Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead Read online

“Did you then witness Ms. McKinney stab Frank Broadhurst?”

  “I did.”

  “Where did she stab him?”

  “The chest. But he was holding Charlene’s —Ms. McKinney’s friend hostage.”

  “Hostage?”

  “Broadhurst had Sam by the head, was threatening to snap his neck.” Benjamin sounded angry, and spoke for the first time with animation. He sat forward with his hands up, arms out, and trying to convey what happened with his actions.

  “And this was when you commanded Ms. McKinney to stop and let you handle the situation.”

  “I didn’t command her,” Benjamin said.

  “Did you, or did you not to tell Ms. McKinney to stop, and let you handle the situation?”

  Trieste stood up. “Objection. Asked and answered.”

  “Sustained. Move on, Counselor.”

  Connors pursed his lips. Being chastised didn’t bode well for him. “Did Ms. McKinney listen to you when you told her to stop and let you handle the situation?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it true that right after you told her to stop, and stand down, that she attacked Broadhurst and stabbed him in the chest?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he die when she stabbed him in the chest?”

  “Objection,” Trieste said. “We’ve not be given any supporting evidence to show Benjamin Forti’s medical background.”

  “Sustained.”

  Connors smiled. “Do you believe Frank Broadhurst was dead when Ms. McKinney stabbed him in the chest?”

  “He could have been.”

  “Did Ms. McKinney believe Frank Broadhurst was dead after she stabbed him in the chest?”

  “Objection, calls for speculation.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Walton said.

  “How many times did Ms. McKinney stab Frank Broadhurst in the chest?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was it more than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “More than five times?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Less than five times?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t be positive.”

  “If I told you that Frank Broadhurst was stabbed at least seven times, would that sound reasonable?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He was. He was stabbed seven times.”

  Trieste banged a fist on the table as he jumped to his feet. “Objection. Counsel is testifying.”

  “Sustained.”

  Chapter 22

  The two day murder trial was over, the jury deliberating.

  Char sat Indian style on a bed without sheets or a blanket in her cell. She stared at the grey cinder walls. Outside thunder boomed. She could hear the wind whine as it whipped through the town. A storm seemed fitting; matched her mood. She did not think she’d have long to stew. The jury would be quick to render a decision.

  Carl Trieste informed her that Sam and Tony had been cremated. They didn’t bury people inside the walls of Arcadia. He promised she’d receive the urns with the ashes as soon as they were available. She wished she’d had one more chance to see them. Saying goodbye to a box filled with their remains just didn’t seem like it would be the same.

  Her attorney indicated that there was no change in Grace’s condition. She was still alive, breathing on her own, but remained in a coma. Char figured the bangs on the head from the ride inside the trailer didn’t help. She’d been certain her friend already suffered from a concussion. Getting cracked in the head at the Bent Elbow probably only exacerbated the original injury.

  She hated the loneliness she felt. Entering the town, the mayor, the sheriff, and even the priestess had fawned over them. She wasn’t surprised no one came to see her, but that didn’t make it hurt less.

  Where was Ben?

  She thought, maybe hoped, that he would see if she was all right, or if she needed anything. The last time she’d seen him was when he testified against her in the court. It felt like weeks ago. It felt like she’d been sitting and staring at nothing for weeks. It may have been for days. She had some idea of time by the food trays brought, and taken away untouched. There was dinner, breakfast, lunch, and just moments ago her dinner tray was removed.

  She wasn’t hungry.

  The deputies didn’t seem to care if she ate or not.

  A clap of thunder sounded like it had erupted directly over the City Hall. Without windows she could only imagine the flashes of lightning that must be like white fire finger-stepping across the sky.

  Dispatch didn’t like thunder. Char hoped that he was okay, that he’d met up with Tony’s horse and the two were far from the storm.

  Although she couldn’t see them, outside her cell she could hear two deputies talking.

  “You are missing the point,” one said. “In zombie movies, the epidemic starts slow. Like one or two people are infected, and then they bite one or two people, and those four bite more, ya know? And so the virus spreads slowly. The military, they got time to get a handle on things before it’s outta control. But in the real world, everybody and their grandmother got one of them flu shots. Think about that. Everyone turned into a freakin’ zombie at about the same time. You know how crazy it was.”

  “You think it’s going to settle down even more?” the other deputy said.

  “I figure, it’s gotta. The zombies seem to starve to death. Well —the ones outside Arcadia, anyway. Unless they’re freshly turned, they’re slow as shit.”

  “We hole up here a few more years, and maybe everything will get restored back to normal,” the second deputy said.

  “Be nice, but I like it here. Everyone is pretty cool. We take care of each other. . .” the first deputy said.

  “Except for a murder now and then,” the second deputy said.

  “I don’t even mind that. As long as it ain’t too often. We’re a lot like the U.S. as a country, ya know? We gotta patrol our borders better. We can’t be letting aliens in left and right. Eventually they’ll destroy what we’ve built. We got a prisoner that’s proof of that.”

