Driver 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel

CHAPTER 5

The entrance to the prison cells opened with a loud clang and jolted Kyle awake. He looked out between the metal bars and saw he and Portia were still holding hands. “Portia,” he whispered.

Silence.

The sound of hard soles shoes clapping on the tile floor echoed down the walkway.

“Portia, wake up, someone is coming,” he said tugging at her hand.

“Huh?” she asked, her voice groggy.

“Someone is coming.”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. With no outside windows I can’t figure if we’ve been asleep for an hour or ten,” he answered.

The footfalls grew closer.

“Is there anything you can use as a weapon over there?”

“I looked already, there’s nothing,” she replied.

“Wake up little love birds,” a familiar voice called out.

“It’s Barry,” Kyle said.

Barry approached Kyle’s cell and looked in. “Good morning Driver Eight, did you sleep well?”

“I thought we had a deal,” Kyle said.

“We did, but when I saw you standing there, I decided to renegotiate.”

“This is for how I treated you, isn’t it?” Kyle asked.

“To be honest, yes. I won’t lie, I need tough and obedient men like you on the road driving for me, especially after the changes I’m going to be making. The Collective is now under new leadership and with that comes a new vision.”

“What did you say the other night? I’m replaceable?”

“I did say that. I also said, I was going to dance on your grave and fuck your wife.”

Kyle clenched his jaw and growled, “When I escape, I will cut you to pieces.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. You my friend have a gathering to go to then promptly after that, there’s a big beautiful tree waiting for you.”

“I’m going to kill you slowly,” Kyle threatened.

Barry began to laugh, he gave Portia a look and asked, “Say goodbye to your husband.”

“Go to hell,” she snapped.

“Guards!” Barry hollered.

A minute later four guards appeared. The lead guard stepped forward and said, “At your service, Number One.”

“Has the truck departed yet?” Barry asked the lead guard.”

“No.”

“Good. Take her to the processing center. I want her on that truck. She’ll fetch a decent amount at the auction.”

“Yes sir, the lead guard said walking up to her cell and unlocking it.

“Don’t take her, no, don’t do this,” Kyle pleaded.

“Too late, I already have a buyer in mind for her,” Barry said.

“You don’t want to kill me. You can still use me, let me be your instrument that keeps this place in line. If you save her life and mine, I will forever be indebted. I will owe you my life and gladly give it in service for the rest of my days.”

The offer was intriguing to Barry. He paced for a few minutes, his thoughts bouncing all around in his head. He stepped to just outside of Kyle’s reach and said, “It’s tempting, but I have to decline.”

The guards moved into her cell and apprehended her without much of a fight.

“Resist!” Kyle exclaimed.

As she passed in front of him, she looked into his eyes and said, “I love you.”

Not allowing her to leave without speaking his feelings, he replied, “I love you too, and I’ll search for you until my dying breath.”

Portia and the guards disappeared around the corner.

Barry snapped his fingers. Four guards, all armed with taser batons stepped forward. “Take him to the forum, it’s time for justice to be served.”

Kyle lay on his side in the back of a van. His body ached and throbbed from the beating he just received in the jail cell. There was no amount of physical pain that could take away the emotional anguish he was feeling. Portia was being sold into slavery and once she was gone, finding her would be almost impossible.

The van came to a stop. The rear doors opened washing him in the sun’s bright rays.

"The sun is out, that’s a good luck sign for our new leader," a guard said. He reached for him but was met with the sole of Kyle’s boot. The guard reeled backwards. Three other guards swept in with taser batons and began to strike him all over. The electrical charges were too much for Kyle to take, the core of his body went rigid while his extremities twitched. With him unable to fight back, the guards dragged him out by his legs, letting his head hit the bumper and allowing his body to fall to the hard surface. They laughed when he grunted in pain.

The guard who Kyle had kicked walked up and kicked him in the ribs. “Take that asshole.”

Kyle groaned.

A man by the name of Cisco appeared on the loading dock. He was Barry’s new right hand person and would serve as his personal aide. He hollered, “Stop playing with him and get him inside, take him stage left. Hold him there until we call for him to be brought out.”

