“I have a Red Ryder in the shed.”
“Perfect. Get that for me and bring it around. Have Bryce load the dynamite in it.”
Steve looked at him like he had lost his mind, but said, “Okay.”
“Perfect. Now I just need a few more things.”
“Like?”
“For starters, a football helmet.”
Twenty-Six
“Here’s how it’ll work,” Bowers told the group.
All of the prisoners had sat back down at the table, listening intently. Erin was, as well. Not sure where it was going.
“I’m offering to let you out of lock down,” Bowers continued, “on one condition: that you self-regulate. The first time some asshole skin head or whatever kills someone, everyone goes back on lock down and the offending individual will take a walk.”
He looked from one set of eyes to the next. “Understood?” he asked.
They all nodded.
“Let me be clear: this is still my prison. I am allowing you new privileges, but with them come new responsibilities. You will be responsible for cleaning up after yourselves. Sanitation. Maintenance. Security. And other duties. Female prisoners will handle laundry and kitchen duties. You will volunteer for work duty when we ask. If you do not, you will be put back in lock down. If this facility does not stay clean, you will be put back in lock down. If the guards in the cat walk observe any unethical activity, you will be put back in lock down. If anything at all happens, in any way at all that doesn’t please me pretty as fucking pudding, you will be back in lock down. Indefinitely.”
He let his gaze wash across them again. Said, “Understood?”
They all nodded again.
“Now, because we will no longer have a significant guard presence, the ability for you to voice grievances or warn us of possible events unbecoming a properly ordered prison will be diminished. Therefore, I am going appoint one of you as my representative.”
He nodded to Erin.
“I don’t expect an answer right now, though I think we all know the obvious one. I will give you twenty-four hours, and you’ll be called back tomorrow to give me your answer. Talk with your people. Dismissed.”
Everyone stood. “Not you, Gibbs,” the Warden said.
Erin sat back down. The other inmates filed out, casting him hateful glances as they passed.
Finally, the door closed, and the Warden cleared his throat. “Any questions?” he asked Erin.
“Only the obvious one.”
“Ah,” Bowers said, got up from the table and crossed to a small cabinet. Opened it, took out a bottle of scotch and two glasses. Came back to the table on Erin’s side. Sat on the corner of the table. Set the glasses down, and then picked up one and poured some scotch in. Handed it to Erin. Repeated the process with his and then sat the bottle on the table.
“Why you,” he said.
Erin set his scotch on the table and looked up at the Warden.
“Too early?” Bowers asked.
“Saving it for later,” Erin told him.
“Don’t bother, you can have the bottle.”
Erin picked the glass back up and took a sip. It was good. Well rounded. He liked it. Had another sip.
“I chose you for two reasons,” Bowers explained. “One: because I like you. But more importantly, two: the prisoners don’t. Not only do they dislike you, not only do they fucking hate you, but they’re scared shitless of you.”
Erin nodded.
“You used to be a cop, so they hate you, but now you’re a prisoner. But not because you were corrupt, because of an accident. So they can’t really embrace you as a criminal.”
“I’ve never really felt like one.”
“Right. And you’re not white, so you couldn’t just go to the Arian Brotherhood and say ‘Yeah, I shot that black boy on purpose.’ But you’re not black and you shot a black kid, so the only way you’d ever get protection from the black gangs is by being someone’s bitch. Which I think it’s safe to say is out of the question.”
Erin nodded again.
“You’re an outsider. You don’t conform to any of their little rules. So, what are you?”
Erin took a sip of his scotch. Set the glass down. Said, “Your new representative?”
Bowers smiled. “Exactly,” he said.
Twenty-Seven
The wagon had a squeaky wheel, or maybe it was the weight, but it was pissing Phil off.
His only hope of making it back to the house in time rested atop the dynamite in the wagon.
He didn’t know if he could make it. He wouldn’t be able to run well in the suit, the fucking thing must weigh fifty pounds, he thought. And he didn’t know how long the fuse was. He tried to think back to the Misty Kitty but couldn’t gauge the time, he had been arguing with Bryce.
A minute? Half that?
He decided it didn’t matter, and purged the issue from his mind.
The most important thing now was to move slowly, and not lose his cool. He took another half step – walking sideways, creepers rolling around him like a tide – the wagon wheel squeaked again.
Even in the frigid air, Phil was sweating. It could have been his nerves, but he doubted it. Between the helmet and the suit, he was practically an oven. He imagined himself standing there pouring off steam.
Took another half step. The wheel squeaked again.
How far out should he go? A hundred feet? A hundred yards? He didn’t know. How much fucking dynamite was in that crate, anyway? Could be hundreds of sticks. But dynamite went by pounds. He guessed fifty to sixty. Blast radius? A big one, that was for sure. He held back a giggle. If he survived, this was going to be the greatest thing he had ever done. Possibly the greatest he ever would.
Shit, he thought, possibly the greatest thing ever done ever, by anyone.
Took another half step. The wheel squeaking as he pulled it behind him.
