Impetus (23 page)

Ms. Stella hushed him.
“Solomon,” she said through obvious pain. “A life as pure as yours does not need a death to soil it. My dying wish would have always been that you would have a chance at freedom.” She coughed again. A small bit of blood coated her teeth. “You have that freedom now. I love you, Solomon, with all my heart and then some. Go with these people and live your life. Live, Solomon.” She winced and then let the word
live
travel one more time from her mouth atop her final breath.

Her arm
fell limply from Solomon’s face.

Solomon
sat completely still. Ms. Stella’s head on his lap. Numbness and anger fought the other for dominance. The only family he had ever known was gone.

CHAPTER 32
 

King sat atop his faux throne and rifled through the groups’ belongings. When he reached Mick’s bag, he stopped.

“
What do we have here?” King said, removing the red box. He eyed the top, pressing down the two flaps to once again spell
open
. King looked up from the box and toward Mick, who was still bound and down on his knees in the main room. “I see you already did as the box crudely instructed you to. What did you find, I wonder?”

Mick stayed silent. He was not
about to share anything. All his mind could focus on were his children and his group. He had not given the accelerated virus running through his system as much thought as he probably should have. But for all he knew, it wouldn’t matter soon.

King
opened the box and removed the auto injector. He eyed it, shifting the hard plastic case in his hands. He then put it back in the box and removed the note. “What do we have here?” he said again, unfolding the note. His eyes widened further with each second that passed.

When
King finished reading the note a second time, he grabbed hold of the case again. He pulled off the case, exposing the auto injector. “Have you used this, Mick?”

Mick stared
through him in disgust.

“
Fine,” King said. “Be that way.” He turned toward the back of his faux throne. “Clyde,” he yelled. But Clyde could not respond. “Clyde!” he yelled again, sustained and angry. When Clyde did not come scampering as per the norm, King summoned Robert over. “Go find Clyde,” he said. “And be quick about it.”

Robert went to leave
the main room. He stopped when he neared the stairs leading to the basement. Clyde had appeared. His lifeless body was being dragged up the stairs by Solomon. Each step a new place for his head to bounce off. When he reached the top, Solomon continued forward with Clyde in tow. A streak of blood followed the body through the main room, past Mick, and up to the faux throne, where Solomon dropped it at the feet of Clyde’s father, King.

King
stood. “What the hell have you done, boy?” He looked down at his dead son.

“
W-w-what I sh-sh-should have d-done a l-long t-t-time ago.”

The group, now free of their prison, followed Solomon up the stairs from the cells and emptied into the main room.

“Guards!” King shouted. His men poured from various doors that lined the main room. All of them were armed. And their numbers far surpassed those of Mick’s little beat-up group.

Once Mick
’s group had been secured, King turned his attention back to Solomon. He looked down at Clyde as he stepped off his throne. “What a pity,” he said. “Such a young vibrant life. So much promise.” He then began to laugh maniacally at the top of his lungs. He laughed and then laughed harder. And then, as quickly as he’d begun, he stopped. “And you did this, boy?”

Solomon stared at
King.

“
You certainly are full of surprises lately, aren’t you?” King said. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Mick turned to see his children
at the top of the stairs. They appeared unharmed. The relief he felt was absolute. He flashed the smallest of grins possible to avoid detection. Those who looked at Mick reciprocated. While they had no idea what was to come, at least they would find out together as they always had.

“
Robert,” King said. “Bring the boy over a chair. He must be tired from his ordeal.”

Robert did as
King requested. He brought over a wooden chair and put it behind Solomon. He then forced Solomon to sit against his will, pushing down on his shoulders until he relented.

King
then waved a few of his men over that were not attending to the rest of the group. He looked down at Clyde’s corpse. “He was really starting to get on my nerves.” He looked to Solomon. “You did me a favor, really. And my nerves thank you for it.” He then snapped his fingers at the large group of men to his left. “Get this out of here,” he said, pointing to Clyde’s corpse, shooing him one final time. “I don’t care what you do with it.”

The
two men that came running looked to each other, then down at Clyde, then back to King. “Now,” King said. The men wasted not a single second more. They hoisted Clyde into the air and left through the front door.

The situation became all the more unpredictable now. Clyde
and King were far from a normal loving father and son. But Mick could not imagine how one man could be so utterly cold and uncaring. If he felt nothing while seeing his son’s corpse, then what chance did any of them stand of reaching him through reason and understanding? It was at that moment that Mick understood if they were ever going to free themselves, their tactics would need to change.

Another man ran up the stairs from the basement. He hurried over to
King. He whispered something to him. King’s eyes grew wide. He then nodded very slightly.

“
Now it makes sense,” King said. He looked at Solomon. “Clyde kills the woman. You kill Clyde. An eye for an eye.”

“
M-Ms. S-S-Stella,” Solomon said.

