The Death Doll (9 page)

TIME TO LEAVE

Sean couldn’t stop shaking.  His legs wobbled like gelatin as he walked through the Courtyard, making it difficult to drum up the courage to face the mysterious medic.  He knew what he wanted to say and prayed to God that Cody would be receptive.  Hearing Didi never went into the Clinic boosted his courage a little.  He needed civilized dialogue.  It was the way his daddy handled him, it was the way he dealt with Paula’s temperament, and it mostly worked for both up until now.  A voice in the back of his mind kept nagging about how bad an idea this was; that he and his wife should just run and take their chances, but he had to try this. 

He appreciated Gilda coming along. She told him he wouldn’t really get anywhere, but he had to believe a man of medicine would also be a man of reason. 

Cody’s quarters were a surprise at first glance; bare walls, a small desk, and a single bed with unremarkable linens—which he figured had to have seen a lot of mileage between a Soldier and a porn star.  Lots of computers and components littered one corner of the room, but none of them were set up for use.  The rugged man himself, squinting behind a pair of slick sunglasses, soldered the inside of a small, orange-looking tube at the desk.

Gilda touched Cody’s shoulder, and he stopped working.  “Is this a bad time?” she asked.

Cody set down his tools and sunglasses with a smile.  “Not at all.  What do you need?”

Reining in Didi would be a nice start
, Sean didn’t dare say.

“Mister Herrin wanted to have a word,” Gilda stated as she stepped aside and put Sean into the medic’s crosshairs. Cody waved him over to the work bench. 

Sean grabbed a black folding chair by the bed and sat a comfortable distance from his host, but the speech he had memorized went right out of his head.  He couldn’t stop shaking.  Hoping to break the ice with another subject, he pointed at the orange thing Cody was working on.  “That looks interesting.  What’s it do?”

Cody narrowed his eyes at Sean.  “I’m not ready to tell you yet.  Is everything okay?”

Failing at small talk, Sean forced himself to say, “I’d like to talk to you about Didi.”

Cody’s eyes grew suddenly cold, making Sean tremble worse.  The medic looked away and took a deep breath, then faced Sean a little calmer.  “Every new arrival brings a new fear of Didi. Let’s hear yours.”

His speech still somewhere in oblivion, Sean chose his next words carefully.  “Well, we’re a little worried for our lives here, especially after what went on earlier today.  I mean, I respect her position leading this camp and all, but I have to wonder how someone like Didi could make such life and death calls.”

“Someone like Didi,” Cody parroted with restraint.

The challenge made Sean’s hackles stand on end.  He took a deep breath and proceeded firmly.  “Frankly, I think a trained Army medic would make better life-and-death calls than a porn star.”

Cody’s glare sucked all the warmth from the room.  He looked away again with tightly pursed lips, then grimaced at Sean.  “She knows the difference, believe me.  I can assure all of you that Didi’s life before the plague has no bearing whatsoever on her ability to lead or fight for this camp.”  Sean tried to argue, but Cody cut him off.  “Due process may seem fair, but it stalls the inevitable, especially when someone has been infected.  The old society got itself killed because it couldn’t act.  Most of what’s left will take what it wants by force.  People like Didi and a few lessons learned are what keep us all alive.”

Sean put his hands up, but couldn’t get his foot out of his mouth.  “I’m not trying to insult her, but she’s got us worried that she’d rather kill us than consider anything we had to say.”

Cody stood so quickly, Sean worried he was about to draw one of his two holstered pistols and start shooting.

“They’re still new, Cody,” Gilda defended.  “It takes people a while to get used to her.”

The seasoned veteran crossed the room and stopped by the door, taking another deep breath to contain whatever rage had been stirred inside.  He sat down again and spoke with restraint.  “Didi is a very unique individual who is constantly evolving, just like the rest of us.  She is very smart and very dedicated to every single person living here.  She knows better than to let her personal feelings dictate this camp.  She may be a little distant, but that’s because of things you don’t understand.”

