Whatever It Takes (24 page)

“Sarah?”

“Time’s up, Mister Polz. Decision time. We’re coming down there regardless and you get to dictate how pleasant it is.”

“I’ll follow your lead. Always have,” Sarah said. Percival wished he couldn’t hear the defeat in her voice.

Perhaps he should have been more steadfast against coming back to this god-forsaken suburb. “I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

He finally accepted that Roy Joy was gone; vanished into the haze of the zombie apocalypse. But he had the opportunity to possibly walk those who were still with him out the front door and onto a path toward home.

“We’re unloading. Give us a sec,” he shouted.

Carlos shook his head. “Dun think this is a good idea.” He slid his rifle over his shoulder anyways.

Percival crossed the basement, laid the M16, his M4, and pistol down. A moment later he added the machete to the small pile. He wished he’d had taken the time to clean the blade recently as he was certain the gore spattered across would hardly make a good impression. He backed away as Sarah stepped forward to add her weapons to the pile at the base of the stairs without revealing any target larger than her hand. Carlos followed suit.

One of the soldiers from the top of the stairs gave a low whistle. “Armed to the teeth, and they call us nuts.”

“Thank you,” Proxies said. “Now, back away from the stairs some so we can come to collect and escort you out. You’ll understand that we have to remain vigilant and cautious in these trying times.”

The man’s voice dripped with an overt friendliness that made Percival’s skin crawl.

“When will we get them back?” Percival asked. He stood a couple steps away from the base of the stairs. He was just far enough to not, in his opinion, be considered a threat, yet close enough to rush the person closest to the stairs if things got ugly.

His question went unanswered as a soft murmur, he assumed orders being given, drifted down the stairs. While he could hear the words, they were too soft for him to make out.

The soldiers tromped down the stairs, making no effort to disguise their approach. They were confident to a fault, if Percival had to say. He maintained his position, waiting for someone to round the corner. A large part of him wanted to lash out and jump the first man to appear.

There was a pause in the footsteps approaching and a black-gloved hand collected the weapons piled up at the base of the stairs one item at a time. Seconds dragged by, the weaponry disappeared, handed back up the stairs.

“No sudden movements, Mister Polz,” Proxies said. “We wouldn’t want any accidents to happen down here.”

Percival gritted his teeth. He didn’t like the officer, nor the way he was addressing Percival’s team. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wouldn’t do well to lose his cool and cause a ruckus in the tight quarters of the basement.

The first of the soldiers rounded the corner of the basement landing. He was a big man, taller than Percival and wider as well, wearing the same digital camo uniform that Finnen wore. He also wore a similarly decorated helmet. Greyson was stenciled in black over his left breast. His M16 rifle was up and leveled at Percival. The flashlight attached to the bottom made it more than obvious where he was pointing it: Percival’s face.

Percival raised a hand to shield his eyes and lowered the visor on his helmet. “Get that out of my face.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Greyson said. He took a couple more steps into the basement, allowing another soldier to enter. The next soldier was shorter with a slighter build than Greyson, but still bulkier and taller than Percival. Across his left breast was Bloku. He leveled his rifle at Sarah. She folded her arms across her chest.

The third soldier was tall and lanky. His uniform looked as though it barely fit him, hanging off his frame like a set of curtains. His name, Yeltz, was stenciled across his left breast. His rifle came to be pointed at Carlos. A smaller man stepped off the stairs behind them. He wore the same uniform as the others, though he didn’t wear a helmet. His head was shaved with a handful of day’s blonde growth to it. Stenciled over his breast was ‘Proxies.’

Percival studied the four soldiers. He held his breath for a moment, waiting for someone to make a move.

“Hands up, please. And helmet off. I like to be able to see those I’m dealing with.” Proxies stepped between Greyson and Bloku. He spat a thick line of tobacco juice toward Percival’s foot.

“Hands up, guys,” Percival said. He didn’t bother trying to mask the irritation in his voice. He slowly lifted his hands to his helmet and took it off, letting it dangle from his hand as he raised them above his head. He considered, briefly, springing across the room and driving the helmet into the nose of Greyson before crashing it across Proxies’s jaw.

