He leaned back in his chair, stroked his large stomach, thinking.
The Warden had one option. One pool with which to draw recruits. But it wasn’t a very good one. If anything, it held more risk than hope of reward.
He thought some more. He didn’t have any other play. He had to at least consider it. And he would have to see if they would consider it. At any rate, a decision had to be made, and he was the man that made the decisions at Brennick Maximum Security Prison.
There was a quiet knock and Bowers called for the person to enter. Alexander Pope, tall, lean, like a stick figure in an oversized uniform, came in and shut the door behind him.
“Sorry to bother you, Warden,” he said. “But should I organize work duty for the prisoners to take the bodies away from the fence?”
Bowers nodded. “And one other thing,” he said, took out a pen and paper and scribbled ten names down. Thought a moment, and added one. Tore the paper off and handed it to Pope. “I want to see these prisoners in an hour.”
Pope read the list, made a face and read it again. “Sir?” he asked.
“Just do it, Pope.”
“Yes, sir.” The tall man nodded and went out.
Warden Bowers sighed again. Took out a bottle of scotch and poured himself a finger. “God help us,” he said, and gulped it down.
Ten
Chris closed the medicine cabinet and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked half dead. Felt about the same.
He had found his home still locked up tight and empty. Told the men to take a twenty minute breather while he collected some personal effects. Then hit the master bathroom.
Chris turned away from the mirror and looked at his arm again. Black lines curled up along his veins, to his elbow. The skin around the bite was green now, oozing hot white puss. It smelled fucking horrible. He cursed as he poured alcohol over it, knowing it wouldn’t solve anything.
Wrapped a fresh bandage on the wound and left the bathroom. Took out his bag and filled it with fresh uniforms, shoes, socks. He took a few pictures out of their frames and tossed them in. Him and his parents, mostly. Under his socks he got the porno mags and a few naughty pictures of his previous conquests. Dropped them in.
Zipped it up, pulled down his sleeves and went out.
In the hall, Phil had Chris’ gun cabinet open and was putting its contents into a duffle bag.
“Jesus, you could have asked me first,” Chris said, pointing at the broken glass door. “I have a key.”
“Shit, man, what does it matter now?” Phil asked. “You planning on having any house parties soon?”
Chris shrugged and crossed into the kitchen. Opened a cabinet and took a bottle of Southern Comfort out. Took a shot from the bottle and set it back down, wiping a few drops from his lips. That would do some good.
“Anybody want to load my booze up?” he asked. “Take it with us?”
“Don’t think the Warden would mind?” Bryce asked from the couch.
Chris laughed. “When Bowers runs out of scotch, you can be damn sure we’ll be coming back this way to get him some.”
Maurice Avelanda materialized in the hall, holding a box in his oven mitted hands. His bite suit slung heavily over his body. Flame thrower resting in the living room. Maurice wasn’t a guard, but he had saved their asses at the sheriff’s office and been allowed to join up. “You got tequila?” he asked. “I make a murderous margarita.”
Chris smiled. “That’s the spirit,” he said and started loading bottles into the box.
Eleven
Erin Gibbs sat up in his bunk as the cell door slid open. “Work detail?” he asked.
The guard nodded. “Mahone,” he said.
Tall Bill Mahone came out of his bunk dressed in nothing but boxers. “Outside?” he asked Harper.
The man nodded again.
Erin’s heart fluttered for a moment. Then he flipped himself off his bunk – white boxers and undershirt over gray skin – and started pulling on his bright orange uniform.
“Just Mahone,” the guard told him. The guard’s name was Harper. He was overlarge and a pain in the ass.
Erin looked at him, blinked twice, and said, “Why just Bill? Yesterday it was supposed to just be me, but you took us both. Now it’s just him?”
Harper shrugged.
“They recognized talent when they saw it,” Bill explained.
“Hucking bodies off a fucking fence? That’s not why.”
Harper shrugged again. “I got my list,” he said, tapped it. “Only prisoners on my list go. Period.”
Erin felt all of the hope he had built over the night crashing down. “This is bullshit,” he said.
“Watch your fucking mouth to me,” Harper growled. “Why you wanna go so bad? Thinking of taking a little trip?”
Erin glared at him. They held each other’s gaze until Harper broke it off, cleared his throat, and looked back at his clipboard.
“Let’s get a move on,” he told Tall Bill. Bill went out. The door closed behind them.
Erin was alone. But not like back in solitary. In solitary he had been surrounded by other cells. Other inmates. He had had an ex-wife. A son.
Now, he had nothing.
Twelve
“If we come back into this town,” Chris said as Phil’s shotgun roared, the buckshot turning a creeper in a State Police uniform into a mist of red, “we’re bringing silencers.”
Phil turned and looked at Chris. “Genius,” he said. Crossed the snow-covered yard to the truck, set his shotgun in the bed and climbed in.
“What are you doing?” Chris asked him. “I thought you were going to clear the house.”
