Utopia Project: Everyone Must Die

by Billy Dering

  Soon, most of the soldiers were dead, but Kid knew the battle was far from over. Despite his terrible fall, Elder-1 was recovering and picking himself up on the first landing, and he was armed.

  “Open the hatch,” Kid forced out in a strained voice, still trying to catch his breath after his fall. “Jess, let his arm go! Let him drop,” he said as he looked up at the soldier who still had his arm pinned.

  Jess opened the hatch. The limp soldier started to fall down the stairs as soon as his arm was freed. His upper body slid over a metal crossbeam which wedged firmly under his armpit, preventing him from tumbling off of the tower.

  Kid saw Jess peering out of the opening above. His friend had a look of despair upon seeing that the soldier was still hanging on. A second later, the remaining life seemed to drain from Jess’s face. “Kid, behind you!”

  On the landing below the final flight of steps, Elder-1 was on one knee. He seemed to have recovered from his fall, and had his weapon in his hand. Snapping, “Fleson,” at the soldier clinging to the crossbeam, the elder then aimed his weapon at Kid from pointblank range.

  Instinctively, Kid sprang into action. He felt like a wild animal as he jumped the final ten steps of the stairwell and landed right on the enemy. For a split second, he thought of Sara, and all of his pent-up rage resurfaced. With an aggression like he had never felt before, he reared back and punched Elder-1 in the face, breaking his nose. He then grabbed the hand holding the weapon and held on with all of his might. For an instant, the elder jerked his wrist and turned the weapon toward Kid’s shoulder and pulled the trigger. Without a millisecond to spare, he twisted and pushed Elder-1’s hand hard enough that the shot went off into the woods. He was desperately trying to stay out of the line of fire.

  Jess felt distraught and wanted to help Kid, but he realized he had a big problem of his own. The soldier who was clinging to the crossbeam had lifted himself up and jumped down to the stairs. With great quickness, he sprang up through the hatch before Jess was able to close it. It happened so fast that Jess’s only defense was to backhand the gun out of the soldier’s good hand.

  The weapon slid over by Maria. She snapped it up and threw it with a quick flick of her wrist. The gun hit a plexiglass pane and bounced right back at her. “Shit!” She lunged for it, but was too late.

  As the soldier grabbed it and took aim, Jess kicked the gun. This time the weapon flew cleanly out the open windowpane. The soldier attacked and pushed him against a plexiglass windowpane. Jess said, “Ion,” but the word came out as a gasp and did not have the right inflection to make the soldier collapse. Despite having broken fingers from having his hand pinned by the hatch, the soldier had two hands on Jess’s throat, preventing him from uttering any words.

  The girls stood up, both appearing unsteady, but ready to rush the soldier. Jess waved them off.

  The plexiglass was bowing out as the weight of Jess and the soldier kept pushing against it. The death-grip on Jess’s throat was beginning to tighten, so he pointed to the back of the soldier’s legs and gave an upward thrusting motion. The girls at first didn’t understand what he wanted, and then Maria seemed to get it. She crawled over behind the soldier and Heidi followed close behind.

  Jess also pointed at his own legs, giving a downward pulling motion. The girls nodded their heads. His face was turning bright red. Using his trembling fingers to count to three, Jess stopped resisting and pushed backward with all of his might. As he did, he hooked one arm under the soldier’s armpit and threw him into the plexiglass. With both of them hitting at the same time, the windowpane busted out and both men started falling out the open window.

  Maria and Heidi grabbed the ankles of the soldier. His momentum increased as the girls lifted and gave his legs a forceful thrust. All in one fluid motion, the soldier had flown out of the basket. But as he started his lethal descent, he was able to grab Jess’s hair and rip out a chunk.

  Jess’s midsection teetered on the bottom of the window frame, with his feet flailing in the air inside the tower basket. After the tug to his hair, his momentum had shifted to his upper body. Seeing the ground 100 feet below, Jess’s eyes were wide open in sheer panic. He yelled, “No!” and backpedaled with his palms pushing against the outside of the basket, like a scared cat trying to make a hasty retreat. Both girls reached in desperation for Jess’s steadily rising ankles. Clinging tightly, they pulled his legs down. Inching himself backward, he dropped his feet to the floor. Bending over, he huffed through rapid breaths, “My life… just passed before my eyes.”