  Char fell back onto the mattress. She still had a pillow. She put it over her head and pressed the sides tight against her ears.

  She didn’t want to listen to them talk anymore. She didn’t care what they had to say.

  Closing her eyes seemed like the best escape. She didn’t know if she could fall asleep, but wanted to try.

  As she welcomed the darkness, the steady sound of her heart beating, and the solitude, she thought she missed something.

  Sleep was coming.

  She knew she was drifting.

  Someone had said something important, though.

  She just didn’t know what, or when it was said.

  # # #

  Char was on her knees. Large raindrops fell from a black sky. Soaked, and shivering from the cold, she clawed at the ground scooping mud away in search of something she’d buried in the woods. Her fingers were bent and cramped like claws.

  From every direction infected closed in on her.

  They stumbled forward, moaning that hollow moan that filled her with fear.

  She hated their moaning.

  She hated the infected.

  If she stood up, there’d be nowhere to run. She was surrounded.

  She concentrated on digging. What she looked for was here. It had to be. She just couldn’t remember what it was she hoped to find.

  Thunder echoed in her ears. She thought her ear drums might pop.

  The infected were so close. Despite the wind that whipped about around her, and despite the rain, she could smell them.

  The infected were rank, raw with decay.

  Inside the hole she’d dug, her fingertips scraped across something that was not muddy earth.

  She’d found it, whatever it was.

  She almost screamed with joy!

  She did scream.

  Not because she’d found what had been buried, but because they had her. . .the infected were falling
onto her.

  She lost her balance, overpowered by the infected attacking, and fell into the hole she’d dug. The hole was several feet deep. She crashed on the bottom, surprised that the hole had been so long, and wide, and deep.

  The infected did not fall in after her. They gathered around the edges of the rectangular shaped hole and reached down for her, their fingers curling and uncurling in a desperate attempt to grasp any part of her body.

  At least she was safe.

  They weren’t coming in after her.

  The rain fell faster, harder.

  The bottom of the hole began filling with water. It rose to over her feet. It didn’t stop when it passed her knees.

  She paced around on the bottom of the hole. The reprieve of feeling safe was short lived as the water rose to her waist.

  The infected faces oozed loose flesh. It splashed into the deepening pool of rainwater that she stood in. She looked into glazed over eyes. There was nothing human left in them.

  Tony had been wrong.

  They were not infected. They were zombies.

  The rain fell relentlessly from above, and the water levels continued to rise. Char couldn’t touch bottom. She had to tread water.

  Zombies didn’t like the rain.

  Why were they here? Why had they come for her? Why hadn’t they run off to hide?

  She was swimming now. The water, like an elevator, lifted her closer to the outstretched arms and reaching hands of monsters that desired only to tear her apart, limb by limb.

  Plugging her nose, she went under water. She kicked and swam for the bottom. There had to be an exit, another way out. It was down here at the bottom of the hole. She knew it.

  Her lungs burned.

  She wouldn’t be able to hold her breath for much longer.

  Feeling along the bottom of the hole she knew she’d find, if anything, a drain plug. Once pulled, the water would recede. She’d be safe.

  There was no way she could stay under. Not even for a second more. She kicked off the bottom and swam toward the surface. The moon was bright above the shimmy of the water, but she could see little else.

  Her head popped up out of the water, and while she planned to suck in a breath of air and dive back down, it wasn’t what happened.

  Fingers twisted in her hair and yanked her up and out of the grave size pool.

  She screamed.

  They had her.

  She was on her back, struggling. She kicked and punched at the zombies as they closed in on her. They said her name, over and over. At first it came in a moan, “Charrrrrrr. Chhhhhaaaarrrr.”

  It changed, becoming more high pitched, and less gravelly sounding. “Chhaarr! Charrr!”

  They had mouths open, teeth exposed and were ready to bite. . .

  “Char! Char!”

  She screamed for help, for someone, anyone to help!

  She sat up. Eyes wide open. She was alone in her prison cell. There were no infected around her.

  No one calling her name.

  Shivering, she hugged herself.

  Outside, the thunder continued to disrupt the night.

  She was hungry. Cold, alone, scared, and suddenly very hungry.

  Chapter 23

  “All rise.” The deputy stood in front of the judge’s bench.

  The back door opened and Judge Rachel Walton entered the courtroom. Char found it difficult to regulate her breathing. She took small, quick breaths. She didn’t want to hyperventilate.

  Carl Trieste stood statue-still beside her. Across from him was the prosecutor, Ed Connor. Across from him twelve jurors filled the box. Char wanted to look at them to see if she could guess the verdict before it was announced. Their faces would have to betray a truth. She just couldn’t bring herself to look. If they maintained eye contact she’d know they’d found her guilty. Even though she was minutes away from hearing her fate she wasn’t ready to see it in the jurors’ eyes.

  “Would Counsel and the Defendant remain standing? Everyone else, please, be seated,” Judge Walton said.

