Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead (13 page)

Chapter 16

Char felt her breath catch in her lungs. A whirlwind of thoughts spun wildly around inside her mind. Would Broadhurst recognize any of them? It was dark inside the bar. If he did, would he make a scene? If Broadhurst didn’t recognize them, how would Grace and Sam react? There were far too many variables.

She caught Tony’s eyes. He was staring at Benjamin. She was certain the thoughts that flashed through her head were passing through the minds of her friends, as well.

“I’m Frank, just Frank. Nice to meet you,” he said, nodding a hello to everyone.

“Nice to meet you,” Tony said, as if he hoped to keep the introductions short.

“This is Tony,” Benjamin said.

Broadhurst held out his hand. Tony shook it. It resembled a reluctant action, forced. Apprehensive.

“And this is Sam,” Benjamin said.

Broadhurst made a move to reach across the table to shake Sam’s hand. His eyes picked up Grace. He stopped, stood up straight, and dropped his hands to a holstered weapon.

Grace looked like she might scream.

Why did he have a gun?

Broadhurst pointed at Sam. “These are the people who stole the town’s supplies!”

The gun was out and pointed at Sam’s head.

Tony jumped up and slammed his arm across Broadhurst’s. The gun discharged once, twice. Broadhurst aimed and fired off a third round.

Char bent low, wrapped her arms around Broadhurst’s waist, and drove him sideways, dropping him hard onto the floor.

Chairs skidded across wood as people moved out of the way.

Broadhurst wasn’t going to let it go. He rolled Char off, and delivered a blow with his elbow into her ribs. She grunted and tried to pull away.

Sam dove onto Broadhurst.

Char saw things moving too fast to be real. She heard cries, screams, and the echoes of cries and screams as Grace helped her up.

A glass mug smashed over Grace’s skull. The woman’s legs wobbled and she crumpled to the floor. Blood and shards of glass mixed seeping into the wood.

Spinning around, Char caught a fist across her jaw. Benjamin grabbed for the man who struck her. This man wore a gun around his waist, too.

Someone yelled for someone else to get the sheriff.

A woman got past Benjamin and the man he struggled to restrain, and kicked Sam in the side of the head. Sam fell off Broadhurst.

Face bloodied, Broadhurst didn’t relent. He pummeled Sam. His fists crashed into Sam’s face. The flesh was turning to pulp.

Char needed to help Sam. She couldn’t find Tony.

She knelt next to Grace, who was unconscious, but breathing.

Sam was limp under Broadhurst. He didn’t struggle. Broadhurst never stopped. The punches smacked like a baseball bat repeatedly into Sam’s face while the woman kicked Sam wherever she could, growling with each slam of her heel into his groin, and thighs.

They were going to kill him.

Benjamin had the one man in a half nelson, and the man continued to struggle and resist. Char grabbed the gun from the man’s belt and checked the clip before she fired a shot into the air.

Patrons of the bar had mostly cleared out, only those in the back half who couldn’t safely get around the brawl to an exit stayed huddled close in the back corner.

Tables tipped as the man knocked Benjamin backwards.

“This is over!” Char said.

The woman who had been kicking Sam turned around. She withdrew throwing knives from a harness worn slung over her shoulders. Char didn’t hesitate. She fired the gun. Bullets tore into her chest. Blood soaked through the shirt as she stumbled to the side, lost her balance and dropped onto a table. The table barely moved. She slid forward and off the table hitting the floor face first. She didn’t move again.

This caught Broadhurst’s attention. He skidded around Sam’s lifeless body, snagged an arm under Sam’s head and pulled him up onto his lap. “Drop the gun, girl. I’ll snap his fuckin’ neck.”

Sam looked dead already.

If blood didn’t bubble from his nostrils, Char would have thought he was dead.

Char raised the weapon.

“Char, don’t,” Benjamin said. “Frank, let him go.”

The guy he’d been holding dropped an elbow into Benjamin’s belly. It was enough of a distraction that he could wiggle free of Ben’s hold. He tackled Char. The gun flew from her free from her grip.

Char saw one of the knives the woman dropped.

The man punched her, his first slammed into her temple. She saw black stars clearly, while everything else in front of her fell out of focus. Her ears rang.

She locked her fingers around the knife and stabbed the man in the neck.

His blood sprayed. It was warm, sticky, and covered her face.

Broadhurst still held Sam by the head.

“Let him go, Frank,” Benjamin said. His voice quivered more with each of the four words. He stood with his legs spread, bent forward, and one arm out. It was awkward, but he was able to pull the man off Char. “You all right? Let me handle this.”

“He’s mine,” she said.

