Chapter Twenty-Four – "When All the Choices Are Bad"
Previously: In return for Zach's signature on a confession/suicide note, Ethan has tossed the unharmed but thoroughly confused Vanished out into the Dump, letting them fend for themselves miles away from Pine Valley.
It was not many minutes later that the former Vanished remembered that cell phones could be used as something other than flashlights and began calling taxis to pick them up at the Dump.
"Why won't they come here to pick us up!" a severely frustrated Liza howled, after the fourth cab company she called hung up on her. Others were having similar disappointing results.
"Well it's four o'clock in the morning," Joe Martin said, checking the time on his cell phone. "Hard to get a cab to come to a Dump this early."
But Erica had more on her mind than taxis.
"Ryan, Kendall's not here!" she cried out to him, gracefully stepping between three plastic garbage bags containing medical waste and a discarded xerox machine. "Greenlee! Have you seen Kendall?"
"Yes, but I don't care," Greenlee answered truthfully. "I left the Show, Erica. I'm not on AMC anymore. I don't have to care about any of you anymore."
That made no sense at all to Erica.
"But you're here!" she pointed out. "How on earth could you be here if you're not on the Show anymore?"
"I'm here," Myrtle piped up. "And I'm hardly on the Show anymore!"
Several other Veterans grunted in agreement.
"Look," Greenlee sighed. "Ethan kidnapped me just like everybody else. When I came to in that stupid building, I tried to explain I wasn't on the Show anymore, but he refused to let me go. Even when he found out I was recast. I've been trapped there for six damn weeks!"
"Six weeks?" Julia asked. "What the heck were you doing in that building for six whole weeks?"
"Mostly I watched soap operas," Greenlee revealed.
"Recast?" a still bewildered Erica echoed. "You've been recast?"
Greenlee smirked at Ryan. "According to Kendall, her name is Gina, and according to Ethan, she's the new Mrs. Lavery. Right, Ry?"
"Is that true, Ryan?" Erica asked him, completely aghast. "Is there a Recast Greenlee?"
"I had nothing to do with recasting Greenlee," Ryan maintained quietly. "But Gina seems like a very nice person. Although of course she isn't --"
"Your Green Butterfly?" Greenlee finished for him, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Ryan hung his head.
"Well, Ethan meant well," Opal observed, overhearing the conversation.
"Hah!" Greenlee hahed. "That's what he wanted you all to think. I didn't say anything back there while we were all prisoners because I was busy trying to figure a way out and I really don't care what happens to any of you anyway, but believe you me Ethan didn't abduct everyone in order to save any Veteran's careers on AMC. He meant to knock all of us off."
That got everyone's attention.
"But if that's true, what stopped him?" Julia asked for them all.
"Zach and Kendall," Greenlee answered. "I don't know how they did it, but look! We're free! And we're alive!"
"But where is Zach?" Julia asked.
"And where is Kendall?" Erica asked again.
Brooke had a question of her own.
"Where's Tad?"
Aidan heard her, looked around and didn't see his partner anywhere.
"He must be still inside. I'll go back in, Brooke. You go ahead with the others."
Brooke nodded but waited for Aidan to come out again with Tad. He didn't.
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Tad was right outside the meat locker trying to plan his next move. He had followed Ethan and Zendall out of the ballroom while everybody else had left at Ethan's request/demand. Now he was kneeling by the door to the meat locker, seeing as much as he could through the keyhole. What he saw, he didn't much like. Ethan had a gun on Zach and Kendall. In back of them hung two – what were they – oh, meat hooks. "Meat hooks?" Tad thought. He could hear talking if he put his ear to the door, but then he couldn't see through the keyhole. He decided hearing what was going on was more important than seeing it.
"WHAT explosion?" Kendall was asking.
"In twenty minutes this gorgeous building will be but a memory. But you two don't have twenty minutes to live, so I wouldn't worry."
"The timer is already set?" Zach asked to make sure.
Ethan frowned. "Damn! I knew I forgot to do something!" He opened the door behind him and began backing out. "This will give you two lovebirds a chance to say bye-bye. See you soon! While I'm gone try to decide who dies first!"
Tad barely got out of Ethan's way as he backed out of the meat locker, still holding the gun on Zendall. While Ethan locked the door, Tad considered his options and decided since Zach and Kendall would keep for a bit in the meat locker, following Ethan to the detonator was his best bet. The problem, of course, was that Ethan had a gun and Tad didn't.
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Di was the first one to notice the bedraggled group of Veterans who were limping toward them on the highway as dawn broke in a cloudless Pine Valley sky.
"Brooke!" she cried out, jumping out of NuGreenlee's Jeep Cherokee. "What happened?"
"Long story," Brooke answered, squinting at the convoy of police cars slowly winding its way down the highway and toward the Dump. "Where's Derek?"