The guards all took one more swipe at Kyle before picking him up and dragging him inside.

The forum filled up fast with many sad faces. The news of Number One’s death was announced earlier via calls and loud speaker. However, how he died had not been released, Barry wanted to shock the residents of The Collective and when he brought out Drive Eight it would most certainly do that.

Barry stood on the side of the stage reading a prepared statement he’d drafted. Today would be his first time addressing The Collective. He was nervous but also very excited to showcase his style of leadership.

Cisco stepped up beside him. “Three minutes to go. You ready?”

“I am.”

“Then I’ll go on and introduce you,” Cisco said before stepping away.

“No, don’t. My father did that. It’s so corny, tired and well, stupid.”

“Then what, Cisco asked.

“I’ll just walk out, no music, no pomp.”

“If you say so,” Cisco said stepping back.

Barry read over his speech one more time, gave Cisco a wink and headed out. As he walked to the podium many in the audience could be heard talking while otehrs cried. He reached the podium and tapped on the microphone. “Good morning residents!” He laid his speech out before him and looked at it briefly.

The crowd drew still and silent.

Suddenly and rashly he decided to not use it, “I come before you as the new Number One. My father was a great man, a leader. He carved out this great society from the rubble of the past world. He gave us laws to live by and a renewed purpose that the needs of the many outweigh the news of the individual. This couldn’t be truer than now. Like me, many of you feel a deep sense of loss. We lost the father of our society. He was taken too early but as his successor, I will continue his great work.”

Many began to clap.

Barry looked out and what nervousness he had felt was now gone. “I pledge to you that what he and you created we will continue and make greater. While we will miss him, let us not forget the words he gave us,” Barry said just as the screen behind him began to project quotes from Xavier.

Sounds of people openly crying and whimpering came from the crowd.

“I promise, I pledge to you that our greatest days are ahead of us, not behind us. We shall go forward proud to have known him and do our best to make him proud of us.”

The crowd cheered the uplifting words.

Barry never imagined himself as a speaker but he now felt he had a knack for it.

When the crowd settled down, Barry continued, “Now we must turn to what happened. This will be hard for many of you to process but our great leader was murdered.”

Boos and jeers rang out in the great forum.

“Yes, murdered, and this horrendous act was committed by a son of The Collective, someone we trusted but more importantly, someone my father trusted, someone whose life he saved. This act wasn’t done by one of those deplorable types who resist the good work we do, no but by someone we all hold dear.”

“Name the traitor!” a man boomed from the crowd.

“Bring the murderer out!” another cried out.

“Yeah, bring them out!” voiced another.

Barry waited for the crowd to simmer down before proceeding. “The individual. Yes, I used that word because they are that and so much more, the individual is Driver Eight,” Barry said and looked in the direction of stage left.

The crowd went wild. Hissing and boos echoed across the great walls of the forum.

A light beamed down on Driver Eight being dragged out across the stage.

Upon seeing him, the crowd grew louder.

Kyle was dropped to the floor. He looked up and saw the angry masses. If Barry wanted to truly be cruel to him, he’d only need to throw him into the middle of the crowd and watch as they pulled his limbs from his torso.

“Let me share a story,” Barry said and repeated the tale of how he and his father had found Kyle on the road. When he finished he looked at Kyle and said, “And this is how he thanked us.” The screen turned on behind them showing footage from Number One’s office. Taken from a side angle, it showed, Xavier on the right and Barry on the opposite side of the desk. There was no sound to accompany the video but by the gestures of the two, it looked as if the two were discussing something. Without notice in comes Kyle from the left holding a pistol. Seeing this the crowd in the forum gasped and a few booed. All eyes watched as the pistol went off and Xavier’s head exploded.

“That’s enough, turn it off, turn it off!” Barry hollered.

The screen went dark.

A mix of emotions rang out from the crowd.

“This man, this individual decided to snuff out the life of our leader and for what? To save the life of his wife who had committed a crime. Yes, let it be known that the very next day after my father chooses Teacher Seven for recognition, she attempts to kidnap a contaminated child in processing. She put the entire Collective at risk. My father was about to impose sentence when this madman barges into the executive residence and murders him in cold blood.”