  Maria continued to hold Jess’s leg for a moment. “Thank God,” she whispered.

  “I should be thanking you, both of you.” He put his hand on Maria and Heidi’s shoulders. “Is Kid alright?” He crawled across the floor and peered under the hatch.

  Tighter! Tighter! Kid urged himself. If you let go of his wrist, you are dead!

  Elder-1 pulled the trigger of his weapon while wrestling with Kid. Jess reacted just in time, and the shot hit the hatch while he was closing it.

  “Keep it closed!” Kid yelled up as he struggled to hold the enemy hand holding the weapon.

  Elder-1 was battling hard. With his free hand, the older combatant threw a quick and solid punch that landed square on Kid’s jaw and bottom lip. He shook it off, but knew his lip would be gushing blood. As the elder reared back to throw another punch, Kid’s instantaneous reaction was to head-butt him before the punch landed. Leading with his forehead, he quickly popped Elder-1 on his already broken nose. The fist, which was intended for Kid’s face, unraveled and grabbed at the brutally smashed and repositioned nose as he let out a sharp yell.

  After wrestling for a couple of minutes, the embattled elder still maintained a tight one-handed grip on his weapon. But Kid succeeded in turning the wrist so that the weapon was aimed right at the face of Elder-1. “This, is for everyone you’ve killed,” Kid said in a harsh voice with blood steadily dripping from his lip. “Especially Sara Hyland.”

  The dazed elder gasped, now out of breath.

  “Our escape was a split second away from perfect, and you assholes killed… my… Sara.”

  A look of surprise crossed Elder-1’s face, followed by a last surge of anger fueled energy. “Hyland? No!” he yelled as he tried to turn his weapon and for a second succeeded.

  Gritting his teeth, Kid viciously twisted the elder’s wrist and heard ligaments tear. With the muzzle nearly back in position, he put his finger over the elder’s and pressed the trigger. The shot more than grazed Elder-1’s right shoulder and his body froze instantly. Leaning over, just inches away from the elder’s face and forever panic-stricken eyes, Kid whispered with a pained voice, “How does it feel?” He watched as the enemy’s open mouth could not draw in a single breath. Within moments, Elder-1 was dead.

  In the eerie stillness, Kid did not move for a long moment. Blood dripped from his lip and rhythmically tapped on the metal platform. “How… does… it… feel?” he repeated with his voice quivering. Taking his hands off of the dead body, he just stared. The elder was frozen with one hand in the air and the other with the weapon aimed at himself. The old man’s eyes, although seeing nothing, were wide open.

  Collapsing on the landing, Kid lay on his back panting. Putting his face in his hands, he mumbled, “Sara.” As his adrenaline level started to come down from maximum plus, he found himself dwelling on Elder-1’s apparent recognition of the name Hyland. Why would the name mean anything to him? Did he interact with Sara on the ship? Did he know who her father was? A loud voice broke his already fragile concentration.

  “Kid!” Heidi yelled with the hatch now open. “Do you need help?”

  When he pulled his hands from his face, his palms had bright red smears. “No, he’s dead,” he yelled up. Holding his shirt-sleeve firmly against his busted lip, he got to his feet and trudged up the stairs.

  Back inside the top of the tower, Jess put his hand on Kid’s shoulder. “With the hatch open a little, I saw that inc
redible leap you took. Do you realize how close you were to falling to your death?”

  “We were out of options.”

  “Saved by the flying Mr. Kung-Fu,” Maria said as she gingerly hugged him. “Wow, that has to hurt,” she added as she pointed at his lip.

  “It could be worse.” Kid turned and put his arm around Heidi. “You’re shaking.”

  “So are you.”

  “Is everyone alright?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Maria responded. “We wound up throwing that last guy out the window. Jess damn near went with him, but Heidi and I saved his ass. He owes us.” She looked at Heidi. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he pays that back for a long time to come.”

