[RL: A fun scene. Tall Bill and Erin connecting as men. We get to see the beginnings of the shedding of cop and criminal here. The prisoners being just as human – sometimes more-so – as the guards. Always loved this scene. Since the first time it was committed to paper.]
Twenty-Nine
Sanders ejected the new DVD, took it out of the tray, pressed it into a case, and handed it to Sam Watkins. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said.
Sam nodded and left.
He was starting to get nervous. He hadn’t thought about what it would be like being in this place after what he had seen that morning. The walls seemed higher, the corridors tighter, everything colder and more ominous. And it took for fucking ever to get from point A to point B.
From the com room, he had to pass through two minimum security and one medium security lock to reach Warden Bowers’ office on the top floor, overlooking the garden. At each he got more keyed up than he had been at the last. He felt more and more eyes on him. Every time he looked through bulletproof Plexiglas he felt like the guard on the other side was scrutinizing him more.
It was insane. No one other than the Warden thought of him as anything other than the boss, and Bowers loved his ass. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even care. That was the kind of guy he was. He was loyal. He had Sam’s back.
“It won’t matter anyway,” he said aloud as he paced down the empty hall. “No one’s ever going to find out.”
[RL: Building off the opening scene. Like I said: every scene with Sam is building on that opening scene.]
Thirty
They saw the truck parked just where he thought it would be. Chris pulled up next to it and the men poured out. They checked a full three hundred and sixty degrees and saw nothing. On one side the fence and prison, on the other an open field for fifteen hundred feet from the fence, and then unbroken woods for miles. The cell tower stood tall just at the wood line.
“So you think they started at the cell tower?” Smith asked.
“That was the theory,” Chris told him. “But I don’t see why they couldn’t have started at the truck and gone to the tower. I forgot how the close the woods are on this side. They could have literally been at the tower and seen somebody, said ‘you’re not allowed within a thousand feet.’”
Smith looked at the tower. “Well,” he said, “I don’t see anyone over there.”
Chris sighed. “That’s the fucking point, Smith,” he said, “where the hell are they?”
Chris thought a moment, then said: “They were following the lines, that’s what we’ll do. See what we find. Odds are we’ll catch them playing grab ass in the woods over there. But stay tight, just in case they want us to join in.”
“And if they do?” Smith asked, smiled.
“You can have fun. But if anyone tries pulling my pants down, I’ll shoot the bastard.”
[TK: Chris is an asshole, but he is funny.]
Thirty-One
Warden Bowers took the DVD from Sam and dropped it on the desk. “You seem stressed,” he said.
“A lot of shit going on,” Sam told him. “That’s all.”
“True.” Bowers sighed and got up from his desk, crossed around it to a cabinet, opened it, and took out a snifter of scotch. “Always something, though.”
“It’s the job. I knew what it was when I applied.”
Bowers pointed to the DVD and poured two glasses. “Pop that in the picture machine,” he said. “Let’s see what happened to those boys.”
Sam picked it up from where the Warden had dropped it, brought it over to the massive plasma television that overlooked the coffee table and leather couch. Warden Bowers didn’t believe in watching anything on a computer screen. He believed anything worth watching was worth watching right: from a couch, on a big screen, with scotch.
Sam put the disk in, took the remote, flipped the screen on, and settled onto the couch. Bowers sat next to him with a groan and exchanged a scotch for the remote.
“Who’d you pick?” he asked Sam.
“Chris.”
“He’ll do the job,” Bowers agreed. He pointed the remote at the television. “And... Action,” he said as he pressed play.
[RL: This scene will be integral to the cliffhanger between Episode 5 and Episode 6 Part One. Remember that now.]
Thirty-Two
“It’s like a fucking slaughter house,” Chris breathed.
There was blood. Everywhere.
“I don’t think they were playing grab ass.”
They were twenty feet away from the tree line. The grass, burnt from the cold, was matted and scuffed and covered with blood. The frozen ground beneath unable to saturate. The red spanned a twenty foot area, spread out in a smear in the direction of the trees.
“Looks like they got dragged into the woods,” Chris said.
“By who?” Smith asked, looking around. The other men did the same, gripping their rifles in white knuckles.
“What the hell could make this mess?” one of them asked. His name was Will Jones, a dark skinned man Chris knew well enough not to trust at cards. “Practically butchered them right here to make all this blood.”
Chris bent down and picked up a nine millimeter shell. “Defensive firing,” he said. “No gunshots from the trees.”
He looked at Rick Statham, a new guard – one month in. “You okay, Statham? You look like you’re about to piss yourself.”
“I’ve hunted my whole life,” Rick said. “And I’ve never seen this much blood in one spot.”
“Never,” Smith echoed.
Chris keyed up his com unit. “Got blood and drag marks by the tree line,” he said into it. “Some defensive small arms shells.”
“Roger,” Sanders returned. “No bodies?”
“No bodies. But blood like an expressionist painter went crazy with about five gallons of red.”
“Jesus.”
Chris looked into the trees. “Shit,” he said, and jumped. “Did you guys see that?”
Smith squinted, and then nodded. “I’ve got movement,” he said.
