Mercedes sighed again. “Not until the Warden opens up the gate – oh, and the locks – and tells us all we can have a fucking slumber party, is that ever going to happen.”
Jessie looked at her sideways. “Wait a minute,” she said, turning to her, “you do think he’s cute!”
“Hell, no.”
“Hell, yes. You think that big old man arrested you is kinda sexy. Just a tad. Huh?”
“Not even a drop.”
Jessie set her brush down and stared at her. “So, if the two of you were in a cell together, you know, just the two of you…”
“I’d kill him,” Mercedes told her, and meant it.
[TK: Isn’t love grand?]
Twenty-Two
Maurice thumbed the lever. The flame roared forward, engulfing the two creatures coming up on him. Their hair and clothing caught, and they let out animalistic shrieks of pain. But they kept coming. He hit them again. Longer this time. Held it on them until they sagged to the ground, silent, save for the popping sound of fat melting.
He nodded and started the long walk to the sheriff’s office. The sound of the dying zombies was attracting others. He wasn’t planning on waiting for them. He marched forward, propane tank in his left hand, flame thrower in his right.
It took a minute for the first wave to get within range. He hit the lever and the fire poured out, lighting everything it touched. He raked them with it, first fast, and then slower, cooking them in place.
Stepped over the charred bodies and lit the next batch.
And again.
And again.
The night filling with thick black smoke, mixing with the falling snow. The white powder turned black around each smoking husk.
He kicked the burnt remains of one of them on the shoulder and watched it separate, smoke rolling out from its insides.
He was getting closer now, but the mass at the office was shedding as more broke off their attempt to break in and went after him.
Three more were to his right. He lit them up and turned his attention to the two on his left. Flamed them with a quick burst and then turned back to the right. Held his torch on them – screams and sizzles and peeling flesh – and then was back on the others as the ones on the right fell.
They went down. He moved on.
Closer now. More and more of them coming his way.
Coming from every direction. Converging.
He felt pressure on his right arm and looked down. What had once been a middle-aged man had Maurice’s upper arm in its jaws. It was gnawing, trying to break through. He ignored it and held the flame thrower all the way open.
Started turning in a slow circle.
The thing on his arm released and tried for his face. Maurice elbowed it, turned and hit it from two feet away with the full power of fire. It blew back and then melted under the blaze.
Maurice began turning again, igniting newcomers who had taken the place of the fallen.
Hundreds of them. Pressing closer. Getting closer. Inch by inch, over the ashen bodies of the burned. He couldn’t get any closer to the sheriff’s office. He hadn’t thought this out as clearly as he had imagined, he realized. [RL: *Laughing*] Any moment now one would leap from behind and take his damn head off.
He heard a gun shot and turned and watched as one of the creature’s head exploded.
Twenty-Three
“Fun fact,” Phil said, “I have never seen that before.”
“I think it’s fair to say none of us have,” Chris agreed, holding his hands together behind his back.
“Alright,” Sam paced, “so we know he’s original. What else do we know?”
[RL: I so love that line. There’s nothing like having your characters brag on you.]
“We know he’s out there with a fucking flame thrower, killing creepers,” Brooks told them.
“And that’s enough for me,” Phil said. Motioned to Bryce and the guy tossed him a handful of magazines. “What do we have for ammo?”
“Shit,” Sam said.
“Got that part. What have we got?”
“About a thousand.”
“Everyone aim high. We’re heading for the gun store?”
Sam nodded.
“Then, what are we waiting for? In the immortal… well, yeah, he’s probably dead as shit now, but his words live on… words of Eminem: ‘You only get one shot.’”
[RL: *Laughing*]
Sam glared at him.
“I mean,” Phil said somberly, “what are your orders, sir?”
Sam nodded. Took a few steps back, picked up his rifle, and said, “Everyone ready?”
No one answered. He nodded to Brooks to open the door anyway.
Twenty-Four
“I’ve been thinking,” Tall Bill told Erin.
“Stop,” Erin said.
“No, seriously.”
Erin sat up in his bunk and sighed. He’d been thinking too, but he didn’t want to think about it. “Yes?” he said.
[RL: He’d been thinking too, but he didn’t want to think about it – you wouldn’t believe how many people have told me that doesn’t make any sense. Did you mean to say something else? No, I meant it exactly as it is. It will stay that way. Fuck you very much.]
“What does this all mean?”
“What does what all mean?”
“What we saw today, what we’ve been hearing and what we know to be true.”
“What about it? We saw a couple hundred dead bodies outside,” Erin explained. “Guards said they’re zombies. ‘Creepers.’ We had to clear them off. What’s it supposed to mean?”
“Well,” Bill said, and thought a moment, “does that mean the world is over?”
“Of course not. We’re still sitting here. If the world was over, no one would be here.”
“That’s not what I meant. Whenever someone says ‘the end of the world’ I always get annoyed. The world isn’t going to end until long after we’re gone. No matter what. The only thing that could end the world is something massive and cosmic, like the sun expanding, eating us and then dying. That’s not going to happen for a long ass time.”
