Chapter 18
Through mostly closed eyes, Char saw blurred light. A shadow loomed above her. It grew larger and smaller and larger again. She heard something hiss and gasp, hiss and gasp. It was slow, steady and rhythmic. Someone was talking to her. The sound was muffled, and difficult to understand. She closed her eyes. The odor of rubbing alcohol or of something strong and sterile assaulted her nostrils.
Convinced there was no such thing as an afterlife, Char was surprised by the sights, sounds and smells.
“Charlene?”
She knew the voice. While it sounded familiar to her, she knew immediately that it was not her father, or her brother. She thought for sure the first people she met in Heaven would be them. Maybe she assumed they would have been told she was on her way, and would have been first in line to welcome her.
“Charlene?”
This wasn’t right. Any of it. It wasn’t making sense. She felt discombobulated. Aside from the voice calling her name, the hiss and gasp she heard sounded like something she’d heard before. It was a sound from a long time ago. She remembered her great-grandfather. He’d been in the hospital. He had been in his late eighties and suffered a stroke. He was dying, and they’d gathered around his hospital bed waiting. They’d waited for nearly a week and a half before death took him. The entire time they spent in his room there was that same hiss and gasp. It came from a machine that her father explained helped great-granddad breathe.
Something wasn’t right; the strong aroma of sterilization, the hiss-gasp, the voice calling her name that wasn’t her father or brother’s.
She wasn’t in Heaven.
Char tried opening her eyes again. They fluttered. The light wasn’t as bright this time and what she saw was not as blurry.
The shadow leaning over her slowly came into focus.
She wasn’t in Heaven, or Hell.
She was in Arcadia.
Her eyes closed and she fell thankfully into a dreamless sleep.
# # #
When Char opened her eyes she found herself sitting in an upright position in bed. She no longer heard the machines inside her room. There was a single light on. The glow was soft, relaxing. What bothered her was the cuff on her wrist attached to the bedframe. The steel clanked on the rail as she gave a useless tug of her arm.
He was asleep in a chair by the bed. It had been his voice she’d heard calling her name earlier.
She looked around and knew she was in a hospital room. The curtains were drawn closed across the window. She had no idea what time it was; if the sun or moon was out. “Hey, Benjamin!”
He sprang out of his chair, eyes open wide scanning the room. His mouth was open, and his breathing heavy. When he looked at Char, he settled down some, as if catching his breath. “You call me?”
“You were sleeping.”
“Everything okay? You’re awake. I should get the doctor,” he said.
She held up her un-cuffed hand. “Wait. Not yet.”
He moved closer to the bed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I can get you some water. I think.”
“What’s going on?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I thought I’d killed myself,” she said.
“You nearly had. I came in and found you hanging in your cell. We got the door open and cut you down. Why would you do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Benjamin looked away. He didn’t have an answer. She didn’t suspect he would.
“I have nothing, Ben, and I’m being charged with a murder in a town I don’t belong in. They can’t do this to me,” she said, and raised her cuffed arm as high as it would go. “I know we have no government, but this isn’t justice. You were there. Broadhurst started it. He attacked us. Did you tell them that?”
“I told them exactly what happened.”
“So why am I cuffed to a hospital bed? Why would you bother to save me? Just so I can serve some made up prison sentence for murders that were committed in self-defense? Does that even make sense to you?”
“You haven’t been found guilty, Charlene.”
“It’s Char.”
“There will be a trial. Jurors. You’ll get a chan—”
“A what? A chance to tell my side of the story? I’m not from Arcadia, Ben. I know someone has to take the fall for this, for what happened. I don’t think it should be me. I wasn’t going to let it be me.”
“Our patient is awake, I see.” A woman in a white lab jacket entered the room. She held a clipboard. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“She’s thirsty,” Benjamin said.
“Will you get her a glass of water, please?” The nametag on her coat read: Dr. Sophia Debes.
“I said, I’m fine.”
“You don’t want water?” Ben said.
“Please, Ben. Get her water. If she isn’t thirsty now, she will be.”
Ben left the room.
“How are you feeling, aside from fine?”
“Bruised.”
“Your neck is black and blue. You’re lucky to be alive. If the mayor’s son hadn’t found you when he did, you and I would never have met.” She was young, with light brown hair worn up and a warming smile. She looked tired, as if she had worked multiple double shifts without much downtime in between.