“Char, let me handle this. I’m a deputy. Please, just let me take care of this.”

She rolled onto her stomach, pushed up onto her knees, and then lunged forward, over Sam. She dove onto Broadhurst and Broadhurst screamed.

“Char!” Benjamin said.

She didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. She stabbed Broadhurst in the chest. She pulled the knife out and plunged it in again. Broadhurst was dead. His eyes were open wide. She stabbed the throwing knife into his heart one more time and then twisted the blade. Once she felt the edge scrape across bone she pulled the knife out and wiped the blood off on his blood soaked shirt.

Someone grabbed her from behind.

She spun around, slashing out with the blade.

Benjamin winced, and backed away. “Charlene!”

She saw Tony. He was on the floor, under the table where they had been sitting. She crawled toward him. The wood floors seemed to drink the blood that spilled from his body.

“Tony?”

He didn’t answer, didn’t move.

She knelt next to him.

His eyes were closed, his mouth open. The hole in his forehead had been accidental, but fatally placed. She looked back at Broadhurst. He’d done this. She wanted to stab him again. The man had died too fast, too easily.

“Olek. I’ll get her,” Char heard Benjamin saying.

“Ma’am, drop the knife.”

She stared at Tony. This wasn’t right. It shouldn’t have happened. They’d fought side by side taking on hordes of infected together. It didn’t end this way. It couldn’t. Her friends had been cheated.

“The knife, Char, put it down,” Benjamin said.

She couldn’t go through this again, being alone. The loss was too much. Her heart ached. She lowered herself onto Tony, hugging him. She cried.

#  #  #

Sheriff Huber locked the barred cell and stood there with the ring of keys in his hand.

Char sat on a thin mattress. She wanted to wash the blood off. It was dry and crusting on her skin. “I want to know how Grace is,” she said. She didn’t look up, or at the officer. Instead she stared down at the gunmetal gray floor.

“Right now, I think it will be best if you worry about yourself.”

Char didn’t respond. She pushed back on the cot, pressing her back to the cinderblock. She drew in her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.

“I’ll be back in a little while. You and I are going to have a talk. I want your side of the story,” the sheriff said. “I’m not sure what you’ll be able to tell me to make this any better. You do have the right to an attorney. Deputy Olek told you that when he arrested you, correct?”

Char could not believe that Tony was dead. She also wanted to know how Sam was. This place had doctors. She wanted to assume they were being cared for.

“Charlene, did Deputy Olek read you your rights when he arrested you?”

“Is Sam okay?”

“Your friends are being taken care of. I need to know if you understand what I’m saying to you.”

It was her idea to come to Arcadia. It was her fault they’d stopped running. The smart thing would have been to keep pushing on, putting more distance between them and Broadhurst. She wanted her weapons back. She wanted to collect her friends and leave this horrible town.

Maybe they wouldn’t want to go with her. She couldn’t blame them if they decided just to cut her loose.

“I’ll be back, ma’am. We’ll talk more then, okay?”

Broadhurst deserved a much slower death.

“I just want a moment with her,” a woman said. “Please, sheriff.”

“Talk through the bars,” Sheriff Huber said. “I’ll give you five minutes. Not a second more. Do me a favor. See if she wants a lawyer. I can’t get her to answer me.”

There was a moment of silence. Char hoped they had both gone.

“Char?” The woman had stayed. It was Rebecca Bowman. “What happened tonight?”

What happened tonight?

Char lowered her forehead to her knees. She tried to hold back tears. The crying started, regardless. The sobbing made her shoulders shake. She didn’t deserve to cry. She didn’t deserve to feel this way. Self-pity was reserved for innocent people who were wronged. “This was my fault,” she said. “Tony’s dead and it’s my fault.”

“Tell me what happened?” Rebecca said. “Please. I want to help you. You’re going to need help now. Let the sheriff get you an attorney.”

“You don’t get it. They started this. They kidnapped my friends. They had Sam and Grace bagged, tied and loaded in the back of a rig. Tony and I, we didn’t steal from Broadhurst. We just got our friends back. We did what needed doing.”

“You didn’t steal the supplies?”

“We stole the supplies. After. After we got back our friends back.”

“Charlene, if this wasn’t your fault—”

Char punched fisted hands into the mattress. “This was my fault. All of it!”

“You can’t say things like that, Char. Please. You don’t understan—”

“Go. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave!” Char got off the bed and walked into the furthest corner, she faced the cinderblock and tried to pull herself into the shadows. She just wanted to disappear.

Chapter 17

Sheriff Huber and Benjamin Forti sat across the desk from the mayor.

