Free Where the Dead Men Lie by James Harden

arms. I couldn’t see how tall he was because he was sitting down on the pallet of cash, against the wall.
    "Well," Kenji said. "Who the hell are you?"
    The man chuckled. "What’s it to you?"
    "Look, this is no time for games."
    "I agree. Games are pointless. Especially now that the world has gone straight to hell. So to answer your question, it doesn’t matter who I am. Only what I am."
    "And what are you?"
    "I’m a man."
    "Yeah very funny," Daniel interjected. "So you’re a prisoner, just like us."
    "Bingo was his name-O."
    "Speaking of names," Kenji said. "You got a name?"
    "Do you?" he fired back.
    Kenji was fed up. "Look, are you infected or not? Are you a threat to us?"
    "No. I’m not infected."
    "Do you know who these people are?"
    "Yeah, I know who these people are. I know exactly who they are."
    "So who are they?"
    "They’re your worst goddamn nightmare."
    "Excuse me?"
    "They’re you. Me. They’re just like us. They’re regular folk trying to make the best of a bad situation."
    "Are you on drugs?" Maria asked.
    "I wish."
    "Where are you from?"
    "Doesn’t matter where I’m from. The only thing that matters is where I’m going."
    "And where are you going?"
    "Straight to hell."
    It was then I noticed his hands and fingers were stained with blood. His skin had been ripped and grazed at the knuckles. I then looked at the walls; a few of the safety deposit boxes were dented and bent out of shape.
    He must’ve seen me staring at his hand because then held them up slightly. "Don’t mind these. Just a few grazes."
    "What happened?" I asked.
    "Got into a fight with some of the people upstairs."
    I looked at the safety deposit boxes again. I wondered what would happen to a person if he hit them with that kind of force.
    "Did you kill any of them?"
    "Maybe. I don’t know. Don’t really care. But they know they’ve been in a fight. That’s for damn sure. Morons tried to handcuff me. Blindfold me. I don’t think they’ll make that mistake again."
    "Um, how’d they get you down here?" Jack asked.
    "They had to ask me the hard way."
    "What does that mean?"
    He pulled his shirt collar down and to the side, exposing his shoulder. Jack held his glow stick closer. The man’s skin was pockmarked with little black cuts and holes.
    "The preacher man unloaded on me with a shotgun," he said. "Clipped me in the shoulder."
    "Preacher man?"
    "Yeah. The priest. The guy in charge of these people."
    "Do you know how many people are up there?" Daniel asked.
    "Don’t know. I’ve only seen a couple. But there’s gotta be more. Maybe fifteen or so."
    "Fifteen?" Jack said. "That’s too many."
    "Too many for what?" the man asked.
    "To fight our way out if we need to. I mean, how the hell are we gonna get out of this? We’re out numbered. They took our weapons."
    "You ain’t getting out of this."
    "But we have to," Jack said. "You don’t understand. We need to get out of here."
    The man stared at Jack suspiciously and I felt like telling Jack to shut the hell up. Our agreement was that we weren’t going to tell anyone about Maria. Not until we knew we could trust them. Not until we knew we had no choice.
    We didn’t know anything about this guy. Now was not the time to go around spilling our secrets.
    The man shrugged his shoulders. "The way I see it, this is probably the safest place you kids have been in months. You shouldn’t be worried about fighting your way out. You’ve got shelter, protection. That’s more than a lot of people ever had. If anything, you should be fighting to take this place over."
    "No," Jack said. "We need to keep moving. You don’t understand. We need to get to…"
    I kicked Jack in the back of the leg to get him to shut up.
    "Hey," he said surprised. "What?"
    Jack looked at me like I was crazy. But then Maria squeezed his hand and shook her head slightly. I think he finally got the hint.
    "Maybe we don’t have to fight our way out," I said. "Maybe they’re just locking us up as a precaution.