The car was cold and tired, and it took two tries to wake it. Once it hummed to life, he cranked the heater and got it moving. The crow took flight as the car crept forward. He turned on the radio and looked for a station:
“…information out of China is slow, but the reports we are getting is that it is of biblical proportions…”
“…the Russian Military has been placed on full alert, as a second nuclear submarine is rumored to be missing…”
“…speaking from an undisclosed location, the President had this to say: My Fellow Americans, in this trying, frightening time, I urge you all to stay in your homes, take proper precautions, and do not hesitate to seek immediate medical attention if you begin to show symptoms…”
[RL: Any time the President is speaking from an “undisclosed location” the rest of the country knows they’re fucked.]
[TK: True, but depending on the President it doesn’t matter where he’s speaking from, it’s the fact he’s talking that causes us to be fucked.]
Sam killed the radio and pulled on to the main road, thinking. He was sick to death of it all. Every six months to a year he had to deal with another SARS or Swine Flu or Bird Flu or Whatever-the-Hell Flu and he didn’t believe a fucking word of it anymore.
[TK: I really liked the honesty of that line, every other week the world’s going to collapse from something. War in the Middle East, Global Warming, some crazy fucking epidemic. I can let my kids watch cartoon monster tearing each other apart on TV, but they’re not allowed to watch the news.]
He had bigger things to worry about, anyway.
Two
“Request denied,” Warden Bowers said, stroking his round belly with his fingertips. On the other end of the phone, a doctor or scientist or something-or-other with a really long title said:
“Warden, the Federal Government has declared a medical emergency. We must be allowed to inspect your facility and verify the health of the inmates.”
“Oh no,” Bowers sneered, “not a medical emergency. Is it almost as bad as the Pig Flu? Because I let you assholes run around my prison, drag my people all over hell, and give these animals all kinds of check-ups – that my state had to pay for – because of that fucking thing, and it ended up all anyone needed was chicken soup and a weekend’s rest…”
[RL: You ever notice the only people that die from those things are in China and Mexico and shit like that? Just an observation.]
“I assure you this is nothing like that. This is serious…”
“I’m being serious. This is a state run facility. My budget comes from my state. The federal government - and the CDC - have no jurisdiction to do a damn thing in my institution. This is a maximum security prison, and every time I let someone in here that isn’t either on my payroll or in chains, I risk my guard’s lives. And the citizens of this state, for that matter.”
“But Warden…”
“But nothing.” Bowers sat forward and leaned on his right elbow, pressing the phone hard into his ear. Said: “You want to know the health of my inmates? They’re alive. Which is more than I can say for their victims. I have fifteen hundred men and women – all violent criminals – in this prison. I’ve got a lady in here that cut her husband’s head off and left it in his girlfriend’s mail box.”
[RL: The girlfriend was bi- and the bitch told her she was coming over to give her head. No? Nothing for that?]
[TK: Mature. This is where we bring in another interesting twist. The prison is co-ed. It gave us the ability to explore all types of different relationships. And much to my brother’s dismay it let us eliminate the gang rape shower scenes. At least for season 1.]
[RL: Sure, like I’m the one with Russell Crow on his bedroom wall.]
“I read about that.”
“I’m sure it was light reading,” Bowers snapped. “Now, here’s the deal I’m making: my inmates haven’t had a chance to catch your new bug, because we’ve been locked down three weeks after a near riot. There’s no reason to assume they could have come into contact with anyone who might have contracted it…”
“Your guards could have contracted it, or their wives, and spread it…”
“I admit it’s possible, but highly unlikely. Still, you haven’t listened to my deal.”
He waited, it sounded like the caller was listening, because for once he wasn’t talking.
“My guards and their families, you can examine at their homes or in their personal doctor’s offices. Not at my prison. My inmates will remain where they belong: in their cells. If one of them gets the sniffles, my doctors will check them out. If they need outside assistance, we’ll talk then. Sound good?”
“No, it does not sound good! I am trying to protect your guards, your community, and this country. You have no idea the epidemic we’re dealing with. It is a perfectly reasonable request to ask us to see your guards and inmates!”
The Warden smiled. “Request denied,” he said, and hung up.
[RL: So you see the lighter tone with this introduction. Bowers is a fat, power-obsessed fuck. This is his prison, and he’ll do whatever the hell he wants with it. There is no power above that of Warden Bowers. Not the feds, the CDC, or even the state. It turns out better for everyone that he’s that way, if only in the beginning.]
[TK: It’s nice that one of the biggest scumbags at the prison isn’t behind the bars, but in charge of them.]
Three
Doctor Maximilian Van Pelt the Third, Head of the Center for Disease Control’s Command Control and Stability Department for Violent Offenders, [RL: Say that three times fast. Shit, say it one time fast] sighed and lowered his head.
Why couldn’t that man understand the risks? he wondered. Warden Bowers was a bastard, he decided, nothing more. Of the hundreds of prisons he had contacted, everyone had cooperated – well, all but a hand full, and the others would come around – but not Warden Bowers. He was too stubborn, and too inclined to spit in the eye of the federal government.