He assumed they would already be sneaking people out to the buses. It only made sense. His Big Boom would give them the cover to move the rest of them, but if he was in charge, they would be moving the women and children now. The men would make a run for it, and the guards could pull the trucks out while the creepers were on the ground. But he wasn’t in charge. He was pulling a God damn wagon through the crowd.
Took another half step. The wheel squeaking.
He thought he was far enough now. He would have to be. They just didn’t have any more time. Any second someone was going to make a noise or a cloud was going to cover the sun, and they’d all be fucked. Most of all, him.
Took his last half step and stopped. Took a deep breath and let it out.
Reached down and picked up a single stick of dynamite. The gun store owner must have been a fucking nut job, he reasoned, to have a box of the stuff just lying around.
Took another deep breath.
Reached down and picked up the lighter. Flicked it. Touched it to the fuse. It started sparking. Dropped the stick into the wagon and picked up his only hope of survival.
Pulled the cord.
Twenty-Eight
“Where the hell have you been?” Tall Bill Mahone asked as Erin came back into the cell. “And what’s that? Is that scotch? Where’d you find a bottle of scotch?”
Erin held it up. “Warden gave it to me,” he said.
Bill looked at him like he had just landed in a space craft and asked to speak to their leader.
“The Warden gave it to you?”
Erin nodded. “Don’t ask,” he said. Walked past Bill and set the bottle on the counter next to the sink.
Bill asked, “Why?”
“Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t ask’?”
Tall Bill scrunched up his face in thought. Then said, “Fine. Fuck it. But can I have a taste?”
“With dinner,” Erin told him. “Like civilized people.”
The door to the cell clanked shut and Bill took the opportunity to take up his usual position against it, his back to the bars. “So,” he said, “where
you been?”
“I said…”
“Don’t ask. Yeah, I got that. I’m asking and you better start telling. Because that dead look you had in your eyes, it’s not dead anymore. I want to know why.”
“Like: do I have something cooking to take you and your one true love out of here?”
“Something like that.”
Erin climbed up into his bunk and lay down. Laced his fingers behind his head and sighed. “Warden had an interesting proposition.”
“Being?”
“He wants to let us out of lock down.” He let that sit a moment, then said, “Those bodies we pulled off the fence yesterday, you pulled off today, they’re fucking zombies. Flesh eating, all of that. I saw them in action today.”
He waited for Bill to respond. He didn’t, so Erin continued, “And now the Warden doesn’t have the man power to keep them out and us in. So he’s decided he’s more worried about keeping them out. So, anyone who wants out is free to leave.”
Erin heard Bill shift against the bars. “Is that so?” Tall Bill asked.
“It is. Except me seeing them in action today? That was when the Warden let someone walk out the gate.”
The statement settled in over the two, pressing the edges of the cell, and hung there. Erin’s mind moving from possible scenario to possible scenario. All ending in being torn limb from limb. Except one.
“So,” Bill broke the silence, “what are we going to do?”
Erin shifted in his bunk. “Well,” he said, “funny thing happened when the Warden made this decision: he decided I would be his personal representative…”
“‘Attaché’ is the proper word.”
“Anyway. Now I’m his go-between for the prisoners. If, and when, they take the deal.”
“When’s that?”
“Twenty-four hours from about an hour ago.”
Twenty-Nine
Chris got out of the bus and made his way back up to the house. He had to pass the house they were parked in front of, then go through that yard and the next, to come up to the rear of Steve Morris’ house.
“Where are we?” he asked Brooks.
“At the back door of Morris’ house,” Brooks told him, and laughed. Covered it with a meaty palm to soften the sound.
“Ready for Comedy Central,” Chris said. “Do we have time for another run?”
Brooks shrugged his massive shoulders. “Probably,” he said.
“Okay. How many do we have left?”
“About forty. Only a handful able to carry anything or shoot it. Most of them came with us.”
“Fine. We’ll need Phil’s distraction – whatever the hell it is – to move those trucks full of ammunition….”
Chris doubled over from a searing bolt of pain in his side. His muscles tightened – all of them – and he thought they might break his back. Brooks held him up again, and Chris waited for the pain to subside. He sagged into Brooks’ strong arms as the pain washed away, and then stood up shakily.
“Take one more,” he said. “And then we’re done. I’m going to go out front and wait for this big plan of Phil’s. Then whoever we have left will get run down to the buses and we’ll take off in the trucks. It’s the best we can do.”
“Roger,” Brooks said, and left him.
Thirty
“Will they take it?” Alexander Pope asked Warden Bowers.
“Would you?” Bowers shot back, rubbing his belly.
“Of course,” Pope told him.
“They’ll take it. Fucking animals, they’re lucky as hell for me to even offer. Just gave them the choice to make them feel better.”
“What about the women?”
Bowers thought a moment. The men had been his main concern – they were good for labor and possibly to hold a rifle, the lower risk ones, anyway – but the women would have to be managed as well. Could they self-regulate? He doubted it.
