAY! I live!” I couldn’t help but laugh at her. It was a laugh that I didn’t know I had needed.
“Why won’t he let us leave Charlie?” Judy had spoken this time in her calm patient tone.
“He told me that if we leave then it will make everyone here think that we don’t trust him to keep us safe. He thinks that will inspire others to try and dethrone him. If there is one thing he is going to protect above all else, it’s his position.”
“Why do you say that?” This time it was Amanda.
I told the others the story of the cop and the shop owner. I left nothing out, and as I got to the end everyone reacted as I did to the deaths of the other two. Everyone that is, but Daniel. He continued to look at me with a small little smirk on his face.
“He really did that? He really bit hunks out of those men after he had killed them?” Veronica asked in a fearful voice. I think for the first time she was realizing that this was a very bad place.
“It’s what he told me he did, and I don’t think it was a lie. He made a big deal about being completely truthful with me, and I believe he was.”
“Why would he tell you that?” Sass asked.
“He told me that he wanted me to understand who he was as a person and exactly what the situation was that we were currently facing. I think he did it to try to intimidate me and create some fear of him in my mind.”
“What happens if we decide to stay?” Judy asked.
“The king wants me to publicly surrender my group to him in front of everyone. He wants me to say that he is more capable of keeping us safe than I am. He wants, as he called it, a passing of the torch. After that Sass and Shawn will join the scouts. Amanda, you will become the leader of the scouts. Judy and Veronica will join the other women, and Daniel, he said he hadn’t decided about you yet.”
I wanted to tell him that the king wanted him dead either way, but if I put that little nugget of information out there I figured it would push him over the edge and I would never be able to make him see things my way.
“And what of you, Charlie?” Shawn asked.
“Me? I am to be made second in command. Amanda, you have been promised to be my woman when we merge.”
Amanda laughed at me, “You wish.”
“Don’t worry, I am fairly sure I will be killed either way. Randy is the second in command at the moment, and I really don’t think that the king would trade him in for me.”
“What are we going to do?” Asked Shawn.
“We have to get out of here, like yesterday.” Veronica answered. Just as it was with Judy earlier, I think her saying it instead of me or Amanda added more weight to the words.
“Well that’s the problem,” Amanda said. “We have been discussing that matter and have yet to find a way to escape this room let alone the building.”
I smiled at her, “I have a plan to get us out of here and better yet, I've already set it in motion.”
Then the voice I had been dreading to hear finally spoke up.
“I can’t believe all of you are buying this,” Daniel said. “Has it ever crossed your minds that he could be making this up to convince us to leave? It all boils down to exactly what I have said before. It’s not the king that will do anything for power; it’s our own Mister Collins. He wants us to escape here so he can continue lording over this group. He wants to keep putting us all at risk just so he can be the man in charge.”
“Daniel, will you please shut up. Nobody agrees with anything you say.” This time it was Shawn coming to my defense, but I simply held up my hand and Shawn grew silent as well.
“He has a point. I could be making it all up. All I have going for me is my word. But I have not told you everything. And this
, Daniel, I think you may want to pay attention to. I know why we haven’t seen any of the women. I know what fate Judy and Veronica have if we stay here. I know why you will want us to escape this place as quickly as possible.”
Daniel looked at me as if it pained him to ask his question, but ask it he did. “And what reason is that?”
“The reason we haven’t seen any of the women is because we are not allowed to associate with the king’s wives.”
Everyone looked at me with confused faces for a second, then Sass spoke, “You…mean…he…?”
“Yes, Judy and Veronica will become the newest members of his harem.”
“You lie.” Daniel said in almost a shout.
“Think about it Daniel. You know I’m not lying. It explains everything. It is the reason why nobody has seen the other women even though we know they’re here. It is also the reason why he will kill everyone but Judy and Veronica if we force the issue.”
“Oh, hell no!” Veronica said. “He tries that with me, and I’ll make sure I am the last woman he shakes his stick at!”