A fifth soldier, an overweight fellow that stretched his uniform to the limit, lumbered into view. He, too, lacked a helmet and had shaggy brown hair with a scruffy three-day’s grown on his chin. He bore no name, merely a patch where someone would attach a piece of Velcro, over his left breast.

“Turn around and make this easy,” Proxies said.

“Only if you explain exactly what’s going to go down,” Percival responded.

“For your safety, and ours, you’re going to be handcuffed. We’ll escort you to a safe place and release you,” Proxies explained as though he’d said it a thousand times before. And perhaps he had.

Percival frowned.

“I don’t like this,” Sarah said.

The large man drew out a small handful of zip ties. Percival locked eyes with Proxies.

“Hey, it’s just protocol for safely handling survivors of this tragic event. You know?” Proxies shifted the wad of tobacco in his lip. “Sooner you comply, sooner we can all be done with this.”

Percival slowly lowered his hands and turned. He didn’t trust this group of people in the slightest, but he didn’t have many good viable options either. He could resist and be shot, or go along with what they, Proxies, wanted and potentially get what he wanted out of the deal as well. He locked eyes with Sarah as he turned and put his hands behind him.

She gave a shake of her head and took a step forward just before everything went black.

Percival’s world returned to light with a stab of pain. From the base of his head radiated a stinging headache. He could taste blood on his lips and his nose hurt. His wrists felt raw, and his hands had the beginnings of pins and needles. As his senses evolved past a basic damage report, he became aware of his position in space. Time was still a foreigner to his mind, but for the moment he was simply okay to know that he was seated.

His wrists were lashed to something behind his back, the chair frame if he had to guess. Cautiously he moved his feet and found that those were still free. He opened his mouth and let a tongue that felt far too long for his head loll out. He gingerly licked his lips, finding a split in the lower one and a pair of trails of dried blood from his nose.

Slowly he opened his eyes, staring at his lap for a moment. He didn’t know if he was being actively observed and didn’t want to give anyone the overt impression he’d come back to consciousness just yet. There were bloody spots on his jeans. Whoever’d attached him to the chair apparently hadn’t bothered to staunch the blood flow from his nose and mouth when doing so.

He did his best to learn of his surroundings from his peripheral vision. He could see the edge of a bed and part of Optimus Prime’s foot. He was in a child’s bedroom. The cotton in his head cleared enough to recall the child’s bedroom from the house they were in when…

The military. Percival jerked his head up, spiking more pain from his head. He blinked black spots away and he looked around the room. Where was Sarah? What’d happened? He whipped his head around, felt something catch in his neck, and took the room in.

“Sarah?” he called out, not caring if someone heard him. He didn’t care if something heard him. He just needed to know where she was and that she was safe.

He jerked his hands, felt his bindings bite into his wrists, and planted his feet starting to turn his chair around to get a better view of the rest of the room.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, there buddy,” someone said behind him. He didn’t recognize the voice, but the half hour before his bout with unconsciousness was blurry at best. He knew it wasn’t Carlos or Sarah. “Keep that up and you’ll end up hurting yourself again.”

“Where’s Sarah?” Percival asked. He didn’t heed the warning to settle down. He pushed up with his right foot, succeeding in lifting himself, and the chair he was bound to, off the floor.

“Sit down,” the gruff voice behind him said. A hand clamped down tight on his shoulder and painfully thrust him back to the floor. “Stop moving.”

“You’re not answering my question. Who are you? Where’s Sarah? Is she okay?” Percival wished he could have kept the panic out of his voice as his heart climbed into his throat. He twisted again, but remained seated with his feet planted but not pushing him up.

He needed a plan, not to brashly jump through this situation with a hope and a prayer. One of those concepts was dead and the other didn’t have anyone listening on the far end.

“That’s because we don’t answer your questions. It goes the other way around.” A soldier moved into Percival’s vision and sat on the edge of the bed opposite him. Percival didn’t recognize him and the black stenciled name was missing from his uniform. His high and tight was getting a little shaggy and he would have benefitted from a shave. He wore black sunglasses, despite the fading light from outside, hiding his eyes.

“So, what? You’re some expert interrogator here to make me spill my deepest darkest secrets?” Percival spat out. He literally spit a little bit of blood from his mouth. “I ain’t got any.”