“We’ve got movement in the trees,” Chris reported into his com unit. “We’re going to go check it out. Tell the tower to keep sharp.”
“Roger.”
“Alright boys,” Chris told his men, “who’s going in first?”
Thirty-Three
“I swear, I would have bit his little prick off,” Jessie told Mercedes. “The first time.”
“Please, Jess, I’ve had enough. It’s bad enough we’ve got the screws pointing rifles at us, I have to listen to you bitch? Just stop.”
“I’m serious,” Jessie scolded her. “First you let him fuck you, then you let him knock you up, then you let him beat you. Where’s your self respect?”
“I’m a convicted murderer,” Mercedes told her, “not a senator.”
“That doesn’t mean shit. What would you do if one of these bitches made a run at you?”
“Slit her throat.”
“But you let Chris shit all over you.”
“I already told you, it wasn’t Chris.”
“Exactly!” Jessie spat, holding her hands up. “That’s my point: you lie for him.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Like a fucking rug.”
“It wasn’t Chris. Neither of them.”
“What do you mean ‘neither of them’?”
Mercedes took a deep breath and held it. She needed to get it out anyway, and if Jessie wouldn’t stop, she might as well say it. She’d feel better, she told herself. And Jessie was the only person she could tell.
“The baby,” Mercedes said. “It’s not Chris’ baby.”
[RL: This is predominantly left for the remainder of the season. While hints are left, the whole brutal reality isn’t even touched until the finale. Even then, we haven’t explained it. But, it’s also a giant key to the overall mysteries of Brennick. Mysteries that aren’t even two seasons from being realized. You probably think you know. Keep thinking it.]
“This movie is boring as shit,” Sam told Warden Bowers. “It’s just five guys walking around looking at the dirt. Fast forward to the good part.”
Bowers glared at him. “It’s my house,” he said. “I control the remote. I’ll fast forward if I want, or slow the fucking thing down if I want.”
[TK: That might be a direct quote of me talking to my kids.]
“Sorry, sir.”
“Damn right you are.”
Bowers hit the fast forward and the men on the screen started walking faster. They walked around in a circle by the cell tower, and then stopped and one of them took out a walkie-talkie and started speaking into it. Bowers hit play and everything slowed down to normal speed.
“Okay,” he said, leaning forward and sipping his scotch. “Here’s the ‘good part.’”
Sam leaned forward as well, and they both squinted at the screen.
The man with the walkie-talkie was saying something. He was very expressionistic about it, waving his left arm at the trail the buried lines took to the cell tower. At the distance from the camera the men were small, but the picture was crisp and they could see the exchange pretty well.
“What’s that?” Sam asked and pointed at the tree line. Four small forms began staggering out of the woods.
One of the repairmen saw it, too, and said something, pointing. The walkie-talkie man turned and they couldn’t see his face. He pointed the walkie-talkie at the forms, who kept approaching. As they did, a dozen more appeared. Then more. The man dropped his walkie-talkie and pulled his pistol. The other guards backed in close to him and did the same.
A gun arm recoiled as a shot was fired.
Then all hell broke loose.
The people from the trees swarmed on the team. In an instant, they were gone. Just one big writhing mess of flesh. Then the mass began to pull apart, and with them the men – torn limb from limb by their attackers. Each piece being dragged back into the trees.
Sam realized he wasn’t breathing. He inhaled sharply, and as he did, Warden Bowers rocketed up from the couch and lunged at his phone. Snapped it up, hit the proper extension and roared: “Get that fucking team back! Get Chris back now!”
[RL: Again. So much of what we initiate here doesn’t get its play until later. I’m only gloating a little.]
Thirty-Five
Chris took a carefully placed step and then stopped, scanning the trees with a hunter’s eye.
Over to the west, ten feet away, a human form sat in the brush. He communicated as much to his men through hand signs, and crept forward, crouching low.
[RL: I wasn’t initially convinced these guys would be full-on tacticians. But, as we built the prison, and as the viciousness of the prisoners accelerated, it became obvious they would have to be. In the end, we went with battle hardened to a degree. The only difference between the average day at Brennick and the zombie outbreak being they were actually killing people. But in Brennick losing tactical advantage could always prove fatal.]
Eight feet.
It was a woman. No, girl – teenager – judging by the size.
Six feet.
She was sitting with her back to them. She was hunched over, making grunting noises.
Four feet.
They arched around her, weapons trained.
She was covered in blood. Chewing on a human leg.
“Jesus Christ,” Rick exploded. The girl started, dropped the limb and lunged at him. Shock slowed his reactions. The girl caught him by the neck, ripping his throat out with her teeth. Blood exploding from the wound, rolling down Rick’s chest and frothing around her mouth as she drank.
Smith: “What the fuck!”
[RL: This – shut up, Tom – was my own creation. My Big Bro had his hits, but I really tried to imagine what would happen if I walked out into the woods and found a mass of zombies. I’d love to say I’d snatch out my sickle and chop them into bits, but – after some soul searching – I decided I would probably stand there, frozen, saying “What the fuck?” on a loop. Fine, Tom, what, again?]