Char wanted to tell the doctor that she wanted to be dead. She saw no point in sharing that much. She wasn’t in the mood to be psychoanalyzed. “Am I all set? I mean, can I have my things, and a key,” she shook her wrist, “and leave. I’ve had my fill of Arcadia. I think I like my chances on the road outside of your walls a lot better.”
“I’m afraid that’s not for me to decide, but I would like to check your vitals, if you don’t mind.” The doctor pulled the stethoscope off from around her neck.
Char thought about protesting. Instead, she let the doctor listen to her heart and lungs, flash a light into her eyes and take her pulse.
“Everything seems okay,” she said.
Char didn’t feel relieved. “What happens next?”
“I’ll notify the sheriff that you’re awake. I’m sure he’ll be by in the morning. The two of you can discuss the next steps together,” the doctor said. “Is there anything I can get for you? Are you hungry?”
Char might have been hungry, but wasn’t sure. Regardless she wasn’t sure she could eat. There wasn’t much point in taking her anger out on the doctor. “I’m okay for now.”
“I put some ice in the water,” Benjamin said, coming back into the room.
“I’ll be down the hall if you need anything else,” Dr. Debes said.
Char nodded.
The doctor left the room.
“Want me to set the water down over here?” Ben pointed to the nightstand next to the bed.
Char held out her hand. “I’ll take it.”
“I have a straw.”
Char removed the paper and sipped up ice cold water. It tasted wonderful. “So did your daddy assign you to keep an eye on me?”
Benjamin stood beside the bed, both hands on the rail. “I’m not on the clock. I told him I wanted to stay with you.”
“What?” she said. “The way you’re looking at me.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It? If you are referring to an ‘it,’ then it is something. Tell me.”
Ben could not look her in the eyes.
“I’m not fooling around here. What’s going on?”
“Your friend, Sam? He, ah, he didn’t make it.”
Char felt deflated. She didn’t want to be here, to be alive. Sam’s death was proof that she didn’t want any of this. She knew she was crying. She couldn’t feel the tears. Her skin was numb, her muscles, her heart.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She stared at the thin white sheet over her legs. She was in a hospital gown. She hadn’t even noticed earlier. Where were her clothes?
Why do I care about my clothing?
she thought.
Tony was dead. Sam was dead.
“Where’s Grace?”
“She is alive.”
“I want to see her. She must be here.”
Ben looked at the door.
“Is she down the hall? Please. Take me to her.”
“She’s not awake.”
“I’ll be quiet,” Char said.
“She’s in a coma.”
Char struggled against the cuff. She yanked on the rail, gripped it with both hands and pulled. She heard someone screaming.
She was the one screaming.
“Char! Charlene!”
“I want to see her, Ben,” she said.
“I can’t. There’s nothing I can do,” he said, motioning to the handcuff.
“You don’t have a key?” she said. “You do. You have a key!”
Ben fumbled a hand into his pocket. “I can get in trouble for this. Big trouble.”
Char wanted to remind him that he was the mayor’s son. She wasn’t trying to escape. “I want to see my friend, Ben. Please.”
He unfastened the lock on her wrist. “Are you okay to walk?”
“I’ll manage,” she said. He helped her out of bed. Her bare feet on cold linoleum sent a shiver up her spine.
They stepped out of the room.
Dr. Debes looked up from the nurse’s station at the corner. “What are you doing?”
“We’re going to visit Grace. Down the hall. We’re not leaving the building,” Ben said.
The doctor did not look happy.
Char turned away and let Ben lead her toward the room. It was three doors down. The door was open. Grace looked small and frail under the bed sheet. A machine beside her bed beeped. The woman was not cuffed to the rail. She wouldn’t have been. She’d done nothing wrong except help Charlene.
Char approached the bed, stood next to her friend, and cried. Her shoulders shook as she tried to hold in sobs. “This wasn’t our fault, Ben. It wasn’t hers. She shouldn’t be lying here like this.”
She remembered the story Grace had shared with her about her daughter, Anna.
“I have to get out of here, Ben.”
“This is a pretty good little hospital,” he said.
“I don’t mean out of this place, well, I guess I do, but I mean out of here, this town. Can you get me past the wall?”
Benjamin turned away from the bed and walked around to the foot. “I can’t do that.”
