Infuse

by Michael Cornett

  Alec pressed the kickstand down and stepped off the motorcycle, already reaching for his sidearm. He dropped the clip out of the forty caliber Glock, triple-checking that it was fully loaded, and then slid the chamber back just enough to see the butt-end of a chambered round. He slipped the sidearm back into the holster on the side of his right thigh, swung the AR-15 off his back and repeated the same steps. Lastly, he felt the wet leather handle of his katana over his right shoulder and started for the entrance to the prison.

  The thunder continued its enraged ballad and lightning cut through the darkness in beautiful streaks of sizzling light. Alec was actually glad for the storm now. He hadn’t really thought about it while weathering it on his bike, but the storm provided the perfect cover for him to slip into the prison unnoticed. The rain was thick enough to obscure vision at a distance. Between the thunder claps and rain pelting the roof his footsteps would be nearly silent to anyone wanting to hear.

  Rainwater splashed off Alec’s shoes as he ran in a half-crouch through sheets of cool rain. The outlines of a khaki colored door was now visible roughly fifty feet ahead, or at least Alec thought it was a door. The only problem was a towering fence of fifteen feet topped with barbwire was blocking his path. He scanned the fence line to the right as far as the rain would let him see, but there was no gate. He arched the AR-15 to his left, peering through the scope mounted on the assault rifle, and found what he was searching for. He could have simply cut a hole in the fence large enough to slip through, but not if he intended to move everyone to the prison. He couldn’t have a permanent hole in the fencing. When he reached the nearly twenty foot wide gate he was disappointed to find there was no padlock, but instead some sort of sliding hydraulic mechanism. After briefly scanning the area he slung the AR-15 on his shoulder and gripped the gate with two hands, heaving with all his might and almost slipping down. The gate slid open much easier than he expected, as if it had been tinkered with. He scanned the hinges, bolts, and wiring to the gate, but didn’t see anything out of place. Alec decided that he would worry with the gate later. All that mattered now was to find a way into the prison.

  Running in a crouch to the closest guard tower, he pressed his back up against it and searched the windows of the prison for any movement. The entrance to the prison was now only a few dozen feet across the slightly overgrown lawn. Alec lifted the scope to his eye, and from this distance could see a hole blown into the door where a knob should have been. On one hand, that made getting in a little easier and less noisy, on the other he wondered what exactly he would be walking into. The hole in the door really made Alec wish Kable and Stephen…Alec’s skin tingled at the thought of his friend. His friend’s death was still too raw and it slammed into Alec like with a near physical force. The feeling of pain and loss washed over him like the cold rain, feelings weighing on him like his wet clothes. Now was not the time to dwell on the loss of his friend but focus on the task at hand.

  A tiny creak sounded as the door swung open, leading into a long dimly lit hallway. Alec cautiously stepped through the door, dripping water onto the tile floor. His shoes making a sloshing noise as the excess water puddled down the narrow hall. The hall itself was very bland and uninteresting with no decorations, painted the same khaki color as the exterior door. There was a juncture ahead, with the only option to go back or turn left.

  Alec rounded the corner gun first, trying to minimize the sloshing of his shoes and found the hall opened up to some sort of checkpoint. The way forward was blocked by two doors made of steel bars with a single rectangular guard booth sitting between them. The guard booth was enclosed by what he guessed would be bullet proof glass, to his horror the glass was covered with spats of dried blood.

  As Alec approached the barred doors, the stench of rotting flesh filled his nostrils. He grabbed for his wet shirt and quickly pulled it over his nose to prevent himself from gagging. The blood splattered on the glass belonged to an unfortunate guard, who still sat slumped over the counter, face down on the keyboard with a gruesome hole in the back of his skull. Even through his shirt, the smell was worse than old shrimp after sitting out in the sun all day. Alec did his best to breathe through his mouth as he checked the doors. This time he wasn’t fortunate enough to pull on an unlocked door.