King
raised an eyebrow.

“
Sh-she h-has a n-name.”

“
Had
a name,” King corrected. “And to you she did. To me she was nothing more than a waste of my air.” King took a deep breath. “Feels better already around here.”

Solomon shot up from the seat. Robert, who was standing behind
him, quickly pushed him back down. Robert then patted his shoulder as if to help him understand he was wasting his energy. When Solomon started to push himself back up, Robert waved another of the men over to him after finding out how strong Solomon really was.

Solomon winced as they pushed him back down.
The bullet wound refused to be forgotten.

Noticing the pain, and then seeing the blood spot on his side,
King said, “It appears as if Clyde got in one good shot, huh?” He smirked. “Not good enough, though. I told him his time would come if he continued to be so amateurish.

“
So what happens now?” King continued. “Do I kill you all and go about my day?” He thought for a moment. “Or do I kill some of you? Decisions, decisions. Maybe I could save a select few of you for other things.” He smiled over toward Kathryn and Laurel.

Laurel pulled Kathryn
in tight against herself. “Stay away from her.”

“
I do what I want, bitch!” King shouted. “Now mind your tongue. Or I will mind it for you.”

He
walked slowly around the room, his demeanor again calm. “You know, I’m surprised by myself,” he said. “I think I must be becoming a better man. Typically I would have killed you all by now.”

He then casually made his way back to his throne. He picked up the red box and again removed the auto injector.
He decided to paraphrase the note. He would divulge only what he deemed his men worthy of knowing.

He held the auto injector over his head and waved it slowly so all the others could see.
“This,” he said, “is what salvation looks like.” He pried the auto injector free of its hard outer case. He turned his attention to Mick, who swayed slightly on his knees. “I’ll ask again. Did you use this, Mick?”

Mick looked up.
“You think you’re so smart. Why don’t you tell me?”

“
Mick, Mick, Mick. Always the hero.” He walked over and backhanded Mick across the face. Mick fell to the ground. “Things don’t need to be this difficult, you know.”

Mick spit blood from his mouth
and onto the dusty floor. “You’re the one making things difficult.”

“
On the contrary,” King said. “I am the one who offered you an olive branch. Have you forgotten already?”

“
I remember you threatening us.”

King
shook his head in disgust. “I let you live, Mick. If you call that threatening, then you are wrong. The first time we met, I let you walk away. With one simple rule: that you don’t come back. I don’t think you’re a dumb man, Mick. You’ve done well to survive this long. So I assumed you knew that I am not the type of person that jokes.”

Greg
shouted from the back of the room by the stairs, “What gives you the right to decide who lives and dies?”

King
did not take his attention from Mick. “Because I’m the one with the power,” he said. “I am the Rubble King. And the one with the power gets to make the decisions. Is this a new concept to you?” He removed a pistol from the holster on his waist. He then walked at a quick pace toward the rest of the group.

He put the
silver barrel of his pistol beneath Greg’s chin, pointing up. “Now,” he said. “Wouldn’t you agree that I am in a position of power at this moment?”

Greg said nothing. He stared down
the bridge of his nose at King. Greg tried to play his part. To remain unbreakable and stolid. But all the room could see that having a gun pressed against your chin is something that mere bravado is incapable of disguising. Sweat beaded on Greg’s forehead.

King
continued. “The thing is, I don’t even need this crude weapon. I am more than capable of ending your life in a multitude of ways. Some more creative than others.” He leaned in closer to Greg but kept his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “I use guns because they’re efficient. They allow me to exercise my will and move on. I have greater things at play than emotion. I have a kingdom to protect.” He again laughed loudly, crazily.

King
then removed the gun from Greg’s throat. With one decisive motion, he brought the barrel of the gun up and off the side of Greg’s head, inches from where he had previously been hit. Greg fell to the ground unconscious. King then fired off two rounds into Greg’s chest.

“
No!” Mick screamed. He fought to free himself, but it was no use. The wires that bound him were tied tightly enough to limit his movement.

King
then turned his attention to Kathryn. He moved in closer to her. He let the tip of his pistol brush against her tear-soaked cheek.

She closed
her eyes, shivered.

Laurel stood strong. She stepped in front of Kathryn. Her eyes
were red with rage. “Don’t you touch her.” She looked down at Greg and then back to King. She was visibly shaking and afraid, but resolute to the core.

King
turned his attention to Laurel. “You’re a brave little woman,” he said. “Are you not afraid to die?”

Laurel stiffened her posture.
“Screw you,” she said. “We all died ten years ago. You can’t possibly do any worse than that meteorite.”

“
Well, see, you just don’t know me well enough yet. I can do much worse.” He turned from Laurel and began to walk back to his throne. “Much, much worse. But I think I’ve made my point for today. And I have grown tired of this. If the rest of you want to live, you better keep your mouths shut unless I tell you otherwise.”