"Where's Ryan?" NuGreenlee demanded, joining the group.
"Who are you?" Brooke asked her.
NuGreenlee made a face, jumped back into her Jeep Cherokee and drove away toward the Dump.
"Where's Tad?" Di demanded, looking around and not seeing him in the crowd.
"Where's Aidan?" Erin demanded, jumping out of a squad car.
"Where did you get that necklace?" Brooke asked Di, ignoring both questions.
"It's Dixie's," Di replied.
"Like hell it is," Brooke corrected her. "That's mine. Tad gave it to me years ago. I was wearing it yesterday afternoon when Ethan chloroformed me. When I came to, it was gone. Where did you get it?"
"Ethan found it in the second basement," Lily told Brooke, leaning out of Derek's squad car. "Di said it belongs to Dixie."
"Di is mistaken," Brooke said. "Hand it over."
"I could have sworn that Tad gave Dixie a necklace exactly like this one," Di told them all as she took it off and placed it in Brooke's outstretched palm.
"No, Mom's necklace is a star," JR informed Di, getting out of his Mercedes. "Not two interlocking hearts."
"Tad gives each of his wives a different necklace," Brooke explained.
"Guess I'll never find out what mine would have been," Di mused wistfully.
"Guess not," Opal called out over her shoulder, as she climbed into a squad car for the ride home to Pine Valley. "Heartless hussy!"
"Ethan must have planted it in the second basement so we'd think the Vanished had been there," Lily reasoned. "But Di thought it was Dixie's."
"Why would you think it was your dead half-sister's jewelry?" Brooke asked, suddenly curious.
"Mom's not dead," JR said at once, still scarcely believing that could be true.
Di winced, realizing at that point the only citizen of Pine Valley who thought Dixie was still dead was Tad.
"Dad!" JR cried seeing him among the Former Vanished, who were busy finding squad cars to take them home. "Uncle Stuart! Marian! Babe, look! Everybody is here!"
"Almost everybody," Brooke said uneasily. "Derek, we need to talk."
"Where's my Dad and Erica?" Lily asked, frowning with worry. "Where's Kendall and Zach? Where's Tad and Aidan?" Then Lily thought of a scarier question. "Where's Ethan?"
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Ethan was hunched over the detonator, setting the timer he anticipated would set off the bomb in twenty minutes which would demolish the Big Black Building and all of the evidence therein, including Zendall and Tad. He had Zach's confession/suicide note safely tucked away in his inside coat pocket where he intended it to remain as he made his escape before the building exploded.
"So glad I don't have to shoot you, Tad," Ethan had said cheerfully, after he turned around and realized he was being followed. "I always liked you. Luckily, the blast will take care of everything."
"You've gone out of your mind!" Tad diagnosed, right before Ethan landed a right cross that knocked him unconscious.
"Put up your hands and step away from Tad!" a voice nearly as accented as his own commanded.
"Nice try, Aidan," Ethan smiled as his accomplice smashed a vase over Aidan's head, rendering him as unconscious as Tad was.
Whistling what he imagined was "This Land Is My Land" but was really "You Are My Sunshine" Ethan strolled back to the meat locker to deal with Zendall before the whole place blew sky high.
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Zendall was having a serious discussion.
"He can't shoot us both at the same time," Zach was saying. "After he shoots me, you'll have a window of opportunity. While he's kneeling over me or while he's dragging me to the meat hook or while he's hanging me up, you can get the drop on him."
"You paint such pretty word pictures," Kendall marveled. "No wonder I adore you. As a point of information, what do I get the drop on him with? My girlish charm? I'm unarmed, Zach."
She thought again about Ryan, who was also unarmed, and wondered why he wasn't rescuing them anyway.
"There must be something you can use to knock him out with." Zach frowned, scanning the bare meat locker.
"How about that gun in your pocket?" Kendall suggested. "That is a gun, isn't it Zach? Or are you just happy to see me?"
Zach didn't even crack a smile. "Forget about the gun, Kendall. We're not killing my son today."
"Your son wants to kill us today," Kendall reminded him. "Your son wants to hang us up on meat hooks and blow up this building! Look, Zach. Killing Ethan isn't my first choice. But sometimes there are no good choices!"
"Ethan isn't a murderer," Zach maintained. "It isn't in him."
"How would you know, Dad?" Ethan asked, opening the door and walking through it. "You have no idea who I am!"
"Luckily, I do," Kendall said, grabbing Zach's gun and aiming it right between Ethan's eyes, which she used to love to look into so much once upon a time.
"Kendall, don't!" Ethan and Zach chorused.
Without an instant's hesitation, Kendall pulled the trigger.
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Oh, no she didn't! Or did she? And who could Ethan's accomplice be? Time will tell, but I won't! Please return for the next chilling installment! Your review is ALWAYS welcome!