  On the guards hip a circular ring full of keys hung caked in blood. Alec stuck his arm through the small opening on the counter, probably used to slide in identification. His arm wasn’t long enough to reach the keys, not even close. He cursed and inspected the room around him, but he didn’t see anything he could use to get the keys. A thought came to Alec as he grabbed the leather handle of his katana, drawing the blade from his back. Mouth still covered, he walked back up to the glass, nearly gagged again, and guided the blade through the opening. In order to see what he was doing, he had to get eye level with the opening. He took in a bigger whiff of the putrid air and dry heaved into his shirt, eyes watering. Pressing his head into the counter, Alec closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself not to throw up, and then continued. The point of his katana slipped through the ring of keys. He tilted the blade upwards, freeing the keys and sending them skidding down the blade towards the handle. He stood up, walked a few feet away, and took a deep breath of semi-clean air.

  The keys weren’t marked, but Alec found the correct one on his fourth try and turned the handle on the door labeled “Cell Block A.” Cell number 100 was roughly twenty paces down the hall, which was slightly wider than the previous hall and decorated bleakly with row after row of cell bars. Both cells 100 and 101 were empty, no signs of foul play and no empty piles of clothes from disappeared. There was of course the possibility that they had always been empty. Alec made his way down the hall and continued to find empty cell after empty cell, all of which looked perfectly normal. He was passing cells numbered in the 130’s when the decaying odor from the guard booth returned. Pulling his wet shirt back over his mouth and nose, he breathed in the damp putrescent air until he made his way to cell number 143.

  Alec fought back the urge to gag, but the stench was wretched, like ten maggot-filled opossums decided to crawl under your porch and die. He fought hard, struggling to breathe through his mouth but the sight of what lay in cell 143 was too much. Bent over on his knees, Alec began to cough and gag into his shirt, and finally had to yank it down, vomiting across the tile floor.

  Chapter 13

  In the cell, there were bodies piled taller than he stood, flies buzzing atop and maggots crawling throughout. Alec’s legs were locked in a cement vat, eyes roving the cell piled with corpses. Whoever or whatever committed this atrocity had apparently singled out the inmates. There were no men wearing blue guard uniforms like the rotting guard that he had plucked the keys from. Wiping viscous saliva from his mouth, Alec willed his legs down the hallway, past not just the one cell of piled bodies, but cell after cell of them stacked six and eight-foot high. Alec couldn’t understand why whoever or whatever had killed them didn’t just burn them. Why stack them up like this to rot? He had the urge to run straight back to his motorcycle and back to the cabin. At the very least to run onto the next cell block and hope he didn’t find the same thing there. That would be the coward’s way out, he told himself. Instead, he approached one of the cells to get a closer look. The bodies appeared unscathed, and for the life of him Alec couldn’t figure out what had killed them. He stood pinching his nose tightly, examining the bodies, knowing that he needed to keep moving. The only aspect about the pile of corpses that seemed strange was how emaciated they were, but Alec assumed that was from the decomposition. After studying them a few seconds later, he decided it would be best to worry about the bodies later.

  This cell block ended at an unpainted metal door with a small wire glass window, allowing for Alec to get a glimpse into Cell Block C. He peered through the window, one hand ready to turn the knob, and nearly jumped backwards at the sight of movement. A single man in a guard uniform was walking, no, patrolling the cell block. From thi
s angle, Alec couldn’t see into the cells. Judging by the movement of the guard’s eyes, it seemed likely these cells contained inmates. The scenario didn’t make any sense to him. Seemingly everyone had abandoned their jobs and their duties days ago. Were these guards truly that dedicated to their duty? Alec couldn’t imagine anyone that dedicated to their jobs. Even the police, the doctors, and some of the military had abandoned their posts after the disappearance. Alec sat anxiously, back against the wall listening, waiting, thinking.

  The thought of more armed guards patrolling the prison both excited and terrified Alec. He considered abandoning his mission, giving up on the prison. Then again if there were guards in the prison, perhaps that would make it even safer. Then there were the bodies. Something about the piles of bodies stacked up in the cells wasn’t sitting right with him. He asked himself why the inmates were the only ones who had died? Starvation? But if the guards had food to survive, why not the inmates? And if all the inmates were dead, who was in the prison cells? There was the dead guard back in the booth. Why would his companions leave him to rot?