Max looked around his office at the scrappily stacked papers. Everything was computerized, yet he preferred the feel of the paper in his hand. Every single sheet represented – not just a single life lost to this disease – but dozens, hundreds, as many as they could fit with size 8 font.
Thousands of people. Millions. If the recent shutdown of all communications with Russia and China were any indication: possibly the entire continent of Eurasia. Billions of lives lost.
“More research,” he assured himself. “We have time if we can find a cure.”
[RL: He doesn’t have time.]
He jumped up from his wobbly chair and darted out of his office. Made it ten feet down the hall and stopped.
He could have sworn he heard something. From behind him.
He turned around, but there was nothing there. He shook it off and continued toward the lab.
The halls were all built in straight lines and ninety degree angles. He made a right and a left. Stopped at a door with a sign that said “DONATIONS” and went in. Closed the door behind him and stopped again, dumbfounded.
Something was wrong. It was all wrong.
Fifty empty beds. Where there should have been fifty bodies donated to science to find the cause of their death. Instead: fifty empty beds.
He backed himself against the door as his gaze flicked from dark corner to dark corner. He could smell something now. Something coppery in the darkness. Blood. A lot of it.
“Hello,” he tried to call – it came out a whimper. Louder now: “Hello?”
Shadows on the far wall.
A scream rang out behind him, through door and drywall. From far down the hall. Max turned at the sound, and felt the air shift around him.
Something touched his shoulder. Rough. Something else had his left leg. Then another had the right. He wasn’t on the ground anymore. He felt something sharp enter his stomach and screamed as pain surged through him. A florescent flashed behind him as it burst, and he saw a corpse pull out his intestines and shove them int
o its mouth.
[RL: This scene is primarily to let everyone know right out of the gate that they’re going to get some fun gore with Outpost. Plot-wise, it’s meaningless. But the last thing you want is sixty pages of text before you get the first real movement. Think the opening of Walking Dead. They know you’ll have to wait twenty minutes to get some action, so they open with the sheriff shooting the little girl in slippers. Similarly, we wanted first time readers to know they wouldn’t be left waiting for action.]
[TK: Let this be a warning to you, just because we introduce a character doesn’t mean you should get too attached to them. We agreed that everyone was free game. So as you’re reading and you think to yourself, that’s a bad idea, it might be a good time to say your goodbyes to that character.]
[RL: We spent a while coming up with this fucker’s name, too. Such a loss.]
He screamed again, but it was too late. His last thought, he mumbled aloud: “It’s too late. Far too late.”
Four
“What do you mean ‘late’?” Chris Reed asked, running a hand through his short, cropped, blond hair. “Like for roll call? Because you know the Warden loves your ass, he wouldn’t punish you.”
“What are you,” Mercedes asked, “in sixth fucking grade? I mean I’m late.”
[RL: By far my favorite transition of the first season. I remember the first time a chick told me she was late. I think I was sixteen, maybe. If the ground had cracked and a school of Leprechauns had climbed out, looked up at me, and punched me in the crotch, I would have been less surprised, and a hell of a lot less freaked the fuck out.]
[TK: Think about how freaked out she was, the thought of your spawn growing inside her?]
She watched that register on his face. It went from total disbelief to confusion and back, and then snarled up in anger.
“Well,” he said, “what the fuck do you want me to do about it?”
She stared at him, hating him almost as much as she had the man that had brought her there.
“Well,” she mocked him, “I expect you to be a man. You certainly like fucking like one!”
Chris recoiled like he had been slapped by a complete stranger. He looked her up and down, her naked ebony body glistening with sweat in the fluorescents of the ladies shower room. Finally, he laughed and shrugged.
“I don’t know what you think’s supposed to happen. I mean, I’m a guard and you’re a convicted killer.”
“And?”
He shook his big, blocky head. “And you stabbed a man to death.”
“He was a pimp,” she growled, “and he raped me.”
“Is it really rape when the girl’s a whore?”
[RL: Pretty sure everyone will hate Chris from this point forward. For good reason.]
Mercedes swallowed that little thing that made her want to tear him limb from limb. It wouldn’t be right for her, or her baby. She smiled at him, and hissed: “Yes.”
“That’s why it was second degree.” He laughed again.
It was getting harder to hold it down.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, “I can get you extra commissary. And when the thing’s born we’ll all look around and go ‘How the fuck did this happen?’ and go about our lives.”
[RL: Chris is fun because he’s such a complete piece of shit. You’re not rooting for him. You don’t like him. You’re actually rooting for him to die. But he doesn’t. Which makes you wish he would even more. And, I think a big part of why he fits so perfectly is: we all know guys just like him.]
“And our baby?”
Chris glared at her. “Your baby,” he said slowly, “will go to a good home.” He finished buttoning his uniform, and left her there.
She took a long, hot shower. The water dancing along her skin with enough pressure to make it tingle. When she was done, she walked, steaming, to the mirror. Her hand made a brush stroke across it.
Standing behind her was her child’s father.