Hissing and jeers sound from the crowd.

“I have banished her, she will never be seen again and as for him. The punishment will be the Tree of Justice!”

The residents rose and cheered. “Kill him, kill him, kill him,” the crowd chanted.

Kyle leered at the residents he once calls friends and neighbors. How quickly they turned on him. They were nothing more than thoughtless and mindless walking bags of skin who would turn in their own mother if they felt it would benefit themselves and their beloved collective. He was disgusted.

“Guards take him away,” Barry ordered.

The guards surrounded Kyle. He thought about resisting but questioned the rationale as he wouldn’t escape. It appeared his destiny had been chosen. They picked him up and dragged him away.

Barry watched until Kyle disappeared behind the curtain then put his attention back on the crowd. “In two days’ time we shall hold a memorial service for our father then we will commence a procession to his burial spot. I have called for a day of rest across The Collective so that you all may come and pay your respects. With that said, thank you and as my father would say, THE ONE FOR THE MANY…!

The crowd shouted, “THE MANY FOR THE ONE!”

Barry waved and exited the stage.

Cisco greeted him on the side of the stage, “You were amazing and you didn’t use your prepared speech, you’re a natural at this.”

Full of pride, Barry said, “It was good, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go celebrate, I wish to go to the Lair. Have my father’s suite prepared.”

“Very well, but don’t you mean your suite?”

Barry winked at Cisco and said, “Yes, my suite.”

The two headed for the exit. An idea came to Barry, “Hold that thought, I want to see Driver Eight put on that tree, take me there,” Barry said.

Each time Kyle was loaded and unloaded, he received more beatings. By the time he was dragged from the van and placed in front of the tree of justice, he was bleeding from his mouth, nose and ears and he was so weak he could barely sit up.

Barry got out of his vehicle and walked over to the barely conscious Kyle. “You look like shit, not so tough now, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Kyle managed to mutter.

Barry shook his head while a guard punished Kyle with a kick to the head. “You don’t learn do you?” Barry asked walking past Kyle to the tree, one side of the large oak was void of bark and stained dark with the blood of the many residents who found their punishment there. Large chains hung down from two large branches above and a chain wrapped around the trunk near the base had two iron clamps that went around the victim’s ankles. Barry admired it, “This is truly barbaric but it represents the times we live in. I really have to thank my father’s ingenuity for this.”

The Tree of Justice stood just outside the main gates along the Eagle River. It served two purposes, one as an instrument to punish and two, as a warning to residents and any passersby, to obey the laws.

“I guess we should string him up, is that the correct term?” Barry laughed.

The guards dragged Kyle to the base, a guard each, held up his arms as another lowered the chains from above. When his wrists were secure in the clamps, they pulled him to his feet.

Kyle groaned with each pull.

The stopped when his feet were dangling five feet from the ground.

The guards put on the ankle clamps and just to add to his misery, they attached a thirty pound weight to each ankle chain to stretch Kyle’s body out further.

Barry walked up and nodded his approval. “Good job. Cisco, add an additional liquor ration for each one of these fine men.”

“Yes sir.”

“Driver Eight, I hope in these last days you’ll come to see that I was the better man. I had been the one who evolved, you didn’t. I told you numerous times and I’ll say it again, you’re a stupid man. Had you not treated me so poorly who knows, maybe we could have become allies.”

Kyle looked down and mustered two words, “Fuck you.”

“There’s nothing more to say. I beat you. You’ll die and your wife will become someone’s whore. Goodbye Driver Eight.” He signaled a guard. “Don’t remove his body. I want him to rot, make him food for the vultures and post a guard, I don’t want someone to take him down.”

Kyle didn’t have the strength to reply or look up to watch them leave. His thoughts raced to where Portia was and how, like Tiffany, he had let her down. Once more he had failed the woman he loved. No amount of bravado or positive talk was going to get him off this tree, he was a dead man, plain and simple.