“I’m gonna clear the house, man,” Phil told him, “I’m just getting supplies.” Stood in the bed, took the fifty-cal off his back and set it next to the shotgun. Leaned down and started fishing through crates. “Rifles,” he said to Chris. “Which truck did we put the small arms in?”
“Back truck,” Brooks supplied.
“Roger.”
Phil jumped out of the truck bed and walked casually to the back truck. Hopped into that bed and did his crate searching some more. Came up with two pistols. Set them down, and searched some more.
“They have to be designed for them,” he said. Then brought out two silencers. Screwed them on. Slapped a clip in each, and then stood and said, “Fucking Tomb Raider.”
Chris rubbed his sweating brow.
Phil flipped out of the truck and stalked up to Chris. Looked at him sideways. “Can you bring me the gun of Rambo?” he asked.
“Quit screwing around and clear the fucking house,” Chris spat at him. “We still have to get the Warden’s shit and get back. We lost half the morning chasing Sam’s dumb ass.”
“Buzz kill,” Phil said and ran up to the door, kicked it in, and disappeared into the house.
Immediately, Chris heard gunfire.
“So much for silencers,” he said.
Thirteen
“So,” Jessie said to Mercedes, “what do you think?”
She held up her painting so Mercedes could examine it. Mercedes crossed the small cell and studied it. The painting was good – amazing – even for Jessie. Tall Bill stood with his foot up on a pile of dead guards, his prison uniform torn and shredded to reveal rippling muscles. Jessie draped over his leg, the proper amount of cleavage showing.
Mercedes nodded.
“I made it for the Tall Bill guy, to say thanks for the smokes.”
“You’re just feeding the beast,” Mercedes told her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know he’s panting for you. You give him that, he’ll propose right then and there.”
Jessie shrugged. “You said he was a nice guy,” she reminded Mercedes.
“He is. But you don’t want a nice guy. You want… how did you say it? A ‘cheap fuck’ I think it was.”
“No, you said that.”
Mercedes sighed and climbed back onto her bu
nk. Laid down. Rubbing her belly.
Jessie took the canvas and rolled it up. Stuck a rubber band around it and shoved it down her shirt between her breasts. She looked up at Mercedes. “When do you think you’ll start to show?”
Mercedes didn’t answer right away. She just kept on rolling her palm over the spot where her child rested. “In the showers,” she said, “couple of weeks. In a month or so there won’t be any hiding it.”
“Do you want to?” Jessie asked.
“Want to what?”
“You know, hide it?”
Mercedes thought about that. She hadn’t been thinking of much else for the past few days. What was going to happen when they found out?
There was no way to know. She’d find out when it happened.
“Maybe,” she said. “But maybe I want a lot of things.”
Fourteen
Phil came through the door, turned right to clear the kitchen and got shot in the chest.
Slammed against the wall and said, “Shit, man, twice in one day.”
“Phil?” a voice asked. He looked up to see Steven Morris huddle in the corner, a smoking hunting rifle in his hands. “Jesus, are you alright?”
Steve was part of the day shift, and had left Brennick as Phil was coming in. He did almost every day. So, though Phil rarely actually worked with him, they talked several days a week as Steve was getting off and Phil was getting ready for his shift.
“At least you had the decency to do it to my face,” Phil told him, and flicked the matted bullet in his vest with the barrel of one of his pistols. “Sam shot me in the back.”
“What? What the hell is going on?”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Phil explained, “we’re smack dab in the middle of Awesome Zombie Apocalypse Three-Thousand.”
“I did notice.”
“Well, we came in to clear the houses.”
“What do you mean ‘clear’?” Steve asked, the barrel of his rifle not leaving Phil’s chest. “Like kill us?”
Phil shook his head. “No, kill creepers. As you’re not a creeper, I don’t plan on killing you. But, if you want to use that rifle again, you might want to jack a new shell in.”
He pushed himself off the wall and went to holster one of his pistols – the barrel was too long with the silencer – decided to set them both on the counter. “What do you mean by ‘us’?” he asked.
Steve hesitated. “It’s not just me,” he said. “I’ve got…”
“Show me.”
Steve nodded, seemingly relieved at Phil being unarmed. He dislodged himself from the corner, crossed to the basement door, and opened it.
Phil looked in. Hundreds of eyes looked out. “How many?” he asked.
“Seventy-six,” Steve told him. “Including me.”
“Jesus, man, we’d need a fucking bus to bring that many in.”
Steve nodded fast. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “Is the prison safe?”
Phil nodded.
“So you’ll take us there?” a teenaged girl in front asked. Phil put her age at about fifteen. Cute enough.
Phil sighed. “I’ll be back,” he said.
Fifteen
Erin started as the doors began to move behind him. Turned and saw Harper standing there again. No clipboard this time.
“Warden wants to see you,” he told Erin.
Erin looked around the cell. “Me?” he asked.
“No, the other half breed named Gibbs.”
“What’s he want?”
“To see you.”
“Why?”
“How the hell should I know? No one ever tells me jack shit. Warden tells Pope he wants to see Gibbs, Pope tells me come get you. Period.”