  Alec considered opening the cell block door and asking the guard all his burning questions but something, call it a bad feeling, stopped him. Instead, he chose to sneak into Cell Block C after the guard moved on and take a peek into the cells. He rose to his feet and took a quick look down the hallway. It was clear. He nervously turned the knob and pushed the door open, careful not to let it slam closed behind him, preparing himself for what he was about to see. His heart was thudding fiercely, sweat mixing in with water from his rain-soaked clothes as he crept up to the first cell.

  He had been right, the cell wasn’t empty. Through the steel bars, Alec saw a woman sitting with her knees to her chest rocking back and forth. The woman was completely naked in the back corner of the cell. She looked half-starved and utterly petrified. When she saw Alec she retracted further, squeezing her knees together and pulling them tighter to her chest. Alec was so taken back that he didn’t know what to do other than put his finger up to his lips and waving his hand in a placating manner.

  If the guard heard them, if there were others…Alec hadn’t come on this mission ready for a fight. This was primarily a scouting mission, but he couldn’t in good conscious leave the woman like this. He spun to the cell behind him, then took a few steps forward and gaped at the sight. All four cells contained a singular inhabitant with a recurring theme. They were all young, female, and completely nude. What started out as shock quickly turned into rage. The condition that these women were being held caused his blood to boil, and adrenaline began surging through his body. The chambered bullet in his assault rifle begged him for vengeance, and his blade cried out against this evil.

  Before Alec even realized what he was doing his shoes were off, and he was moving down the hall. He moved quickly and silently through the cell block and into the winding hall beyond, stalking his target. The guard’s boots were thumping the ground around the next turn in the hall. Alec drew the blade from the sheath on his back as he spun around the corner, wet feet twisting on the tile. The guard was casually pacing the down the hall, whistling as he swung a shotgun in one hand.

  In hindsight, running barefoot, sword drawn, down a hall at a man carrying a shotgun probably wasn’t the best tactic, but Alec was blinded by his rage. It didn’t matter, by the time the guard heard him, there was sixteen inches of razor sharp steel protruding from his chest. With one hand covering the guard’s mouth and the other still firmly on the grip of the katana, Alec slowly lowered the man to the ground. The guard’s hat fell off, revealing a bald man, probably in his mid-thirties with an interesting tattoo below his left eye. A teardrop tattoo below his eye, a marking that in some gangs across the country boasted of a life taken.

  While the tattoo most certainly could mean other things, it was certainly out of the ordinary for a guard to have such a marking. Alec was not one to judge, not with the hell he had raised growing up, but it was odd nonetheless. He unbuttoned the guard’s shirt, pulling if off the shoulder to reveal another tattoo on the left shoulder, a gang sign. Either this man had completely turned his life around and was now working on the other side of the law, or this man was no guard at all.

  The pile of dead inmates flashed in Alec’s mind. None of them wore guard’s uniforms. Was it possible the guards were overrun and these men, the inmates, switched clothes with them? “He’s probably back there with one of the girls, having a little fun,” a deep voice echoed down the hall. Alec began to panic as he looked around him for cover. Another voice, this one tainted with a strong lisp responded, “Ssscott always s-s-seems to volunteer to check on Cell Block C.”

  Alec jumped to his feet and sprinted around the corner back towards Cell Block C, to the caged women. His mind raced as he zipped down the halls. He didn’t want to leave the women. He couldn’t leave them, not in the condition they were in, not with what was happening to them. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t take a half-dozen women on his motorcycle.

  The two inmates would be at his cell block any minute and would no doubt have seen their dead friend, lying in a pool of blood with a hole through his chest. Alec considered leaving, returning with Kable and Nick, but the thought of the women enduring any more than they already had was too sickening. Footsteps were thudding down the hall, headed towards him. He looked around but there was nowhere to hide. He considered his assault rifle, but that would just alert everyone else in the entire prison. He looked down at his right hand and saw small red drops sliding off the tip of the blade. Each splattered onto the white floor below, almost in slow motion. Alec tightened his grip on the sword, and threw his back against the wall just behind where the door would swing open. His muscles were taut. His breathing rapid but controlled. He knew that surprising the two men from behind was his best chance of making it out of here quietly, and alive.