“I’d like to,” Sean bravely insisted, “but she’s hardly ever around.”

“The distance is by choice and that’s the best way I can put it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” Didi’s voice echoed through the doorway, causing everyone to face the entrance.  The beautiful yet deadly leader stared at the intervention with her usual girlish grin.

“Sean was expressing his friends’ concerns about how we run things,” Cody casually betrayed, which made Sean’s throat tighten. 

Didi’s smile grew as she looked him up and down.  She looked more amused than anything, but she clutched her sword handle all the same.  “Really?” she practically sang.  “What does the complaint box look like today?”

Holding onto the slim hope that Didi really was as just and caring as Cody claimed, Sean exhaled and stated his case.  “Miss Didi, we needed to air out a few grievances and—”

Didi held a hand up to him and spoke with an edge to her voice that chilled Sean. “You have a purpose, regular meals, running hot water, the respect of your peers, and comfortable beds in the safest environment anywhere.  If you have a better way to run things, go build your own place and run it that way.  I’ll even give you have a couple of weeks’ worth of supplies to get you started.  After watching the four of you, though, I don’t think any of you would survive the gangs, the blizzards, or the millions of boneheads waiting to chow down on you.”

Sean’s heart stopped at the notion of this oft-absent leader spending her time watching them, which made him wonder how many of their private conversations she had heard.  It suddenly occurred to him that having power on the compound meant these people could have installed spy cameras throughout the camp.

“Anything else you want to gab about?” Didi asked, her unblinking eyes filled with challenge despite her carefree grin.  He shook his head, and she waved him outside.  “Thank you for coming.”

Sean glanced between the door and Didi, then noticed Gilda flashing him a sheepish grin.  He gave a polite bow and hurried out like a whipped little dog.

*****

Pat paced in his velvet-lined cell, replaying the memory of that little bitch cutting through his lifelong friend like a stick of butter.  She even had the nerve to do that Catholic cross deal on him before she did it.  So what if the food was good and he had a working toilet?  He would have blood for blood and, no matter what his orders were, he was going to start with that flat-chested sword swallower.

He knew someone was watching him from the projection room.  With all the ways they fortified the block, one would think they would’ve done better than some bars and tinted glass.  He had to smile, then he had to check his jacket pocket to make sure the vial he was entrusted with wasn’t broken.  It wasn’t.  Neither was his pocket knife.  Good thing these fools didn’t search him before oh-so-graciously inviting him in.

He moseyed on up and tried to peer in, but he couldn’t see a thing—at least until the window slid open and a pistol stuck itself in his face.

“Stay back, sir,” warned some chink behind the pistol. 

“Take it easy, man,” Pat calmly requested.  “I’m just bored up in here.”

“If you’re not infected, you’ll be out in three days,” the chink said, during which Pat noticed a radio or something on a nearby desk.
If that radio works, the big boss will love it.

“What’cha workin’ on?” he asked with a fake grin.

EMERGENCY

“So, you’ve tried Cody,” Paula said quietly but expectantly.  “Can we leave now?”

“And go where?” Sean asked while scanning the compound from the theater roof.  No one else heard him.

“Home, Sean.  We can fix the wall. Those things should be long gone by now.”

“Y’all do whatever,” Isaac waved them off.  “I ain’t goin’ out there.”

Paula glared at him, restraining the urge to smack him upside his head.  “You should at least help us fix the wall since you were responsible for bringing it down in the first place.”

“You gonna keep fuckin’ with me about that shit?” Isaac growled.

She got in Isaac’s face and loudly vented her frustration, long past caring who heard her.  Isaac yelled a lot of crude things in response.  Pepe tried to calm everyone, but they both shoved him away and kept digging into each other. 

“HEY!”  She and Isaac sneered at her husband, who looked around before finally admitting, “You’re right, Paula.  This place isn’t as safe as I wanted to believe.  If the farm’s our only option, then that’s where we’ll go.  Didi said she’d give us provisions—”

“I don’t want anything from her,” Paula snapped.  “I just want to go.”