  “Ready to get down from this forsaken thing?” Kid stepped back toward the square opening in the floor.

  “Just give me a minute to rest first.” Heidi sat down. “Still a little dizzy here.”

  “Me too,” Maria echoed.

  “I’ll meet you all at the bottom. Hold the railings and just yell down if you need my help. I better make sure there are no survivors down there.”

  Kid labored down the steps. At the first landing, Elder-1’s body lay frozen with his arm raised and his weapon trained on himself. Grabbing the raised arm, Kid pulled the body to the edge of the landing. He felt the same discomfort at the rigidity of the body that he felt when he moved Brian, and it made him cringe. Crouching down, he pushed the body off of the tower. The long descent ended with a muffled thud. Continuing down, as he encountered soldiers strewn in the stairwell, he would make sure they were dead, or at least brain-dead, and roll them over the side to the snowy ground below.

  As Kid reached the bottom, he approached a body on the ground next to the steps. Soldier number 801, around 18 years of age, had fallen on top of another soldier and was somehow still alive. He did not appear seriously injured from the fall, but was still in a deep trance. Kid knew the soldier would not last long. He would have let the guy just slip away, but much to his dismay, 801 bore a resemblance to Kid’s own younger brother. He sat and argued with himself. Should I save him? He thought back to what he and Heidi had talked about, and their plans for freeing the humanity in this new society. They needed to learn as much as they could about them and here was a live specimen, but not for much longer. Despite the internal conflict, he made a decision, one that he suspected would have implications. In the proper tone, he snapped, “Fleson!” Almost instantaneously, the young soldier snapped out of it. He returned to reality, but was weak and disoriented.

  Standing up, Kid gathered all of the weapons in sight and threw them into the woods. He found a couple of bungee cords in the back of Queen Anne and tied up 801.

  A few moments later, a cacophony of hollow clanging emanated from the metal steps as the group came down from the tower. Once on the ground, they walked past the body of Elder-1 in the snow. The girls stopped for a moment, and stared at his lifeless body without saying a word. Snow was stuck to half of his face, leaving one eye staring straight ahead.

  Jess walked over to Kid and the soldier. “What are you doing?”

  “He’s alive. I think he can help us,” Kid answered.

  “I think he can kill us too. Are you crazy?” he asked, sounding irritated.

  “I’ll explain it all to you later. I tied him up. He’s unarmed and extremely weak.”

  Jess looked confounded. “But he’ll recover.”

  “Even if he…” Heidi peered at his uniform number and continued, “…801, does, we know the magic word,” she chimed in as she walked over.

  “That’s true, if he makes one wrong move, we yell the word and put him out of his misery,” Maria said putting her arm around Jess, trying to calm him down.

  “That’s reassuring… a word,” he quipped.

  “Hey, don’t knock it. That’s all we had when we were trapped up there,” Kid retorted as he pointed to the top of the fire tower.

  Jess hesitated then gave a conciliatory head nod.

  Kid and Heidi helped the weakened 801 up and walked him to the back of the vehicle. The rest of the group piled in and they drove off.

  “And I thought my hair looked funny…” Maria stared at Jess’s raw, red scalp. He swept other strands of hair over his bald spot, but wasn’t doing a good job of hiding it.

  Kid sat in the back between Heidi and the young soldier. The miles of trails and scrub pines passed before his eyes, and like his mind, became a blur.

  Jess broke the silence. “Well, where to now?”

  “Can we at least stop by the beach?” Maria asked.

  “And Jess said I was crazy?” Kid quipped.

  “Seriously, my diabetes medications are there, and I still feel dizzy. We could find Metformin anywhere, but the other one I take is a lot harder to find and I don’t have any more at my house. I’ve been feeling kind of squirrely, but just didn’t say anything.”

  “I am surprised you’ve made it this far without it,” Jess said.

  “And we still have all of that food from the supermarket at Old Man Drexer’s. We might as well grab it while we are there,” Maria added as she put her hand to her stomach.

  Jess seemed to support the idea. “I guess we could make sure our plan worked, and that the soldiers are stuck on the ships.”