Erin thought a moment. There was no reason for the Warden to want to see him. Unless…
“Did you tell him I wanted work duty?” Erin asked Harper.
The heavyset guard eyeballed him. “No,” he said. “Should I have?”
Erin got up. “Just wondering what’s going on,” he said, ignoring the question.
“Were you this much of a pain in the ass when you were a cop?”
“Yeah,” Erin told him as he came out of the cell. “Why do you think they tossed me in here?”
Sxteen
“Seventy people?” Chris asked.
“Seventy-six,” Phil corrected.
“How in the flying fuck bird are we supposed to get seventy-six people back to Brennick?”
Phil shrugged. “My first thought was to drive them there.”
“In what?”
“I don’t know. Go get some buses. I’ll keep things locked tight on this end, you pick a few up and get Warden’s shit while you do. Meet me back here in an hour.”
“God damn it! At this rate, we’re never getting back.”
Brooks came up next to them. “Bus station is a five minute drive,” he said.
“We’ll need two.”
“I’ll be right back,” Phil said. Crossed the lawn of glistening snow and disappeared into the house. Came back out a minute later with Steve’s car keys. Tossed them to Chris.
“Steve said you can borrow his car,” he told Chris.
“Fine,” Chris spat. “Brooks and I will go get buses. We’ll pick up Warden’s stuff and meet you back here.”
“That’s what I said,” Phil reminded him.
“Fuck you. You, Bryce and the rest hold down the fort here. If they lasted this long inside there, you should be fine here an hour. When we get back, we’re out of here, and we’re not stopping for shit.”
Seventeen
Erin Gibbs and Alexander Pope stopped at a minimum security lock. Pope punched in a code and the door started sliding sideways.
“I think you forgot something,” Erin told Pope.
“What’s that?” Pope asked.
Erin held his hands up in front of him. “Cuffs,” he said.
“Warden said not to worry,” Pope told him. Looked at Erin sideways. “I don’t have to worry about you, do I, Gibbs?”
“Nope.”
They made their way down the hall. Stopped at an elevator. Pope put in his code and the doors opened. They went in.
“You know what’s going on?” Erin asked. “Why he wants to see me?”
“I have a vague semblance of an idea.”
“Seems like a long way to say: ‘Maybe.’”
“Pretty much,” Pope agreed as the doors closed. He hit the top floor. It started going up. “I figure it like this: Warden’s getting ready to take us out of lock down.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Don’t know. Probably something to do with needing more workers. You were outside yesterday, so I assume you know why.”
Erin nodded.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, Warden was always partial to keeping you locked up as long as possible.”
The ground shifted as the elevator reached its floor and the doors opened to a long hallway. They went out and down it almost to the end. Erin checking the doors as they walked, each carrying the name of a high-ranking guard or administrative figure. They passed the one that said “SAM WATKINS” and came to one that read “CONFERENCE ROOM.”
Pope knocked twice. Waited. Erin heard the Warden invite them in. Pope opened the door and Erin passed through.
Eighteen
Chris navigated the station wagon through town with shaking hands.
“Want me to drive?” Brooks asked.
“I’m fine,” Chris told him. But he wasn’t. His head was splitting and his arm was throbbing again. The fucking tremors felt like they were tearing his insides apart.
Brooks nodded and looked out the window.
“What?” Chris asked. His eyes flicking between Brooks and the road.
Brooks shrugged his massive shoulders. “Watkins, is all,” he said.
Chris nodded. He couldn’t believe what had happened with Sam, either. It was crazy. But he didn’t feel like thinking about
it. “Keep your head in the game,” he told Brooks. “There’s nothing we can do about it, anyway. He made his choice.”
“Did you actually see his wife?”
“Well, no. Phil did. You think Phil would lie?”
“I think he likes to fight, is what I think.”
“Still, he said she was dead.”
“Didn’t say he killed her.”
“Fuck, Brooks, he shot Bryce.”
“Didn’t kill him.”
“That’s enough,” Chris shouted at him. “He’s fucking gone. Now suck it up.”
Brooks looked at him balefully. Chris didn’t care. He couldn’t take the noise of Brooks’ voice anymore. It was just working together with all the other voices in his head and turning them to white noise. He needed to be able to think. To hold it together. Every new distraction made that more difficult.
He pulled the car into the parking lot of the bus station and they poured out, weapons ready. Ran around the side to the gate. Padlocked.
They climbed over. No razor wire. Chris thought how odd it was for there to be a fence without razor wire. What was the point of a fence without something to shred you if you tried to climb it?
The buses were all lined up, ready to move out. But cold and quiet. Empty. Brooks shot a creeper as it came around one of them and it dropped like a heavy bag in the cold snow.
Chris hit the first bus and checked the driver’s side door: locked.
“Can I get a hand?”
Brooks nodded, walked around the bus, and smashed out the folding, passenger entrance.
“Thanks,” Chris said and slipped in. Hopped in the driver’s seat and found keys already in the ignition. “Thank fucking God for small favors.”
Outpost Season One Page 15