  Char felt defeated, regardless of the outcome. She’d made it so far to wind up a defendant in a murder trial. She’d thought it before, but surreal seemed to have no boundaries. She forced herself to look up, to make direct eye contact with the judge.

  “Would the foreman of the jury please stand?” Judge Walton said.

  A woman rose. She was seated in the first seat, first row. She held a piece of paper in her hand.

  “Have the jurors reached a verdict in Charlene McKinney vs the People of Arcadia?” Judge Walton said.

  “We have, your honor,” she said.

  Char almost held her breath. The moment of truth was before her. She did not want to hear the verdict.

  “For the count of second degree murder in the death of Olivia Ragone, what does the jury find?”

  “Not guilty, your honor.”

  “For the count of second degree murder in the death of Frank Broadhurst, what does the jury find?”

  Char felt hope well up inside her chest. She knew her eyes were open wide.

  “Not guilty, your honor.”

  Char let out a long sigh. She lowered her head. She began to cry. Carl Trieste placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not over, dear. Stay strong.”

  Not over? The jury had just found her not guilty for killing both Olivia Ragone and Frank Broadhurst.

  Judge Walton was staring at Char. When Char regained composure, the judge returned her attention to the jury’s foreman. “For the count of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Olivia Ragone, what does the jury find?”

  Char had forgotten about the manslaughter charges. The nightmare seemed to have no end.

  “Not guilty, your honor.”

  Char wanted to scream. She couldn’t take much more. She’d rolled her hands into tight fists. Her fingernails bit into her palms.

  “For the count of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Frank Broadhurst, what does the jury find?”

  “Guilty, your honor.”

  # # #

  “Charlene?”

  She was curled up on her bed facing the cinderblock wall. She hated that a deputy sat in a folding chair outside her cell watching her. It wasn’t the deputy calling her name though. She knew that voice.

  She wasn’t turning around. She didn’t want to talk to Ben, much less see him.

  “Char? Are you awake?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut tight. He couldn’t see her face, but it didn’t matter. She tried to will him to leave.

  “Char?”

  It wasn’t working. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I know you’re mad at me.”

  She spun around, and sat up. Ben jumped back from the bars. “You’re damn right I’m mad at you. What was that in there the other day? I’m going to prison, Ben. They’re sending me to prison.”

  “They told me I had to testify. I was a witness. You heard the testimony of the witnesses after me. We all told the same story. All I did was tell the truth.” Ben wrapped both hands around bars and pressed his face between them.

  “You made me sound like a psychopath, Ben.”

  “The jury didn’t see it that way. You were only charged with one count.”

  “It was self-defense. You were there. We were attacked. Broadhurst pulled a gun on us. You can leave. I don’t want to talk to you.”

  Ben didn’t move.

  “Leave, Ben. Go be a cop somewhere. I got Barney Fife over there to keep me company.”

  The deputy stirred in his folding chair.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry it played out this way.”

  “Played out this way? Like it’s a game? Like my life is part of some game? You know what you can do, Ben? You can go fuck yourself. You. Your father. The sheriff.” No prison was going to hold her. She was going to find a way to escape and take it. She’d get outside the walls that fortified Arcadia and keep going. No one would come after her. There wouldn’t be a posse on her tail. The
assholes living here wouldn’t know how to survive beyond the confines of their community.

  Ben looked away as he stepped back from the bars. His hands still held onto them. “I talked with your attorney. He’s not giving up on this case. He’s going to file appeals.”

  “It’s not a real court, Ben. This isn’t even the real world here. You guys are living in a fantasy land.”

  Ben let go of the bars and took another step back.

  “You don’t have the power, the authority to lock me up for even a day. This is bullshit!”

  He turned around and slowly walked toward the door.

  “It’s bullshit, Ben!”

  He was gone.

  She stared at the bars where he had stood. Part of her did not want to chase him away. There was no way she’d ever forgive him for testifying against her. Right was right. What he’d done was wrong. If he couldn’t understand that, then she had no room in her life for him, no room for forgiveness.

  Too wound up to lie back down, Char paced around the corners of her cell. Her arms were stiff at her sides, hands balled into fists. She ground her teeth.

  There was no way the prison could hold her. She knew she’d find a way to escape. Climb a wall, scale a fence, sneak out in a delivery truck. She’d seen enough prison escape movies with her father. Her favorite was Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption. Hell, if she had to tunnel through a sewer drain filled with shit and piss to come out on the opposite side of Arcadia, she would. Whatever it took to get free. If she was lucky, the opportunity would present itself sooner and she could move on and be done with this ass-backwards town forever.

  # # #

  Char wanted to refuse breakfast on principle. She didn’t. Her stomach churned. Going without eating only punished her. The deputies didn’t care if she ate or not. They knew she’d never starve to death before being transported from the holding cell to prison. As long as she didn’t hang herself, they could give two shits.

  The scrambled eggs weren’t bad. A little more salt would have been nice, but she didn’t ask for any.

  Rebecca Bowman walked into the area pulling along a small case with wheels by the handle and stopped when she reached the doorway. “Is it okay if I talk with you?”