“What’s going to happen to me? If they find me guilty of these killings, what is the punishment?” All she could think about is that sign out in front of Arcadia. No stealing. No fighting. No murder. It didn’t get clearer than that.
When Benjamin refused to answer, Char felt despair settle in.
“Are they planning to have a funeral for Tony, for Sam?”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter 20
Carl Trieste introduced himself as he set a briefcase down on the table. He reached across and shook Char’s hand.
“How are you doing?”
“I told them I wasn’t interested in being represented by an attorney,” Char said.
Trieste had military-style cropped white hair; buzzed on the sides and a little longer on top. He couldn’t be over five-eight, one hundred and forty-five pounds. He wore glasses that magnified bright blue eyes, and suspenders that clearly kept his trouser up around his thin waist.
He unsnapped the locks on the briefcase. “They told me this. It’s why I asked permission to talk to you. I know because of where the world is right now that something like a trial must seem trivial, but Arcadia is serious about upholding laws. This town is trying very hard to make things as normal as possible. The only way to get things back on track is by having and abiding by laws.”
“Are you on my side?”
“I am interested in defending you against the charges that have been filed,” he said.
“Were you a lawyer before the infected?”
He seemed to think about the question. “The infected?”
“Before the zombies.”
“Yes. I was. A pretty good one, too.”
“I acted in self-defense. I am not a citizen of this town. I just want to leave.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“They can’t keep me here,” she said. It sounded hollow, empty, because she was sitting in a locked room, and after her meeting with Trieste, she’d be escorted back to a cell. Despite her protests, they were keeping her.
“If there hadn’t of been an apocalypse, okay, and you were in, let’s say, another country, and you were accused of committing crimes, you would stand trial in that country, even if you thought it was unfair and wanted to leave.”
“I’m not in another country. I’m in my country. This is still America. I still have rights.”
“Following that line of logic, then so did the people in the Bent Elbow,” he said.
Char folded her arms.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Char stared at the attorney. She thought for a few moments about what she wanted to say, before answering him. “I want you to help get me out of here.”
Trieste smiled. “I would like that. We have a lot to do in a short period of time. Your trial has been set for two days from now.”
“Two days!”
“Docket’s not exactly full. In fact, between now and your trial, there is nothing else on the docket.”
“What about picking a jury? Doesn’t that take time?”
“We’re handling jury selection tomorrow morning. I want to be able to spend the rest of today, and after jury selection tomorrow interviewing witnesses.” Trieste removed a legal pad and two pens from the briefcase and began scribbling down notes.
“This is crazy.” Char pushed her fingers into her hair and along her scalp. “What are my chances of getting out of this? You think I’ve got a chance of being let go?”
Trieste set down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “This is a quiet town. Real quiet. People are not used to seeing or hearing about the kind of thing that happened at the bar. Most of these people were here right after, and some even before the zombies took over. This is shocking.”
“So I don’t have much sympathy from the townspeople?”
Trieste shook his head. “And to compound matters, the people you allegedly killed were suppliers.”
“You mean raiders.”
He shrugged. “They brought the town supplies. Where and how they got the items isn’t what’s going to be on trial.”
“I am.” Char ground her teeth. “Well. I killed them. If the situation came up again, I’d do it again. They got what they deserved.”
“It’s obvious to me that you and Frank Broadhurst knew each other. So, let’s go back, okay? Let’s start at the beginning. I want you to walk me through everything. Start with how the two of you met.”
“What do you want to know?”
“One thing that was brought to my attention. The story going around is that you may have robbed Broadhurst, stole a truck with supplies meant for Arcadia.”
“Is that a question?”
“Did you?”
Anyone who knew the truth was dead, or not in Arcadia, she thought. “I don’t know anything about a truck with supplies.”
“Because if we could send a team to recover the truck, it could buy some of that sympathy you were wondering about.”
It was important not to think about the now, but to concentrate on the future. She did not want to wind up in prison. She did not feel hopeful that a sentence could be avoided. The truck was tucked away. If she gave that up, when the time came, she’d have nothing. “I don’t know anything about a supply truck.”
Trieste looked at her for a moment. She didn’t think he believed her.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Next question.”
# # #
Char stood next to Carl Trieste just outside the courtroom. The nameplate slid into place on the large wood doors read: Hon. Rachel Walton.