The man’s face split into a toothy grin, revealing yellowed and disgusting teeth. “That’s not what your friends have said.”

Percival forced a smile onto his face. It hurt the split in his lip and he didn’t feel it, but wanted to show something other than the panic and dread that clouded his stomach. The man used past tenses, either as a tactic or just as a habit, indicating that Carlos and Sarah had gone through this already. Not were going through it presently.

And it implied, if the man was being truthful, that they’d talked about something. Percival didn’t know what this man could want to know. Who’d killed his friend?

Percival would be willing to cop to that crime. He hadn’t taken any pleasure in killing Finnen, but he wouldn’t run from the deed either. It may not have been his bullet, Carlos had been firing as well, but it was his decision to leave her there whilst zombies invaded.

“What do you want?” Percival repeated.

“You to stop asking questions,” the gruff man answered.

“Well, in an interrogation, someone needs to be asking questions,” Percival said. He looked away from the man and out the window. The fading yellow light gave an approximate timeframe for him. He’d been out for a few hours, at least. He began to piece together what’d happened.

“You guys aren’t exactly stellar examples of honesty and truthfulness.” Someone had clocked him in the back of the head. Was it this man? Some other jarhead or leatherneck? It’d knocked him cold. For a time it had knocked him senseless even. He gritted his teeth to pull the pieces of the time right before blackness enveloped him back into perspective.

“I’m not here to ask you questions. That’s the Lieutenant’s job,” the man answered.

That jogged Percival’s memory slightly. Lieutenant Proxies had wanted their weaponry discarded, likely to make it easier to take them into custody. Why Percival had been clocked in the head was still a mystery, but having fallen face first would explain why his face hurt and the bloody nose.

“Right. What happened to,” Percival said. He paused to dreg his bruised memory up before continuing. “Escorting us safely to a different region?”

“Tha’s after yer questioning,” the grunt answered.

Percival pulled his gaze back to the man’s sunglass hidden eyes. “Then hurry up and get the Lieutenant in here. Ain’t got all day, and light’s wasting.”

Percival’s anger hid the dread he was feeling. He was separated from his friends. He was battered and bruised. His weaponry and ammunition was nowhere nearby. He didn’t know what to do and the creeping helplessness set fire to his emotional state. All of the dread and grief and guilt over hard decisions and poor decisions and killing swept into the forefront of his mind.

He lowered his head fighting the sweeping feeling that letting go and ceasing to care was the correct avenue to take. He shook his head. He fought back tears, wrestling with emotions that wanted to further spoil his mood and day. He needed, if ever, to be strong right then and there. He’d figure some way out of this predicament and deliver Sarah and Carlos safely home. They deserved that much.

The sound of footfalls brought Percival’s head up. Proxies walked into the room, rubbing a hand against the reddish stubble on his chin. Anger flared in Percival’s core and drove the other conflicting emotions aside.

“You two-faced, son of a--,” Percival snapped.

“No need to not be pleasant in this exchange,” Proxies cut him off. “Simon, you’re dismissed. Go see to the girl.”

Grunt stood up from the bed, snapped off a salute that was lazily returned. “Yes, sir.”

He marched out of the room.

“Easy for you to say. Your hands aren’t tied to a fucking chair,” Percival snapped at Proxies. He struggled against the bindings.

“That’s for both of our safety, Mister Polz.” Proxies took a seat across from Percival. “Have a couple questions for you. Questions that may infuriate you or cause you to become violent.”

“Let me guess. This is just protocol. Like I’ve not heard that before.” Percival rolled his eyes. “What’s the standard response for a POW? Name, rank, and serial number?”

“Your sarcasm’s not needed or appreciated,” Proxies said. He leaned forward. “Let’s start with an easy one: How many of you are out there in the suburb?”

“You’ve got all of us here in this house. That is assuming you’ve still got Sarah and Carlos here.” Percival glared at Proxies. He didn’t see a reason to lie at this juncture though.

“We know you were traveling with more people than the two we caught you with,” Proxies said. “Where are they?”

“Dead. You shot one, one went crazy attacked another of my party and I shot him then his infected girlfriend,” Percival rattled off. He surprised even himself with how tight and cold his voice sounded. “Fuck you.”