[RL: And there’s the lovely, scarred, tough but sensual, Mercedes. I liked this opening because it lays everything out there. Which in a very real way is Mercedes personality. It’s through her we get to see the raw emotion of the outbreak and what someone in that situation would be feeling. The male characters are all convicts or guards, and therefore hardened. Mercedes and Jessie – though both killers – get to be human. After Phil, I think Mercedes is my favorite character. She’s definitely the one I’m most emotionally attached to.]
Five
Sam Watkins turned the radio back on but only got static. He tried every channel, the search program going through every frequency three times before he punched it back off.
“Piece of shit,” he swore. Craned his neck to make sure the car’s antenna wasn’t frozen over. It was fine. He shrugged. Then something else caught his eye: Birds. Up above and far to the right. Medium to large – maybe crows and hawks – circling a specific spot off the highway.
He slowed, studying them.
Assorted birds of prey: hawks, crows, turkey vultures, all dancing in a circle for a few moments before diving down and disappearing into the brush. Did they come back out?
He pulled to the side and put the car in park.
For a feeding frenzy like this, it had to be big game, but it was past hunting season by a month. He checked his watch, looked off to the distance where Brennick was just a long shadow on the horizon. The highway was completely empty. He hadn’t seen a single car since he left his house.
He took his shotgun and got out.
Six
Erin Gibbs opened his eyes to the jangle of keys.
“Cell one, Gibbs, coming out.”
He heard the key go in, the lock retract, and the door swung open. Gibbs got out of bed and went out.
“Gibbs,” Officer Rococoa said, his pale, shaved scalp glowing under the fluorescents.
“Roc,” Gibbs returned. Tall, lean, clean shaven, his gray skin contrasting the orange of his jumpsuit.
Rococoa nodded to the guard beside him, who kneeled down and started putting the manacles on Gibbs’ ankles and wrists, then joining them all in one set.
“Better stay out at least a week this time,” Roc told Gibbs. “We’re spending so much time together; I’m starting to feel like we’re married.”
Gibbs smiled at him. “You wish,” he said.
The guard, Mark Jenson, finished his work and stood up. “All set,” he said.
Roc nodded to him. “Take the man away.”
Erin and the guard turned and started down the hall. They went down the right, staying in their clearly marked lane. Arrows instructed the illiterate on which direction they should turn, when they should walk, and when they should stop.
They passed through the first gate, Rococoa calling after them, “And so the lion returns to the jungle: General Population!”
[RL: Erin’s opening. Darker than some, less dark than Sam’s I think. He’s joking with the guards, but he’s still a prisoner in solitary. We went for brooding here. Which we did with many of Erin’s scenes. There are moments of levity with Bill, but for the most part Erin is thoughtful. Complicated. A good, solid character. By the way, lions don’t live in the jungle. But we were trying to say he was the baddest mother fucker around. Hopefully people got that.]
Seven
“What the fuck’s wrong with the TV?”
“Yeah, why’s the TV not working?”
“We’ve got rights, you know.”
“Yeah, the fuck?”
[RL: To me, “The fuck?” is the greatest example of using profanity to make the shortest possible sentence. What else could you use to ask what in the world is going on, other than “Hey, man, the fuck?” Short, simple, effective.]
“Shut up, all of you,” Chris roared. “You don’t have any rights! If the Warden wants, he’ll lock all your asses back in your cells and keep them there until his Lord and Savior gets back. Is that what you want?”
Two hundred felons growled at him.
He
turned back to Smith - Just Smith, as he liked to say – and said, “Come on, man, these guys are gonna fucking eat us if we don’t get it running soon. And I left the tear gas in my locker.”
[RL: I always imagine a close up from the TV’s perspective when I read this. These two guys, huddled over it, supposedly tough shit, but knowing all it’ll take is a spark and this whole prison will ignite. We tried to build that threatening sense in the opening, only to clamp a lid on it in the first episode. Season Three will deal more with the volatility of the prisoners.]
“It’s not me,” Smith told him. “I’ve done everything. It’s the cable company, I guess, we’re not getting any signal.”
Chris returned his attention to the inmates. “Cable’s out, boys,” he announced.
A collective groan echoed off the concrete walls.
“I don’t see why you’re so pissed,” Chris said. “There’s fifteen hundred people in this here house, and now we’re all gonna miss the season finale. We were gonna Tivo for the other shifts.”
There was only one Media Room – which held the television and twenty, heavily censored computers – and they couldn’t let all the men in at once. They split them into shifts based on racial and criminal affiliation. If they put all of them in one place at one time, they’d never be able to control them. Either whites or blacks or Hispanics would walk out, but only one. The women had their own Media Room, and Chris knew it was the same exact situation on their end, even if there were fewer ladies than men at Brennick.
[RL: While sometimes questioned as racist, this is an accurate depiction of prison life as we understand it. Research into the California Prison System yielded plenty of colorful racial incidents which have taken place over the many years. So, in case anyone has a problem with this: it’s not racist, it’s prison. We didn’t make it that way, but if we had these fuckers hugging each other and waving rainbow flags it wouldn’t be accurate. Obviously, accuracy is extremely important in a zombie series.]
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