Sean didn’t look like he heard her.  In fact, he looked right past her. 

She turned to find several people rushing through the Courtyard toward the theater.  Pushing against the crowd, Gilda and Jerri lugged the latter’s husband, who was a bloody mess.

“What the fuck?” Isaac muttered.

“Let’s go check it out,” Sean said.

Paula grabbed her husband’s arm.  “No.  We’re done with this place.  Whatever’s going on is their problem.”

Sean shook himself loose.  “We could be walking out into that problem.  I’m going to find out for sure.”  He headed for the hatch, leaving Paula to fume for all of two seconds before she followed her idiot husband.

As soon as she entered the theater lobby, she saw red lights flashing all over.  No alarms, only the thumping of feet as people ran into the left theater, the one Clarissa had called “Assembly.”  She followed Sean in, as did Pepe and Isaac, hoping whatever was wrong would soon end.

Assembly differed from its Isolation twin with unmodified seats, an unblocked emergency exit, and a well-crafted stage where Cody chatted with some of the Panel.  Paula was ready to tell them and their precious Death Doll that she and her group were leaving, but the man’s anxious expression and the absence of his smirking enforcer told her that something was very wrong.  Everyone else in camp rushed into a seat, so she followed suit for the moment. 

Cody called for quiet.  “Our new arrival is gone.  He calls himself Pat.  He’s tall, thin, and was last seen wearing all denim and a white Stetson.  Has anyone seen him?” 

Murmurs spread throughout the room like waves, but no one seemed to know anything.  Among them, however, was not the surly Rachelle, whom Paula had not seen since right before Didi murdered Clay.  She prayed nothing happened to that poor young girl as a result.

“Is he dangerous?” Clarissa asked over the murmurs while cradling her child in her arms.

“He ambushed Xi Xing and ran off with some of his equipment,” Cody relayed.  “Xing’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Where’s Didi?” asked Ron Tench, one of Sean’s stocky, square-jawed colleagues.

“Searching the tunnels,” Cody said.  “We need volunteers for more search parties.  Everyone else should stay in here until we’re sure it’s safe.”

The inconvenient timing irked Paula, but Sean standing amongst the fools heading for the stage really pissed her off.  She tugged at his arm to stop him. “What are you doing?”

“It’s the least I can do if I’m going to leave them,” he said as he took his hand away and left her side.  Pepe followed him.  Isaac sat back and waved off the whole affair. 

With nothing else to do and no desire to wait around, she slipped out of the auditorium and wandered the Courtyard.  She wondered how long Sean and Pepe would be gone—or if they would even come back.  She hoped the stranger had already run off; if not, her foolishly brave husband could get himself killed.  So could Rachelle.

Screams of pain drew her to the trailer, where Gilda tended Xi Xing’s mangled body on a hospital bed.  He looked worse up close.  His wife tearfully held his hand and supposedly reassured him in a tongue Paula couldn’t understand. 

She grabbed a washcloth from a water bowl nearby and applied it to Xing’s head.  He was burning up.  She looked around for an icepack when Xing convulsed violently.  She feverishly helped Jerri strap him down. Gilda rushed to a defibrillator and turned it on while wheeling it over, its escalating screech making it sound like it was going to blow up.

“I need one of you to help me with this thing,” Gilda stated. Paula had no idea what to do, but the collected nurse directed her without pause as she slapped two white strips to her patient’s chest.  Paula watched the foray with fright and wonder until a shrill beep snapped her attention back to the machine.  She informed Gilda, who grabbed the two paddles on the unit and placed them onto the white strips. 

“Clear,” Gilda shouted, waited for Jerri to release her husband, and pressed buttons that made Xing jump.  She paused as he went limp, then placed her ear to his chest.  Two seconds later, she told Paula to push a red button and inform her when the unit was recharged. 

Xing didn’t move a bit.  Jerri started to panic. The machine beeped again, and Paula yelled.

Gilda shocked him again and checked his heart.  “No, no, don’t you dare,” she muttered as she recharged the unit again and resorted to manual CPR.  When the machine beeped again, she shocked him again, checked his pulse, and charged the machine again.