Char hated how normal these people pretended everything was. It made everything surreal. Inside the Arcadia dome it was as if the world had never changed. That should be a good thing. She struggled to appreciate their progress, or lack of regression.
There were plenty of people milling about in the halls. She guessed they were waiting for the doors to open. Everyone probably wanted a good seat. Why wouldn’t they. This had to be some of the best entertainment they’ve had in years.
Trieste rested a hand on her shoulder. “How are you doing?”
“I’m sick to my stomach,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.” They’d talked more last night. According to Trieste, he was happy with the jurors selected. It was a mix of men and women of varied ages. She didn’t think it would matter. He’d also had a chance to talk with witnesses from the Bent Elbow. They’d gone over her statement numerous times. As normal as they wanted their legal system to be, no depositions had been taken, and there had not been any discovery. Trieste was not aware of what the district attorney planned to ask, what evidence they possessed, or what witnesses they’d call.
“What happens? I mean, if we lose this. What should I expect?” Char knew how murder worked in the U.S. pre-apocalypse. Even at fourteen she was aware of high profile trials that took place. Media made sure people were aware. It just never seemed like prison terms were consistent. Some went to prison for twenty-five years for possession of weed, while manslaughter cases landed a defendant seven to ten years behind bars. It all seemed to depend on which state and city you were tried in.
“We have time to talk about that,” he said.
“I’d like to be prepared.”
“I don’t plan on losing, but if we do, if you are sentenced to a prison term it could be anywhere from ten to life, depending on the counts against you. There are two counts of Second Degree Murder, and two counts of Voluntary Manslaughter. Worse case, we will spend the time during the trial to plant the seed of a self-defense manslaughter case. If the jury agrees, you could get one to six years and expect to be out in as little as three.”
Three years. “That can’t happen.”
“Don’t get nervous. We have our one ace in the hole,” he said.
Benjamin. He was not just there; he’d been a part of the fight.
“Have you got experience with murder cases since Arcadia became its own country?” She chewed on a fingernail.
“Not murder, no. There haven’t been any killings in the last three years.”
“Great.”
“But I tried a pretty big case at the end of spring. A gang had entered Arcadia, one and two at a time. They were real sneaky about it. Our sheriff noticed what was going on. They tried to rob some of our storage units, but the police were ready for them.”
“You defended them?”
“They were innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
“And you won?”
“I lost. The Morales Gang is in prison now.”
“How long did they get?”
“Most of them received a ten year term. The leader, Gonzales Morales, he’s doing fifteen with no time off for good behavior.”
The door to the courtroom opened. An officer waved them in.
They were led toward the front, through a swinging gate and sat at a table on the left. Trieste set down his briefcase and made a show of unlocking it and removing items from inside.
Char turned to watch spectators file into the room and fill the seats. It became quickly apparent it was going to be standing room only for the show.
She pushed fingertips to her temples. It didn’t stop the spinning she felt. She closed her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t get dizzy and spill out of the chair.
“Char? Are you alright?”
She nodded, but stopped, afraid the movement would jar her brain loose. “I’m getting a headache.”
“I can see if anyone has aspirin.”
“I’ll manage,” she said.
The District Attorney entered the courtroom from a back door near where the judge would sit. He wore a dark grey suit that almost matched dark hair with a splash of gray along the sides and top. He approached them and held out his hand.
“Carl.”
“Ed.”
They shook hands.
“And you’re Charlene McKinney? I’m Ed Connors. The D.A.”
“Charmed,” she said, refusing to shake the offered hand.
He took a seat across from them, his files and folders already arranged on the prosecution table.
Although the trial had not even begun, Char was anxious for it just to be over.
“All rise for the Honorable Judge Rachel Walton,” the officer who had opened the courtroom doors said. He stood by the judge’s bench with his hands folded together in front of him.
Everyone stood.
The door Ed Connors emerged from moments ago, opened again. This time a black woman in a black judge’s robe entered. The red collar of a blouse worn underneath was visible. She took her seat behind the bench. “Please, be seated,” she said.
“Court is in session,” the officer said, as everyone sat and adjusted getting comfortable.
“I don’t see Ben,” Char said, whispering to her attorney.
“I’m sure he’ll be here,” Trieste said.
“What if he’s not?”
“We’ll have him subpoenaed.”
“You have those?”
“I don’t know. We’ve never needed them. One way or another, Ben will sit on that witness stand.”