“I get the feeling this is leading to a larger point,” Erin said.
“No one means the world ends. They mean our world ends.”
“Fine, and?”
“Well, if you consider TV and internet and McDonalds to be the world, I would say it probably ended.”
Erin thought about that. “So?” he asked. “What if it did?”
Bill shrugged. “Well,” he said. “I don’t know. If the world is over and a new one is on its way, what does that mean for us?”
“It means we’re still locked in a fucking cage.”
“But for how long? The old world put me in here. Who’s to say what I did before is still a crime in this new world? And how many people are in it?”
“Not many.”
“Enough to keep so many in prison?”
[RL: This conversation is absolutely integral to Season Two and Three. And yet, it seems so innocent, don’t it?]
Erin sighed and lay back down. “Jesus, Bill,” he said, “just tell me what you’re getting at.”
“It’s about you wanting out to look for your family.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“What I’m thinking is: just for right now, until this new world is born, maybe we’re safer in here.”
Twenty-Five
The night lit up with the sound of automatic rifle fire and the flashes of muzzles and tracers arching through the snow-filled air.
Chris made the trucks first at a dead run. He was barely even firing. Just running for his life. Got the door open. Key in. Fired it up. Opened the door for Sam, who leapt in. Phil stopped and fired off a volley, shredding three nuns. Blood spattering and bones chipping and being exposed as the bullets tore through them. Then put his left hand on the truck and vaulted into the bed.
[RL: It’s really tough when you’re dealing with zombies because the descriptions have to chang
e. Otherwise it becomes tedious. Killing zombies, killing zombies, oh look, they killed a zombie. Dressing them, explaining them – what I call texturing – adds a layer of depth that can keep the reader in and focus their attention. So, if he had shredded three creepers it would have been just three more dead creepers. Shredding three nuns…]
Chris looked back and saw Brooks tucking his large frame into another truck, Bryce in the driver’s seat. Two others to the third truck. The last man jumped in the forth with the prisoners from the holding cells.
Headlights erupted, shining bright on the thin crowd of creepers dispersing from the office and crowding around the man in the street.
Chris gunned it.
He heard the chatter of Phil’s rifle above his head, checked the rear view mirror and could see the man’s legs as he stood in the bed, firing and shouting.
They aimed straight for the man with the torch, plowing creepers with the nose of the truck, their bodies grinding under the tires. Chris cut the wheel at the last moment, missing the man and pulling up just ahead of him. Stuck his rifle out the window and opened up on full auto. Raking the creepers with murderous fire. Cutting them down in waves.
He felt the truck shift as weight was added, looked in the rear view and saw Phil pulling the man into the bed by the collar, the flame thrower still spewing its fiery breath. He watched the two men tumble backwards as their weight came down together, and then hit the gas, tossed his rifle to Sam and they were off.
“Do like I did,” Sam told him. “Take them all around town and then circle back and hit the gun store.”
“Got it.”
[RL: The man knows how to follow orders. I’ll give him that.]
Twenty-Six
Maurice didn’t know if it was sweat or tears of joy, but his face was soaked as the truck got rolling and the mass of creatures was left behind.
The man who had pulled him into the bed was back up now, on a knee, sniping zombies as the truck sped on. He stopped when Maurice stood up, turned, and offered his hand.
“Phillip Craig,” he said.
“Maurice Avelanda,” Maurice returned. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime,” Phil said, pointed at the flame thrower. “You mind?”
Maurice shrugged in his thick suit. “Go for it. I need to cool off anyway.”
“Fucking killer.”
Phil took the propane tank from him and slid it to his side, then rolled his shoulders, held the flame thrower out and said, “Burn, baby, burn!” as he hit the switch.
[RL: Funny story: What inspired this episode was, I sent my little sister to Home Depot to return some drywall. I told her I wanted a flame thrower to get rid of the weeds around my yard. I live in the desert, where we have gravel lawns, and a neighbor had told me not to bother pulling the bastards, just torch them. So I told her to exchange the drywall for a flame thrower. Nothing fancy, just functional.
So, she comes back an hour later with practically a replica of the flame throwers they used in the Pacific during World War Two. It’s fucking massive. About four feet long, with a ribbed stock. It attaches to anything from a five pound propane tank to a fifty. My first thought when I saw it was “My life is finally complete.”
I spent that weekend, naturally, saying, “Burn you mother fucker, burn!” as I torched weeds, imagining they were zombies.]
Twenty-Seven
Chris cut around the corner and floored it, the truck slipping in the snow.
“Slow the fuck down,” Sam snapped. “You crash this truck and we’re all fucked.”
Chris ignored him. His heart racing. His mind a blur. He swerved to avoid, but accidentally clipped a creeper dressed in her lingerie. Swore as the truck fishtailed.
[RL: Where were you when the zombies struck? No, seriously, I want to know what she was doing.]
“Just hit the damn things,” Sam told him. “Shit, what’s your problem?”
“Back seat driver,” Chris mumbled, and made another turn, coming up on the main street. Paralleling it.