  He and Maria turned toward the back seat.

  Too tired and emotionally drained to care, Kid could only muster a simple response. “Fine. But if we see any signs of them having reached land, we grab Maria’s medication and high-tail it out of there and get away from the beach.”

  Heidi, who had been resting her cheek against Kid’s shoulder, finally seemed to absorb the present game plan. She jerked up her head. “Wait. The beach?”

  Kid leaned back and looked at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brian. The way they left him…” Her voice was laden with despair.

  He exhaled and grabbed her hand. “Before we went out to the ship, Jess and I made a grave in the sand up by the boardwalk.”

  “Can you take me there?” Her eyes pleaded.

  “Of course, but we would have to look at it from the boardwalk. We can’t risk being spotted on a wide-open beach.”

  “That’s fine. I just want to be able to see it, and pay my respects.”

  Leaning forward, Kid said, “Speaking of being spotted, when we get there we need to stay out of sight of the ships.”

  Jess shrugged. “We can park up the block and sneak up to Old Man Drexer’s.”

  “I don’t think they know we are still alive,” Kid noted. “Let’s try to keep it that way.”

  Chapter 33

  January 2, 2045

  Monday, Late Morning

  New Jersey coast

  Seven days after the event

  Parking a block in from the beach, the group stepped out of Queen Anne to walk the rest of the way to the shack. The residences along the block would keep them out of sight from the ships.

  Kid untied 801’s feet and helped him out of the vehicle. The captive’s hands were still bound and he seemed weak, so Kid did not feel concerned that he would try and make a run for it. Still, he held onto the rope tying 801’s wrists together and walked with him up the sidewalk.

  Once the group reached the ocean road, they crouched and ran across the street. Hidden by the ridge of sand between the boardwalk and the sea, they ran south until they found the path between the dunes that led to Old Man Drexer’s shack. With the house fully exposed on the beach, they again crouched as they made for the rickety wood steps, trying to maintain cover by keeping the stairwell between them and the ships.

  Kid walked the bound soldier inside and sat him down on the floor in front of the couch. He could tell that their captive was still spaced out from his prolonged period in a zombie-like trance. “You are not going to try and run are you?”

  “No,” 801 said assuredly.

  “Good. I don’t want to have to tie your legs back up.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like the
ships have moved at all,” Jess concluded as he peered out a cracked and dusty window. “And I don’t see anyone coming ashore.”

  Kid nodded. “And we didn’t see any already ashore when we got here.”

  “I know we can’t stay here, but let’s take five.” Jess plopped down on the plaid couch, letting out a loud exhale.

  Maria found her medications still on the counter. “Thank God.” She swallowed a pill and secured the prescription bottles in her pocket. She then joined Jess on the couch and put her head against his shoulder.

  Inside the kitchen, Kid rummaged through the bags of food. He then searched the small living room, and even the bathroom. “Where is the instant coffee?” Nobody had seen it or touched it. “Odd. I know we grabbed some from the supermarket,” he noted.

  “What isn’t odd these days,” Maria responded.

  Walking over to the last remaining room, Kid jiggled the locked knob for a few seconds. “Should I just bust the door down?”

  “It might be an improvement,” Jess quipped.

  Kid threw his shoulder into it and it swung open. He found himself staring into a small bedroom. The missing jar of instant coffee was on a nightstand next to a half full cup. His eyes turned to a lumpy mattress on the floor which appeared to be moving up and down, as if it was breathing. The tips of a pair of shoes were sticking out from underneath, so he kicked them. He heard a quiet, “Ouch.”

  Couldn’t be a soldier, he thought. He felt no fear at that point. After the incident at the fire tower, his anxiety-bank had long since been depleted. Grabbing the mattress, he quickly flipped it up against the wall. An old man lay on the floor looking at him like a deer in headlights. The man’s beard and clothes were equally scraggly.

  “I can’t believe it, there’s someone else alive here.” Kid offered his hand.

  The group in the living room heard the commotion and jumped to their feet.

  “Who are you?” the man asked in a high-pitched voice as he tightened his hands against his chest.