This made a couple of us laugh again, but by the look on Veronica’s face she was far from kidding.
“Daniel, you know I’m not lying. I know you’re a smart guy. I know you can see the truth for what it is. This place is poison, and you know it.”
“You could still be lying, Charlie. You could still just be saying this to get us to do what you want.”
“You’re right, Daniel. I could be lying. But I also could be telling you the truth. I can’t prove any of what I’m saying so I guess you will just have to decide for yourself if the risk is worth it. If I’m lying then you lose the chance to stay somewhere safe. If I’m telling the truth you die and Judy will spend the rest of her days as the king’s slave.”
Daniel said nothing. He sat there quietly going over things in his mind. You could watch the features of his face move as he worked through the problem he was faced with. Eventually, he reached a conclusion and gave me a nod.
“What’s your plan?” Daniel asked.
I looked at the clock. We had wasted twenty minutes getting everyone up to speed, only forty left to get out of here. It was going to be close.
“Okay, part one is already in motion. Amanda, I know what I told you, but I lied. I picked a fight with the king. I picked a big fight.” I smiled at Amanda and she shook her head at me.
“Why am I not surprised?” She said.
“It’s all part of the plan. I needed him mad. I needed him so angry he couldn’t see straight. I wanted him brooding about, not only us, but specifically me.”
“And in doing so, you made sure that no matter what you would be killed?" Sass asked.
“Oh, I was dead long before I picked my fight. I knew that he couldn’t risk keeping me alive. I also believe that most of the rest of you would have been attacked outside the building and would be dead within a few weeks as well. We’re just not the kind of group to let some idiot push us around.”
Nods came from all around the table, even Daniel.
“I wanted him to call his most trusted people into the room with him. I wanted him to rant about us, about me. I wanted him to have a long talk with Randy and whoever else he trusts. I wanted him busy forming strategies and contingency plans for us. In short, I wanted him out of the way. I needed us a clear path to that back door. Thanks to Veronica we know that there are no cameras in here so the only way we can get spotted is if somebody physically sees us. With the king throwing his tantrum across the building there shouldn’t be many people out and about.”
“Forget that back door, Charlie. We can’t get out of here. This room is solid. Sass, Shawn and I have gone over every inch of it. There is no way out except the door, and it is dead bolted from the outside.” Amanda spoke in a tone that had a sense of finality to it. She was a professional and she hadn’t been able to find a way out of the room so how was I going to do it? In her mind, it was impossible.
“It’s simple, Amanda. If the only way out of this room is through that door then we are leaving through that door.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Amanda asked again with a hint of irritation in her voice.
“Personally, I plan to walk.”
Amanda frowned at me, “Charlie, you’re the one that said we were on a clock.”
She was right. I was wasting time.
“Take all the facts of our imprisonment into account. We are in a locked room which we have no means to escape. The only option we have is getting our captors to let us out. Now, who would that be? Some eight-teen year old kid with an Uzi. He’s no soldier. He’s just a kid. He will react like a kid. He will think like a kid. He will let us out of this room. All we have to do is ask the right way.”
“And what’s the right way?” Shawn asked.
“That’s easy,” I said standing up and walking around the table to where Judy and Veronica were sitting.
“We have all the tools we need to escape right here."
"Just tell us how." Daniel said, the irritation creeping back into his voice.
Here’s how. Judy, Veronica, and Amanda go to the door. Judy, you knock on it and tell the boy that the three of you need to use the bathroom.”
“Why me?” Judy asked, and I could see Daniel beginning to frown at me already.
“It has to be you, Judy. You just have that look about you that says you wouldn’t try anything. I guess maybe it’s the mother factor. He will believe you. Also, he is still a kid himself, and if he begins to give you the run around, you can use the momma voice on him. I am betting that will end the discussion right then and there.”
Judy looked at me a moment longer, “Well, it does make sense, I guess.”
