DEAD CELLS

by Adam Millard

  A slight breeze whipped through the corridor, hitting Reynolds, causing him to shiver. He made his way into the infirmary to locate the source of the breeze. There was one window, obviously barred, but it had been left slightly ajar, no doubt to cool whoever had been lying sick in the empty bed against the far wall. After closing the window, he decided to take a quick look around to make sure that nothing else was amiss. It would all go in his favour when reported to the governor, and the more things he found, the likelier it was that he would get the promotion that he so eagerly yearned for.

  The sheets on the empty bed, he noticed, were sodden with blood. He would mention that to Charles Dean, as it was obviously against some sort of regulation that he was currently unaware of.

  There was a drip standing next to the bed, which had apparently been unhooked from the patient with haste; a chunk of flesh encased the needle at the end of the line. That, Officer Reynolds thought, was obviously wrong, and as much as he liked Doctor Emmett – liked her so much, in fact, that he had a few secret pictures of her on his mobile phone – he would quite comfortably sacrifice her position in the prison to elevate his own.

  'What the...?' Reynolds said to nobody, as he noticed the bloody footprints leading away from the bed. Whoever they had belonged to must have been dragging one leg, as one side of the trail was smeared.

  Being heroic was certainly below his pay-grade, but he couldn't help it. He felt his own feet moving in the direction of the gory trail, which must lead to the injured party eventually. He followed them into an adjoining room; the sign on the door informed Reynolds that it was a room where medical supplies were kept.

  The light provided by the prior room soon diminished, however, and Officer Reynolds found himself standing in near-darkness wishing that he hadn't been so stupidly inquisitive.

  He could make out certain objects on the shelves; there was a pile of boxes which contained latex gloves, and he could see a row of empty urine-sample phials, but that was about it. There were no windows to provide light, and he couldn't find a switch anywhere on the wall.

  But the footprints led into the room; he was standing on them, and he could feel the stickiness beneath his feet with every move he made.

  Then he noticed movement across the room, followed by the sound of something falling from one of the surrounding shelves.

  'Hello?' he said. Whoever was there had heard him, because they turned; he could see the slight glint of light in their eyes. 'Are you okay?'

  It was the patient, the one that had been so unceremoniously detached from the drip in the adjoining room. He was obviously disoriented, and had somehow ended up in the medical supplies room. If the patient was still loaded up with drugs, which Reynolds guessed would be the reason why he wasn't crying out in agony from the wound in his arm where the drip had once been fed, then it would explain how he had accidentally confused the storage-room for perhaps somewhere he could find help.

  'I don't think you're meant to be in here,' Reynolds said. He pulled his baton out of its loop on his belt and clenched it tightly. He was taking no chances; for all he knew, the shadowy figure was one of the more violent prisoners in the facility, and hiding amongst the supplies whilst the alarm created a diversion had been part of his plan all along.

  There came an almighty roar from the patient, who had suddenly straightened up and, even in the dark, looked to be about six-foot tall.

  Officer Reynolds didn't have time to scream as the patient lurched towards him, but the light from the adjoining room was enough to put a face to the growl.

  It was Tyler, one of the other guards.

  And now Tyler was tearing flesh away from Reynolds's ribcage.

  Finally Reynolds screamed, and he continued to scream until darkness enveloped him.

  *

  They cowered in the cell, like two little boys hiding in the basement of their home as Daddy came a-looking for them for something naughty they had done. Only it wasn't Daddy that they were afraid of.

  It was Cyrus Clay.

  Terry Lewis and Jared Cole had shared a cell for almost seven years, and in that time they had discovered things about each other that not even their family knew about. It was one of the perils of living in such close quarters.

  You had no secrets.

  But Terry now knew that Jared could, if prompted, scream like a little girl, as he had when the cell door had suddenly unlocked itself. If Terry hadn't been there to cover his cellmate's wide-open mouth with his inhumanly large hand, there was no doubt Cyrus Clay would have heard the scream.

  Terry pulled the mattress off the bottom bunk of the bed just in time; the sound of the cell door next to them as it slammed open was a sign that Cyrus had managed to free himself, and now he would come looking.

  Terry yanked Jared into the corner of the cell, smashing his head on the aluminium toilet as he fell into it. He pulled the mattress against them, which acted as a makeshift hiding place that would probably fool nobody.

  Yet it was better than nothing.

  Cyrus Clay appeared in front of their cell, his mouth oozing with black drool and his eyes darker than the deepest pits of Hell. He turned, momentarily, towards the cell door which, although unlocked, remained pulled across. Terry watched through the tiniest gap between the overturned mattress and the wall; beside him, Jared was whimpering through Terry's fingers. A string of warm spit trickled across his knuckles.

  Cyrus Clay sniffed the air around the cell, like some kind of wild animal. He grunted, and it was in that moment that Terry Lewis knew that what he was looking at was not human.