[TK: I like to think I would have shot her as soon as I saw the leg.]
[RL: Very chivalrous of you. But the shock of seeing something sitting their eating a leg? I don’t know that you walk up and go: “Oh, shit, look at that,” and then execute the bitch. Maybe she was just really hungry. Or it was a prop. The last thing you want to do is shoot a method actor practicing for the school play.]
[TK: Right, because a lot of method actors do their practice in the fucking woods, drenched in blood, in the middle of winter.]
Will: “Get her off him!” He ran forward and tried to pull her off, but her jaw was locked on Rick’s throat in a death grip. Blood continued to gush out. Soaking Jones. Rick. The girl.
Smith: “What the fuck!”
Will: “Do something!”
Smith: “What the fuck!”
Will: “Someone do something!”
Chris snapped out of his daze. Lowered his rifle. Took two steps, pulling his pistol as he did. Snapped off the safety. Raised it to the girls head.
Fired.
Three bodies slumped to the ground as Will’s weight brought the two dead down on top of him.
Smith: “What the fuck!”
Will: “Get them off of me!”
Around them, the woods came to life with staggering, lurching, gray bodies.
Smith: “What do we do?” He dragged the bodies off of Will and the two stood, watching the growing swell around them.
Chris did the same, unsure. He holstered the pistol and took back up his rifle. There were so many of them. What would a jury say? He had witnesses to testify the girl had murdered Statham, but these people? Could they just shoot them?
[RL: Again: What the hell do you do in that situation?]
[TK: This little monologue is good insight in Chris’s personality. He just shot a teen age girl in the head, point blank and now he’s trying to figure out what a jury will think.]
Smith: “God Damn it, Chris, what do we do?”
Chris’ com unit garbled to life, Sander’s voice announcing: “Warden wants you boys back. Stat. Get out of those trees and get back to the gate.”
The creatures were getting closer, twenty feet away max. On all sides. The forest a sea of cracks and snaps as they made their way through the brush.
Chris: “We’re surrounded.”
Smith: “Can we fire?”
The men huddled closer together as the hoard approached.
Will: “Can we fire?”
Smith: “Jesus, Chris! Give us orders!”
A man, his skin sagging, eyes dull and glazed, lurched forward, crossing five feet in a single movement, reaching for Will.
Will fired.
Smith fired.
Chris joined them. They cut down the man and three people coming behind him with automatic fire. The bodies pulverized by the onslaught. Chris turned to cover their rear. The three man team assembled their backs in a triangle to cover all sides. Chris put a bullet in a woman’s face – skull and brain exploding from behind her - tracked right and put two more in a fat man. They weren’t enough. Chris held the trigger down until his man turned to pulp and slumped to the ground. Dropped his clip, snapped another in and went back at it.
Will screamed from behind him and then was gone in a rush of bodies. Chris and Smith quickly compensating by holding their backs flat against each other. Chris caught sight of four creatures tearing Will apart and emptied another magazine into the mass. The bodies stopped moving.
Something grabbed his left arm and clamped down. He pulled his pistol and shot the crown of the skull four times, blood spattering over his uniform and face. Kicked the attacker until the mouth came free, and tracked right with the nine millimeter and left with the rifle. Firing into the crowd.
[TK: Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. It’s great that every reader thinks they know what’s in store for Chris, it’s only half-way through the first epis
ode and everyone thinks they know what’s going to happen. Trust me when I say, you don’t know. It was important for us to take the genre to a new level, place it’s never been before. And this is where it all starts.]
Smith and Chris shot until their guns ran dry, reloaded, and shot more. Until they were surrounded by a pile of lifeless human forms.
Finally, the trees were silent.
“Holy fuck,” Smith breathed. “There were hundreds of them.”
Their backs slowly separated as they moved out, scanning.
“Warden wants us back to the gate,” Chris said absently, nudging a body with his toe. “What the hell are we supposed to tell him about all this?”
Smith turned to him. “It was self-defense,” he said. “You saw what they did to Rick and Will.”
“I know, but...”
“What’s that?” Smith asked, pointed at Chris’ arm. “Did one of them bite you?”
“Yeah, I got his ass, though.”
Smith started backing away. “I’m going back to the gate,” he said, “you stay back.”
“Smith...”
“Those were fucking zombies, Chris. No other way to explain it. A thousand zombie movies, and one constant: you get bit, you turn.” Smith took three more steps back.
“You can’t leave me out here!”
“I’ll tell the Warden what happened. See if he wants to get a medic to look at it. Okay? Trust me, I’ll send someone back for you.”
He turned and started out of the woods. Chris watched his back as he made his way towards the light of the wood’s end. Just before Smith crossed into the field, Chris raised his rifle.
He fired until it ran dry.
[RL: This was all Tom. A great idea that keeps giving for at least two seasons. Tom’s the master of the subtle twist, and often of the massive one. Honestly, without this single scene, Outpost Season One would not exist. Shit, without the original email Outpost wouldn’t exist at all. That being said, without me sitting there thinking, the line: THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO BE WHEN THE WORLD ENDS IS A FREE MAN wouldn’t exist. And I drew the first concept of Brennick – which I named.
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