“Once the door is open, Veronica it’s your turn to steal the show. Do what you do. Pop those buttons, look into his eyes, touch his arm and talk about his muscles. Whatever you have to do I want his eyes one place and one place only.”
“The girls?” Veronica said with a smile.
“The girls.” I confirmed. “We have to have all of his attention on you so he doesn’t see what Amanda is doing.”
“And what will I be doing?” Amanda asked.
“You, my dear Miss Asare, are going to be taking out our guard. If you think you can knock him out without needing any of the weapons then by all means go for it. If you would rather use a weapon to render him unconscious, just as well. I am not about to imagine I know how to do your job better than you do. We just need him out, quietly. We need him to not pull that trigger.”
“Especially, with me in front of him,” Veronica said with a laugh.
“I don’t like your plan, Charlie. Why can’t Veronica play Judy’s part in all of this? Why do you have to put Judy in danger? Is this some payback to me? What if that boy does pull the trigger as Amanda knocks him out and he shoots Judy? What do you plan to do then?”
And there it was. It was like I had been picking a lock, and finally, the door had popped open. I could see everything for what it was and I knew why Daniel had been attacking me all day. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust me to lead. He simply didn’t trust that I wouldn’t put her in danger. He didn’t trust that I wouldn’t end up causing him to lose the only thing he had left. He didn’t trust that I would keep Judy safe.
The first time he had gone off on me was after I had suggested that we go check out the strip club. Judy had said, “But we know there are zombies in there.” And her voice had that twitch of fear to it. Daniel heard that fear and he knew that she was right; I wanted us to go somewhere that was dangerous. He had to have asked himself if a good leader would purposely put his people in danger like that and the answer he had landed on was “no”. A good leader, a real leader, wouldn’t do that. Once he had decided I wasn’t a real leader he had to decide who would be the best person to lead this group and make sure that nobody was put in harm’s way. Of course there was only one answer for that question. He didn’t know any of us. He didn’t tru
st any of us. In that case the best person to lead would have to be him. BINGO! We have a winner. That’s why he went off. That is why he started targeting me. It had to be. It all made sense.
Once we got to the strip club and I didn’t include him as part of the group to go inside, it seemed as if he was pissed off that I wasn’t going to let him start his campaign of vengeance against the dead. But in truth, he was long past any vendetta. Now his mission was to make sure that Judy stayed safe no matter what. He had decided by now that he should be the leader. Maybe in his mind he already was the leader. That would explain a bit of what he said later.
By me excluding him from being part of the hunting party I was making him have to trust four of us to do a job that he had to be sure was done correctly. At that point we were looking to use the strip club as shelter for the night. It was dangerous because of the fire that was raging across the street, but the four lane blacktop was acting as a fire break and keeping everything contained on the opposite side of the road, as well, the natural slope of the terrain was carrying the fire away from us. He accepted the small risk the fire posed, but he couldn’t leave the safety of the building to four strangers. He had to be in there and make sure any zombies that were present were dealt with. That would be the only way that he would ever let Judy be locked inside.
By me telling him no, you’re sitting this one out, he now felt useless, powerless, all because some loser was ordering him around. He saw me as some clueless kid that was just going to keep putting Judy in danger. He lashed out at me because he determined that I was the biggest threat to his wife.
I could remember him asking me, “Who put you in charge Charlie?! I can think of a good number of us who are better suited for the job.”
Yes, I bet he could. It all made sense now. Inside the strip club when he shouted, “This is all your fault” I was so confused I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, but I could see it now. It was my fault. I put us there. He never would have had us in that building to start with so it had to be my fault.
He had told me that he was the only one that was in that strip club to do the right thing. Did he really see it that way? Did he really think that I didn’t give a damn about anybody but myself? Surely after everything I had done today he had to see the truth. But no, I really didn’t think he did. I think he had lost touch with reality by that point and he was only seeing things as he wanted to, not as it truly was. He saw me as evil so I was. It was that simple.
A Good Distance From Dying Page 23