  At Sunday School, a young Terry Lewis had excelled to the point where a career in the clergy seemed to be the only option. He had prayed with the enthusiasm required to meet such exacting standards, and his parents had already pushed him into a few courses that would see him head into the field as a Priest. He had, up until then, managed to stay out of trouble, and he had studied ferociously to placate his parents and meet the standards required by the church. He had learned all about the Devil, and Demons, and temptation, and betrayal, and had swallowed it all down heartily, yearning for more knowledge about the evil that men are capable of. A year later, Terry Lewis had been arrested for the murder of one of his teachers, a man by the name of Father Bennett. He had, in his own special way, become the evil that he had enjoyed reading about whilst preparing for priesthood. And yet the evil that he was staring at now, sniffing the air outside of the cell like a bear trying to figure out whether a log-cabin contained anything of notability, well that was something else entirely. If there was a Hell, and Terry was pretty sure that there was, then Cyrus Clay's wearer had been sent from it to devour everything in its path.

  The creature turned to the cell and placed both hands on the bars.

  Terry Lewis began to pray silently. If Cyrus stepped into the cell, he would see the two prisoners cowering behind the mattress. Jared couldn't see what his cellmate could, but he could feel Terry tense up which was almost as bad.

  'Hey, Cyrus,' a voice said, and in that moment Terry knew that his prayers had been answered. The creature standing just outside the cell turned to where the voice came from. Terry couldn't see the man who had spoken, but he recognised the voice: Dale McCarthy.

  Cyrus Clay roared, and Terry watched as he stepped out of sight. Dale could be heard still. 'What the fuck, dude? What's the matter with—'

  Then came the screams.

  Terry pulled his hand tighter against Jared's mouth.

  'If we're really quiet,' he whispered. 'He might go away.'

  Jared nodded. I hope so.

  *

  Turning the bed around was the easy part; making it fit the entire width of the cell, on the other hand, was impossible.

  'So long as most of the gate's covered,' Billy said, 'we should be okay.'

  They'd decided not to leave the confines of the cell if there was going to be a riot. The chances are they would end up with more jail-time added to their sentences – some
thing that Shane was not willing to risk – or worse, they could end up being killed.

  The best thing to do, both of them agreed, was to barricade themselves in. They had both been involved in riots over the years, and most of them had led up onto the roof where there would be a violent stand-off with the guards, leading to a list of menial demands which would never be met since it was not prison policy to negotiate with the inmates, not under any circumstances.

  Billy picked up his table, which must have weighed a decent hundred pounds, and wedged it into the bottom bunk to prevent anyone from clambering across into the cell.

  Not that they would, of course. Not with a giant half-Indian, half-Irishman waiting on the inside. By the time an intruder managed to break in, they would have a size 22 shoe in their face. If they got as far as the bunk, Shane would be able to crack them across the head with something, perhaps Vonnegut?

  With the gate sufficiently blocked, they stepped back and admired their work.

  'Guards see this,' Shane said, 'and they'll realise that we're not taking part in anything.'

  Billy nodded. 'Let's just hope it doesn't last as long as the one last year,' he said. 'We'll starve to death.'

  Shane laughed. 'We won't starve to death,' he said. 'I promise, if anyone's going to starve it'll be me first, and then you can just eat me.'

  'I wouldn't eat you,' Billy said.

  'No?'

  'Uh-huh. I've smelt your insides on lots of occasions. Don't think it would be a good idea to go carving about and letting those gases escape.'

  'Fuck you, Tonto!' Shane sniggered.

  They sat on the edge of the bed and waited for things to calm down.

  *

  The armoury had not been breached by any of the crazed prisoners, which shouldn't have come as a surprise to either Jenson or Michaelson as a set of keys were required, not to mention fingerprint identification, which was scanned by a machine on the wall. Jenson held his hand up to the machine, but it took three attempts because of how badly he was trembling. When the light finally turned green – ACCESS GRANTED – they both barged through the door at the same time.

  Inside, there were cages filled with guns. There were M-16s, standard military-issue rifles, there were a couple of Browning A-5 semi-automatic shotguns – Jenson immediately unlocked the cage which held these and grabbed one; he'd had plenty of training with it, and had decided that it was his favourite of all the guns he had fired.

  Michaelson was loading two Walther P99 pistols; if he was going into battle with something that wouldn't die easily, then he was going to do it in style. He fastened holsters to either side of his belt and slotted the pistols into them.

  'What the fuck are those things?' Jenson said, cocking his shotgun. 'I mean, that thing wasn't Dennis Hart out there.' He jabbed a conspiratorial finger towards the door. 'There was no way he could have survived that fall. No fucking way! That was forty feet, maybe even more!'

  'Keep your voice down,' Michaelson said as he concentrated on filling extra cartridges. 'Whatever it was, it wasn't deaf.'

  'Did you see what it did to Dean?' Jenson added, his face contorted with disgust. 'The way it tore at him like that?'

  'I saw it,' Michaelson said. He clipped two extra cartridges to his belt and began to browse the cages for more weaponry. 'I saw it, and I'll never forget it for as long as I live, but for now, I want to make sure that I live for as long as possible.' He unhooked some smoke grenades and fastened them to his belt, which was now looking more like US Army webbing.

  'I hear you, man,' Jenson said. 'Do you think somebody's called for backup?'