CHAPTER 3
3
 

Mick sat on the dirty floor, his mouth bleeding and his hands bound. To first lose Sarah to the storm and then watch as Greg was brutally murdered shut him down in a way he had not ever felt before. It all seemed like a nightmare he had no chance of waking from. In that moment, for only a minute, he thought selfishly of himself. It would all be so much easier if he was dead. If those bullets tore through his chest rather than Greg’s. The pain of loss and the pain of living would both be gone if that were the case.

That minute came and went. A
nd Mick thought of his children. How must this be affecting them? No one was equipped to deal with what was happening. The innocence of children, even of those in their teenage years, was too raw to recover to its former state before a traumatizing event. And their entire lives seemed to be one traumatic event after another. If they somehow made it out of this, and he knew that was a big
if
, the scars inflicted on his children would be permanent and deep.

“
Since you refuse to answer my question, Mick, I’ll go on the assumption that you have injected yourselves,” King said. “And, after reading the note, it turns out this is some kind of inoculation to a virus we didn’t know existed in the first place? And you were going to keep it all to yourselves? You know, Mick, that’s really selfish of you.”

Sid stepped forward, out of the shadows of the group.
“We just recently discovered the virus.”

“
And you are?” King said.

“
Dr. Sid Roth.”

“
A doctor,” King said. “How civil of you.” King waved his hand. “You were saying?”

Sid took a small breath.
“We all have this virus. It’s been in the air for sometime now. We believe it originated from the meteorites.”

“
And this virus,” King said. “What does it do to us, exactly?”

“
The CV-1 virus attacks the body from the inside. It will eventually lead to organ failure and ultimately death.”

“
And this,” King said, turning the auto injector in his hand. “What does this do, exactly, if we already have the virus? I’m no doctor, but I understand what inoculations are meant for. You can’t inoculate against something you already have.”

“
That’s true,” Sid said, obviously lying to those who knew better. “But that,” he said, pointing, “can prevent it from spreading further inside you. We developed it at The Facility to slow the spread.”

King
interrupted, “The Facility?”

This time it was
Alex who spoke. He, too, stepped from the back. “The Facility was built prior to Impact. All was not lost as most thought.”

King
stared at the group. His gaze was powerful and unwavering. He said, “And this blue stuff is my way into this ‘Facility’?”

“
Yes,” Sid said, now furthering his tall tale. “The only way they are going to let you enter is if you show degradation in infection rate.”

Mick watched as th
e entire thing unfolded before his eyes. Sid was more resourceful than he’d initially given him credit for. Each time he looked back to King, however, he wondered if he was buying what Sid was selling. King was ruthless. And Mick was sure he was crazy. There could be no doubt about that. But King also appeared to be intelligent and calculating. A dangerous mix. If King sensed that Sid was lying, then Mick feared they would all die without a second thought. Right there. Right then.

King
stood. “I have to say that I am a bit torn on this,” he said. “What has the world come to when one man can’t trust the next? But what better way to test than to experiment. Wouldn’t you agree, Doctors?” He looked to Sid and Alex. “Hold him down,” King commanded Robert and the two others that were near.

“
King,” Robert said. “He’s in pretty rough shape. I don’t think—”

“
That’s right, Robert. You don’t think. I do. Now roll up his sleeve. Or would you like to join Clyde outside to talk it over?”

Robert relented and nodded for the other two to help him hold down Solomon.

When King turned to grab the auto injector, Robert leaned down quickly and quietly whispered, “I’m sorry,” in Solomon’s ear.

King
pressed the auto injector against Solomon’s exposed skin, waited for the long tone, and then removed it after the injection. He backed away from Solomon and studied him as if he were close to exploding. He continued to watch, as did everyone in the room, until he was satisfied.

“
Well now,” King said with a smile. “It appears that the boy survived.” He placed the device down and clapped three claps. “I guess you are good at something, boy. Good for you. You should feel proud. If that bitch was still around, I’m sure she’d say the same thing.”

Solomon spit at
King. It was nothing to speak of, however. More of a spittle of wet air.

“
Come now,” King said. “Are you
still
upset about that old woman? You need to get over things, boy. She isn’t coming back.”

Mick
watched silently from the floor. He saw the fire in Solomon’s eyes from all the way across the room. The timid man he’d met in the alley, hiding in the Dumpster, was no longer there. It seemed he’d been replaced by the tarnished soul they all were forced to become over the years. Solomon no longer had Ms. Stella to lean on. And King no longer had Ms. Stella as a pawn. Their game of chess was nearing the end.

King reached down in front of his throne. He picked up Clyde
’s large key ring, which had fallen when the corpse was removed. He tossed it to Robert. “You’ve just been promoted. Take them all back down to the cells. And get that,” he said, pointing to Greg’s body, “out of my castle.”