“Let’s run through this again,” Vincent said. He leaned back in his chair, his fingertips pressed so tightly together they were white. When he’d learned of the events taking place at the Bent Elbow he had been home, getting ready for bed. He’d put back on the clothing he’d just taken off. The wrinkles and tie loosely around his neck annoyed him. Most of the time he enjoyed the position as mayor of Arcadia. In the last three years they’d had some crime, there would always be crime, regardless of laws, regardless of the punishment. That baffled him.

“When I got there—”

Vincent held up a hand. “Start with you, Ben.”

“I don’t know, dad,” Ben said. “I mean, it was going well. Then Broadhurst and his crew walked into the bar and I brought them over. Figured I’d introduce the prospects to the suppliers. Let them see how friendly the place is, and Frank freaked. He accused them of stealing the supplies.”

“He reported that earlier today. Showed up without the rig,” Huber said. “Claimed raiders hit him. Lost some men during the attack.”

“Next thing I know, Frank’s got his gun out.”

“Why do we allow the suppliers to keep their weapons when they’re in town? I don’t see why they can’t drop them at the gate and pick them up when they leave,” Vincent said. He picked up a pad and pen and jotted notes onto the paper. “We’re going to readdress this issue. I’m sorry, Ben. Go on.”

“The guy, Tony, tried to get the gun out of his hand. The gun went off and he was actually shot and killed. Charlene attacked Frank. Knocked him down. From there, it was just out of control. I’m not sure I can even recall how everything happened,” Ben said, and shook his head as if he were trying to wipe the memories out of his mind.

“But Char shot and killed a woman?” Vincent said. “Ben?”

“Yes.”

“And she then killed two men. Stabbed them to death?” Vincent said. “Ben?”

“Yes, but—”

Vincent held up a hand, silencing his son. He then closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Look, I know you like this girl, Ben, but you know how the courts work here.”

“I don’t think it was her fault.”

“Who’s was it? Frank’s?”

“He pulled a gun, dad.”

“And he’s dead. How is he going to stand trial? This girl —woman— killed three people. That is excessive violence. Three people! These weren’t zombies.”

“She was protecting her friends,” Ben said.

“We have three rules here, Ben. They’re simple. No stealing, no fighting and no murder. It’s kind of the Ten Commandments in three simple rules. She violated all three.”

A knock on the door interrupted his train of thought. He sighed. It was the middle of the night. The building was busy with people. Four people were dead. Everyone in town seemed to have learned the news already. City Hall was busier now than it was during the day.

“Come in,” Vincent said.

The office door opened and Deputy Sheriff Olek leaned in. “The boy, Samuel Gerringer? He didn’t make it. I just received word. Brain was swollen. Doc tried to relieve pressure. Drilled holes into the skull. He hemorrhaged. Was nothing more that could be done.”

Vincent silently nodded. “And the black woman?”

“No change. She’s still non-responsive. Doc said she’s in a coma.”

“She going to make it?”

“He said too soon to tell,” Deputy Sheriff Olek said. “And mayor?”

“Yes?”

“Rebecca Bowman is here to see you.”

Of course she is, he thought. “Send her in,” he said. He didn’t look at the deputy or his son. “Five people are dead. Five.”

“Mayor?”

“Come in, Rebecca. Please, come on in,” Vincent said as he stood up.

Benjamin and Huber stood up, as well. “Priestess,” they said.

“Close the door, would you?” Vincent said.

Rebecca closed the door.

Vincent went to a small closet and removed a folding chair.

“I’ll sit there,” Ben said to Rebecca. “You can have my chair.”

“That’s not necessary, but thank you,” she said. “Vincent, I just talked to the young girl.”

“And your thoughts?”

“She is angry and confused.”

“Remorseful?” Vincent said, sounding hopeful.

Rebecca shook her head. “It’s not that black and white. She blames herself for her friend’s death.”

Vincent thought about telling the priestess the newest death count, but refrained.

“She claims that Frank Broadhurst and his men kidnapped some of her friends and that they fought his men to get them back,” she said.

“And stole the supply truck?” Deputy Sheriff Huber said.

“They did.”

“Point is, whatever happened outside of Arcadia, I don’t have much control over that. I don’t want control over that. I have my hands full with everything that takes place inside these walls,” Vincent said, pounding his finger onto his desk blotter. “Inside this town, my town,
our town
, they let shit come to a head. They all but destroyed the Bent Elbow. They turned that place into a bloody mess. How many people were there tonight?”

“A few families,” Benjamin said. “I’m not sure. Twenty people?”

“Twenty people witnessed a killing spree,” Vincent said. He pointed at Huber. “You get statements from everyone?”

Huber nodded. “We did.”