  The door swung open, and the two men haughtily walked through. Their eyes seemed to focus on Alec’s pile of socks and shoes laying in the center of the walkway, all the hesitation he needed. The katana easily pierced through the first man’s back and into his heart. Before he could utter a sound, the man was dead, and Alec was sliding the wet blade out of his back. The second man turned just in time to see his friend falling to the ground. His eyes grew wide, terror gripping him as he fumbled to raise his pistol toward Alec, but he was too slow. Alec spun towards him and used his momentum to slice across the man’s neck. Blood sprayed out in an arc, drenching Alec in the viscous red liquid. The man fell to his knees, desperately grasping to close his severed neck until he lay convulsing in a pool of his own blood.

  Alec searched the men for keys until he found them on the smaller man, the one he had struck from behind. Alec slowly approached the first cell and found a young blonde woman with bruises down her arms and a swollen lip. Like the other girls, she sat covering her naked body with her arms in a corner. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help, OK?” The woman, really just a girl as he got a better look at her, cautiously nodded her head. Alec tried several keys before finding the one that unlocked the cell door. As he opened the door he removed his jacket and handed it to the girl. “I’m Alec, what’s your name?” “Danica. I’m Danica.” “Well Danica why don’t you cover up the best you can with that jacket and help me get the rest of these women out of here. Do you know where anything is to help cover them up?” She looked around for a second. “They keep the bedding back down that hall I think,” she said pointing back to the hall where Alec killed the first guard. “Do you think you can show me?” She nodded again and they entered back into the hallway. Danica pointed to a door around the first turn, one that Alec hadn’t noticed in his rage earlier.

  Luckily the door was unlocked and inside they found a pile of grey sheets. They smelled musty but would be better than the alternative. As they walked back to Cell Block C, Alec’s rage again began to burn inside at the abuse these women had suffered, but this time the rage mixed sourly with the sorrow f
illing his heart. It could have easily been Alexa that these savages, these monsters could have caged up like an animal. It was then, as he unlocked each cell, as this woman Danica offered a sheet to each woman, that he knew what he must do. He would kill every last one of them. Not today, but after he got these women to safety. He would come back, and he would end their miserable existence. But today he would get these women to safety.

  His body trembled at the thought, not out of fear, but because of the righteous wrath that surged through every fiber of his muscles, through every drop of blood in his body. And that’s when he met the eyes of the liberated women, staring at him like he was on fire. He tried to read the emotions radiating across their faces. He couldn’t tell if it was fear, gratefulness, or some other emotion. Alec met their eyes and followed their gaze down at his hands. They were glowing a faint yellow, as they had just before the disappearance. Steam seemed to rise from his palms as he turned them over in disbelief.

  The women, now wrapped in sheets, backed away from him. “None of you need to fear me, only the men down the hall should do that.” Some of the women who had cowered from him looked slightly more at ease. “How many of them are there?” He asked the group of women. One of them, a redhead around her mid-thirties answered him, “At least fifteen or twenty. They…they’re pretty well armed.” Alec nodded at her, “Thank you. What else can you tell me about them?” Alec wasn’t surprised to learn that the women didn’t know much more than he did. It seemed each of them had a similar story about being kidnapped and blindfolded until they were stripped and thrown into the cells. They weren’t allowed to go outside and hadn’t seen any other part of the prison.

  After listening to what the women knew about their captives, Alec walked to the two guards, picking up their guns and wiping the blood off on his shirt. “Do any of you know how to use one of these?” A thick brunette with a southern accent spoke up, “Been huntin’ since I was little. I’m a pretty decent shot.” Alec handed her the pistol, “anyone else?” “I know the basics,” Danica said. No one else spoke up so Alec handed the shotgun to her. “What are you going to do?” Danica asked. Alec, still faintly glowing, looked back over his shoulder as he walked towards the door leading out of the prison, “I’m going to get you out of here.”