“I swear,” Sam continued, “you’ve been acting weird ever since you got back from those woods. I know that was some fucked up shit, but you have to move on. We’re all handling it in different ways.”
Chris saw the alley he was looking for, slowed, and then cut left, dropping into it. Gunned it down the slick road.
Sam said, “What are you doing?”
Chris pressed the accelerator down all the way, the engine roaring in his ears.
The truck exploded out of the alley.
Blurred across the main street.
And smashed face first into the front of the gun store.
Twenty-Eight
Phil felt himself become weightless. It was a different sensation than any he had ever experienced. It held for a few moments, and then it was gone, and he was crashing through glass and metal. Then everything was dark, and there was nothing but pain.
[RL: Yes, Phil dishes out some serious, brutal violence. But the guy takes it as well as he dishes it.]
Off in the distance – somewhere seemingly very far away – he could hear voices:
“What the fuck was that?”
“You told me to ‘hit the gun store.’”
“Very fucking funny. I want those trucks pulled up long ways, blocking the entrance, and as soon as everyone’s in, get that security fence down.”
Phil tried to get up, but couldn’t. He moved his arms first – they worked – and brushed glass off of his uniform. Everything hurt. He went to put his hands down but found only broken shards under him. He looked around, trying to figure out what had happened.
“And where the hell is Phil?”
“I’m here,” he croaked. He was inside a display case, he realized, pistols scattered at odd angles all around him.
Sam came around the truck and stopped to look at him. “Ouch,” he said.
“Jesus, man, who taught you to drive?”
“Don’t look at me,” Sam told him, “it was the fucking genius over there.”
“Take his license away.”
“I’m thinking about it,” Sam said, and offered his hand to Phil. Phil took it, and Sam pulled him up, out of the case. “Anything broke that can’t be fixed?” Sam asked.
“His jaw when I get a hold of him.”
“I meant on you.”
“Nah, I’m good.” Phil got the last of the glass off him and said, “Arm me.”
Sam smiled at him. “You read my mind,” he said.
[TK: I’ve jumped out of the back of a moving pick-up before (about 35-40 mphs on a dirt road), it fuckin’ sucked, but I am alive because of it (truck rolled twice, would have been crushed). So I can sympathize with Phil, and I didn’t land in a display case (although the barbwire fence wasn’t pleasant). But it’s awesome how the first thing he wants is revenge, then a gun.
Twenty-Nine
“Sounds like a wild ride,” Mercedes told Jessie, even if she wasn’t listening.
Jessie was going at it in the bottom bunk. She was being a bitch about it, too. Making all the noise she wanted in the absence of guards. Moaning. Calling out Gibb’s name.
Just to piss off Mercedes.
And it was working. She lay in her bunk, rubbing her belly.
“Oh, fuck yes,” Jessie called, and kicked the bottom of Mercedes’ bunk.
Mercedes tried to ignore her, but it was impossible. She was really laying it on. Writhing around, giving the springs a run for their money. Mercedes wondered if it was all for show or if she was really feeling it.
She decided she didn’t care. But it was getting her thinking.
Something had happened. Brennick was changing. And the Warden was the type of prick that didn’t change unless there was a good reason. Unless his hand was forced. What was happening? Who was responsible? And what did it all mean?
She didn’t know.
But the simple fact of it was an upheaval she had never seen coming.
At that very moment, Jessie
was beneath her, openly playing with herself. Making a show of it. Calling out. Making noise after lights out. Breaking damn near every rule they had.
And no one had come to punish her.
That was… Well, it was almost like freedom.
Now, the guards were sounding like prisoners: “I know he won’t let me leave”, and the prisoners were acting like guards: serving food and walking around freely – if only a select few – and it had all happened in a day or two. What would the next week bring? The next year?
What in the hell was going on? What had happened to the world of Brennick she had been living in for years? A world with bars and rules and scheduled exercise and even scheduled rape?
And what about this new Brennick? Was it the kind she could give birth in? Could she have a child here – she never could have at the old Brennick – and keep it? Raise it? Love it?
Jessie moaned beneath her, the springs rocking again.
And what would it be like to make love to a man? Not get fucked by asshole guards that didn’t ask if it was okay. But to be held, whispered to, loved? She had never considered it was something that could ever happen to her again. Not in this life. But could it? Could she be a woman again, instead of a convict? Could she be a lover?
She didn’t know the answers to any of those questions.
She sighed.
Slipped off of the top bunk – her feet making a kissing sound as they struck the cold floor – and looked at the bottom one.
Jessie lay there, naked atop the sheets, sweat glistening in the pale light, hunger in her eyes. Mercedes fell into her and they became one – for a time. Touching. Feeling. Dreaming. Both of them dreaming of someone else.
[RL: This scene originally included the sex between Mercedes and Jessie. We decided to scrap it so that women didn’t get turned off and no one thought Jessie and Mercedes were lesbians. Too much for the “Theatrical Release” if you will. If you want to read about them doing naughty things to each other, we included it in the deleted scenes.]
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