“We have never seen anything like this. Last thing even remotely close was...I can’t think of a single thing even remotely close to the shit mess this girl caused in less than a day inside our borders,” Vincent said.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Benjamin said.

“I’m not saying it was all her fault, but your story, Rebecca’s, they aren’t much different. The bottom line is, the two groups had bad blood. They went at it. People are dead. If Broadhurst was alive, I’d be charging him as well. But he’s not. He’s dead. His crew is dead. Those deaths are far more important to me than those of prospects are. Frank and his team were our best suppliers. I don’t know where they dug shit up, but whatever we needed, they got. How do you replace a crew like that during times like these, Ben? Huh? How?

“When the town finds out that we don’t have the supplies we ordered…”

“Dad—”

“We put the laws into place for a reason, Ben. We can’t let this woman get away with stealing, fighting, and murder. There is just no plausible way around this. It isn’t the first time someone’s been sentenced, it won’t be the last. It wasn’t easy then seeing someone sent to the Cog, it won’t ever be easy.”

“The Morales Gang,” Ben said.

Vincent shrugged. “There is always an exception. The thing is, we have to follow the laws we’ve put in place. It is the only way to prevent chaos and anarchy. It’s why Arcadia works. We have structure. We have order, Ben. We have order.”

#  #  #

Char was the only person in the holding cell. The windowless room was dark, despite cased fluorescent lighting. Everything was a deep hunter green or dark grey. There was no way she’d sleep, despite how heavy her eyes felt. She closed them and hoped she’d drift off, but it didn’t happen. Instead she paced, or stood gripping the bars; her head placed against them and stared at the floor.

She counted off steps. Twenty-four from one end to the other, and twenty-four from side to side. She wanted to keep busy. If she wasn’t going to be able to sleep, she needed something else to occupy her mind.

No nightmare lasted this long.

Three years, and counting.

There had to be an end it. There had to be a way to stop the pain, the suffering.

Truth was, she’d tried. She’d done her best. After her brother and father died, she didn’t think she’d be able to push on. She hadn’t wanted to keep at it. There seemed no point. She remembered sitting on the side of the road under a hot Mexican sun, wondering why she’d continued the fight. Why had she decided life was worth living?

She wished she could recall the reason.

Something had convinced her not to give up.

Then.

Right now, she didn’t bother searching for that conviction. She saw the hopelessness. Arcadia was a facade. It couldn’t last. The lights, the electricity, all that was cosmetic. Appearance.

It was little else.

Char unmade her bed, tossing the blanket onto the floor. She balled up the sheet and stood on the mattress. Her father would never approve. He always wanted the best for her, and for Cash. He sacrificed for them.

He never told them as much, but she knew it. She’d always known it.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said. Her lips quivered. She wanted him to be here. If anyone could fix this mess, he could. He had a way of making her feel safe, confident, and special. “Don’t be mad at me, daddy. Don’t hate me for this.”

She looped the sheet over the bars that ran along the top of the cage, and knotted it in place.

She had no idea about heaven and hell, despite having been raised to believe in God and to fear the devil. Certain things were a sin, according to the Bible. She wondered how God could hold anything against her at this point in the game. She’s worked so hard at staying alive. If anything, He should be delighted that she’s finally coming home.

She wanted to see her father and brother again.

She wanted to join them.

If there was a Heaven, that was where they’d be. Together.

Soon the three of them could be reunited.

A tear slid down her cheek and she smiled as she brushed it away with the back of her hand.

Unsure how to construct and actual noose, Char tied the opposite end of the sheet and knew once she placed her head into the hole and jumped off the bed, the knot would slide tight around her throat.

She didn’t care if it didn’t kill her right away. She would die, suffocating eventually, and that was reassuring enough. Holding the sides of the hoop wide she stuck her head in and stepped off the mattress.

The knot tightened.

Char gasped. Her legs kicked, at first.

Survival instinct, she assumed. She forced them to go limp, and closed her eyes and waited. She thought,
Who could tell me I’m wrong? Who could say I haven’t tried my hardest? I still failed. Despite it all, in spite of everything I’ve overcome, I still failed. You can’t blame me now for finally deciding just to give up.

This had been easier than she thought. There was no fear of dying. She felt nothing except empty and alone and tired. She welcomed death. She only hoped she didn’t have to wait much longer.

Spots floated past on the insides of her eyelids.

Her lungs began to ache. She wasn’t sure if she was holding her breath, or if her weight dangling off the knot prevented her from breathing. What she did know was that it was working.

As the oxygen to the brain was severed, her legs began involuntarily to kick. Her body twitched, and spasmed.

She was dying, and in only a few moments more she knew she would be dead.