“That’s another matter completely,” he said. “The men have got set factions. Women? Whatever sounds good or makes them feel all warm inside goes.”
Pope leaned forward in his chair. “Should I speak to some of the female guards? See if we can’t pick out a few prisoners that carry more respect than others?”
“See,” Bowers said, and grimaced, “there’s the difference. The men’s loyalties are split along gang lines. There’s some of that with the ladies, but not so much. And the men’s gang lines are built on being smarter, and more brutal. You got a skinny little fuck like Eddie ‘the Prince’ who couldn’t actually fight for a damn. But he’s got big bastards like Smalls to do the fighting. Not the same with the women.
“Instead you’re looking at the biggest, fattest, angriest fucking dike in the world at the moment running the show. Different world between the two.”
Pope nodded.
“And we don’t have a Gibbs on that end, either.”
Pope nodded again. “A representative,” he said.
Thirty-One
“Chow time,” Mercedes told the two men. Erin Gibbs came up to the bars and took the tray she handed him.
“Anything I need to know about?” he asked.
“You’re a piece of shit,” Mercedes told him.
He shrugged. “Not urgent information.”
“Oh, killer,” Tall Bill said as he approached. “Dinner.”
“Lunch,” Erin corrected.
Bill glared at him. Mercedes smirked.
“At my house, this is ‘dinner’ and the other’s ‘supper.’”
“Semantics,” Erin said.
Jessie came alongside Mercedes, said, “Hey, Tall Sam McMahon.”
“Tall Bill Mahone,” he corrected. “But anything you call me is like the finest symphony.”
“I made something for you,” she told him. Reached into her shirt. Mercedes watched Bill turn nearly purple at the gesture. Jessie pulled out the canvass and passed it through the bars. “For the smokes. You know,” Jessie said, shrugging, “to say ‘thanks.’”
Bill took the rolled up painting. Unfurled it in front of him. Looked at it. Started to say something. Stopped. Started again. Stopped. Said, “I’m playing hard to get,” and then stalked off to his bunk.
Jessie covered a laugh with her hand.
Erin leaned back and said, “Oh, fuck it, it’s dinner somewhere.”
“At my house,” Bill said, “it’s called dinner.”
Erin pushed himself up from the bunk, crossed to the counter next to his sink and took the bottle off it. Came back over and offered it to Jessie.
They both looked at it. Mercedes hadn’t seen anything like it since…
“Holy shit,” Jessie said, “is that real liquor?”
“Scotch,” Gibbs said, shrugged.
“Where’d you get it?” Mercedes asked.
“Never mind,” he said. “Let’s all have a pleasant drink.”
Bill was back at the bars, leaning close, eyeing Jessie. “Like we will when we get those moments to ourselves, my love. Just a pleasant drink.”
Jessie shook her head. Took the bottle and tossed back a bit. Grimaced. Passed it to Mercedes.
Mercedes tipped it back and gave herself as much as she could stand without spitting it back out. Let the angle fall and wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“Save some for the rest of us,” Bill told her.
“What ‘rest of us’?” Mercedes asked him. “Police man gave me this, it’s mine now.”
“Sadie,” Jessie said.
“Come on,” Mercedes pushed the tray cart towards the next cell with her right hand, bottle held tight in the left. “Before it gets cold.”
Thirty-Two
Chris was kneeling down on the porch. Steve to his right. Maurice, now without his suit, looked small as he stood in front of the door.
They were all waiting for the distraction.
They needed something to get them out. They could make a run for the buses now if they wanted, but they’d be leaving all the weapons and ammunition behin
d. They couldn’t do that. And, with dozens of people moving at once, all it would take was a sneeze and they’d all be toast. They needed whatever Phil was planning – what it was, no one had mentioned to Chris – and they needed it soon.
So he kneeled, waiting.
The sky was blue and clear, not even a bird chirping. Or, perhaps there was and Chris couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t be sure he wasn’t missing things. A hundred conversations going on between his ears. Some of the voices were loud, some soft, some strong and others weak, some he recognized and some he didn’t. There was one that was most distinct. The original voice. The others had started as white noise and grown in volume, becoming distinct as they did.
But the original voice remained the loudest.
And it sounded like Chris.
He cocked his head to the side and listened, the voices dying down for the moment.
“What’s that?” he said.
“What?” Bryce asked.
“That sound.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
Chris listened for a moment. It was a distinct humming. No, a purring. No, a grumbling. He had heard it before, many times, but it seemed so out of place.
“Is that…?”
“What?” Maurice asked.
“Is that a fucking chainsaw?”
Thirty-Three
Phil was running, screaming, and laughing – all at the same time. The chainsaw howling in his outstretched hands.
All of it was tough in the bite suit.
The saw bit into another creeper, the teeth tearing away flesh, sending it flying back in Phil’s face. He took a hand away and wiped the debris from the visor. Pushed as hard as he could and dislodged the saw and pushed forward.
The things were converging on the sound, but the teeth just kept on chewing away, and he held it up to take out the heads rather than deform the bodies.
Outpost Season One Page 17