  It was a good question. The alarm had been deactivated, though, which meant that any outside cavalry, had it been despatched, would be returning to base assuming that everything had been resolved. That was the way it worked. The alarm system was linked up to Jackson Police, and the army base over at Fort Neill. If the alarm had gone on for much longer, there would have been no doubt a helicopter would have been despatched; maybe even a couple of armed response units. Trust fucking Charles Dean to send that maggot to shut the alarm down.

  Michaelson grimaced, then shook his head. 'We're on our own here, man,' he said. 'At least until we get to the radio.'

  The radio was in Charles Dean's office, an old UHF number that could reach the Jackson Police and Fort Neill with the push of a button. Its usage had, over the years, been limited to two occasions, one of which had been a riot, the other a trio of escapees.

  'We need to get up there and call for help,' Jenson said, brushing a hand through his hair, which was already greasy with sweat and worry.

  'We will,' Michaelson said. 'If it's just the two of us, though, we need to watch each other's backs.'

  'That's for fucking sure,' said Jenson. He swung his shotgun across his shoulder.

  They grabbed up their ammo from the benches and left the armoury.

  *

  Dale McCarthy pushed himself up from the floor. For a moment, he looked confused, staring this way and that, trying to figure out what was happening and where he was. His right leg was missing a lot of flesh, and the back of his neck, if he could see it, was stripped of meat to the point where is spine was visible. Only three fingers remained on his left hand, and two on his right. Somebody had gone to town on him, that was for sure, and yet he felt no pain. He glared down at his leg, at the hole that seemed to take up most of his left thigh, and it meant nothing to him. The missing fingers were not a problem, either. What was a problem, however, was his hunger. It was the only feeling he had; a hunger so intense that he would do whatever it took to satiate it, if that was possible.

  He sniffed the air, and he could smell them, hiding, somewhere nearby.

  He drooled and groaned, not too loud, but loud enough for the concealed bodies to know that he was there, and he was hungry. He could see further down the row, a figure lurching away; a man also in search of something to put an end to the painful hunger.

  Cyrus Clay stumbled through a gate and disappeared from sight, but Dale wasn't aware that it had been Cyrus, the man who had only a few moments before been feeding upon him. What he did know, though, was that he needed to follow the man on his search for food; the bodies that were hiding nearby were perhaps not there at all, but there would be others where the man was heading.

  He took a step forward and let out a roar. His leg didn't hurt like it should have; everything for Dale McCarthy was fine, as long as he found something to eat.

  He took another step, and then something smashed into the back of his head.

  *

  'Hit it again!' Jared cried.

  Terry Lewis lifted the makeshift bat – something he had been hiding in his cell for almost a month, just in case – and slammed it down on Dale McCarthy's skull once again. There was a thud! Like the sound of meat hitting the counter at the local butchers. Dale was face down, but he was trying to turn himself over; his hands were grabbing out at anything they could get a hold of. Jared took a step back, not wanting to be caught by the flailing arms.

  'Fucking thing!' Terry said. He lined himself up, then kicked the creature in the stomach. It lifted from the floor and came back down again with a sickening squelch. The black drool that had been dripping from the mouth of Cyrus Clay was now pouring from every hole in Dale McCarthy's face.

  Slamming the bat down, and this time connecting with the side of the creature's face, Terry felt liberated, happy that he was finally using the bat he had forged to protect himself from scummy inmates. Instead, he was using it on a scummy demon, the kind which he was pretty sure he had studied at Bible Class.

  'Watch its teeth!' Jared called out, and he was just in time. The thing had managed to get up to one knee and was about to snap at Terry's leg.

  Terry stepped back and delivered a glancing blow to the face of what was formerly Dale McCarthy. The snapping teeth flew from its mouth, clattered against the rails of a cell a few doors down, and came to a stop like the roll of a dice on a casino craps ta
ble. Dark ooze spewed from the creature's mouth, and Jared almost felt sorry for it when it let out a moan, not of pain, but as an admission of defeat.

  Terry Lewis began to pray. Not silently, like he had done whilst they had cowered in the cell, hiding from Cyrus Clay, but as loud as he could.

  'Most glorious Prince of the heavenly armies, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our battle against principalities and powers.'

  Dale's skull split open as the bat came down again; Terry Lewis took a deep breath before continuing.

  'Against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.'

  He slammed the bat down; there came the sound of bones cracking. The creature slumped to the floor, growling and grunting, still snapping with whatever teeth remained.

  'Come to the assistance of men whom God has created to His likeness.'

  'Fucking thing!' Jared snapped, spitting on it and giving it a cautious kick in its backside. Terry lifted a hand and told his cellmate to take a step back, which he did.

  'And whom He has redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the Devil.'

  He pulled the bat high into the air and drove it down with such force that it hit the concrete beneath the creature's face. The bat stood up, sticking out of the back of Dale McCarthy's head like a candle on a birthday cake. Both of the prisoners took a step back now; Terry's hands were shaking.

  'What was all that about?' Jared asked. 'I didn't know you were a religious nut.'

  Terry wiped the sweat from his brow. 'I was,' he said. 'A long, long time ago.'

  They watched as the creature continued to twitch for a few seconds, and then stopped moving completely.

  *