“I am sorry for your loss.” Proxies didn’t sound sympathetic in the slightest as he took out a small notepad and checked a note. “Why did you shoot Private First Class Finnen?”

“Simple. She shot at us first. You know, a wise man once said ‘If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back.’ Didn’t always used to be that way. Once upon a time we were civili—“

Proxies cut him off. “That’ll be enough. She was the…” Proxies bit back whatever he was about to say about Finnen. “What were you doing back in that house?”

“We forgot something we lost. Thought it might be there.” Percival skirted around the fact that they were looking for Roy Joy. If this military unit hadn’t caught him, and it didn’t sound like they had, Percival didn’t want to point them in his direction. Or give them a reason to go looking for him.

Percival might not be able to protect him directly, but at least he could prevent the man from having unwanted attention.

“Did you find it?” Proxies asked.

“Negative. What was Finnen doing there?”

“Why did you take her weaponry?”

“Weapons are a valuable commodity out here now. A serviceable rifle and ammunition? Better than gold.” Percival leaned back in his chair. He could do this all day long. Most of his answers had been truth or common sense.

“And her identification?” Proxies asked. He took out a pen and scratched a fresh note into his pad.

“Figured someone, family, friends, or comrades, might want them. Know what happened to her. I’m not heartless and didn’t go into that house looking for someone to kill. Unlike you.” Percival drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“We’re not here to kill anyone either,” Proxies said.

“I’ll call bullshit on that front. I have a dead friend who would beg to differ.” Percival’s lip quivered and ached as Andrina’s death flashed before his eyes again.

“Where’re you from?” Proxies asked.

“What’s it to you?” Percival answered.

“Make this easier on yourself,” Proxies responded. He leaned back, seemingly at ease.

“Quid pro quo, Lieutenant. What am I getting out of this little question, question session?” Percival snapped.

“A sense of civic duty. But I’m willing to concede. I will answer a question of yours if you will stop resisting this.” Proxies closed the notepad.

“You call this resisting?” Percival let out a low chuckle. “I just don’t want a fucking one-sided conversation. I’m answering your questions. I’m uncomfortable. I’m bloody.”

“All regrettable outcomes of our prior interaction.”

“Which we were also compliant in.” Percival sneered this time. He jerked his hands against the restraints tying his hands to the chair. “Just what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Proxies answered smoothly.

“What? I’m not gifted with sufficient clearance?” Percival chuckled again. The world had gone to hell in a hand basket and here some military prick wanted to hold onto some top-secret plan to… save the world?

“No. You’re not. Civilians aren’t cleared to know what we’re doing here.” Proxies folded his hands in his lap and fixed Percival with a stare that wordlessly said that he was done answering questions. “I hope you feel satisfied with my answering your questions. You’ll not get another. Now, where are you from?”

“What’s my incentive to answer you?”

Proxies sighed. “I don’t think you understand the situation here, Mister Polz.”

“Then take a fucking moment and explain it to me.” Percival hoped this was a slip in the questioning and the flow of information would reverse. He hadn’t told Proxies anything of true importance, but it didn’t change that he didn’t want to answer more questions without knowing just what might be the endgame consequences.

“Part of our presence out here is to ascertain the viability of the survivors, civilian, militia, and full military, we come across. It is not the specific reason we’re in this town. It is a subset reason. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have already asked these questions of your companions. They were more forthcoming in their answers than you’re being and I need to confirm what they have to say against what you say.”

“So you’re confirming stories? Looking to trip me up and see where I’m lying to you?” Percival leaned forward as far as his bound arms would allow him. His shoulders barked soft pained complaints to him.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re being truthful, it’s that most people aren’t.”

“Who fucking hit me?”

“Greyson and he was properly punished for the assault,” Proxies answered automatically. Percival didn’t believe him.

“I’m from Texas. Waco to be specific.”

“Quite the trek up here from Texas,” Proxies said. He took the notepad back out and made a note.

“I’ve got strong legs.” Percival didn’t want to mention the college. Especially by name. He didn’t want this asshole visiting. Brown College was small and nestled in the equally small town of Prosperity Wells, but it was on most maps.