“He’s gone,” Paula had to accept.

“No,” Gilda insisted as she waited by the machine, “I can do this.”

Paula grabbed Gilda and looked her in the eyes without minding the paddles in her hands.  “He’s gone, Gilda.  You did your best, but he’s gone.”

Gilda’s eyes watered as Jerri ran out of the room crying.

“She needs you,” Paula assured the elderly nurse.  “You can’t help him anymore.”

The machine beeped again, startling them both.  Paula slowly took the paddles from Gilda, returned them to the unit, and turned off the defibrillator. 

Gilda slowly left the trailer with a ghostly expression.

Paula lingered over the body, flashing back to her first day on the compound when its seemingly kind leader insisted she and her husband would be safe and comfortable.  She felt neither.  She took a deep breath and left the Clinic.

She wandered into Assembly, where Sean argued with Cody, Jerri cried into Clarissa’s shoulder near the stage stairs, and most of the others chatted in small groups around the seating areas.  Rachelle was still nowhere to be found. She shook all over as she stepped onto the stage and approached Sean, who caught her gaze and met her halfway. 

“What’s wrong, Honey?” he asked as he took her arms in his hands.

“Jerri’s husband just died,” Paula said blankly, not knowing what else to do or say, wishing none of it was happening.  Sean hugged her, but it brought her no comfort.

Didi finally sauntered in with a small scouting party that included Pepe, but not Rachelle.  The creepy matron joined Cody on the stage.  “No sign.  He jacked a few of the Isolation weapons and some food.  You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Afraid so,” Cody replied.

“What’s that?” Sean asked.

“Spies,” Didi answered.  “Gangs out there use them to scout out loot.”

“So he could be coming back with more guys.  What will you do about it?”

“Please have a seat,” Cody told him, then had a conversation with his precious Panel.

Paula’s head swam as if falling into a portal.  People were dying, the Panel was arguing, Jerri was crying, everyone else looked scared or confused, and Rachelle was nowhere to be found.  She couldn’t take it anymore, so she yanked Cody’s arm.  “What are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry,” Cody said as he took his arm back.  “We have everything under control.”

“
The hell you do
,” Paula blasted.  “Someone died because of you—no, because of
her
,” she concluded by pointing at Didi. 

Dead silence fell over the theater, save for Paula’s heaving breaths.  Sean gently guided her back, but she shook loose and stared down the pale butcher. 

“They says she cares, but she never listens.  They says she defends us, but she kills without warning.  She killed a man on a whim, and that got someone killed—maybe two of us, seeing as how Rachelle isn’t here where she should be.  A fifteen-year-old girl!  What’s a whore like this even doing telling us what to do anyway?”

“You don’t know what you’re—” Cody started to say.

“Because she’ll kill us if we don’t, that’s what,” Paula shouted.  “She doesn’t care at all.  It’s her place, so she gets what she wants, and she’ll damn anyone to Hell with her blade if the Death Doll doesn’t get her way.”

All eyes passed between her and their cold-blooded matron, who sauntered up to her until standing face-to-face, that unblinking gaze fixed on her like a poisonous insect.  “I do care, but I am not going to be manipulated by everyone’s fear, because that gets people killed.”

“Your way got someone killed,” Paula shouted. “Maybe it’s time for a change.”

Didi drew her sword, which startled Paula.  Everyone held their breath.  Then Didi presented the handle to Paula with a smirk, her glare never faltering. “Then do something about it.”

Paula eyed the sword with great temptation but figured it had to be a trick. 
If I reach for it, the Death Doll collects another head for her collection.
 
I’m not going out that way.

Didi sheathed her sword with a snarky grin.  “I didn’t think so,” she said, then turned about.

Rage overtook Paula.  She snatched one of Didi’s pistols from its holster and aimed right at the monster’s heart. 

“
No, don’t
,” Sean yelled, but as soon as Didi turned, Paula pulled the trigger.