DEAD CELLS

by Adam Millard

  'How many times?' Shane said to Billy, who was laughing. 'I've never dressed as a woman. That's just your fantasy.'

  'My fantasy,' Billy said, 'is to get out of here one day, track you down, and teach you how to fight like a man.'

  'You've never seen me fight,' Shane said.

  'Exactly,' said Billy. 'Which leads me to believe that you fight like a girl.'

  Their banter was immediately silenced as something crashed against the cell door. Shane jumped to his feet, ready to hit anything that tried to penetrate their fortress; Billy backed up against the wall and reached into his boot. A small knife, although big enough to kill someone if you stuck it in the right place, came out. Shane offered Billy a silent glare; he wondered where Billy had managed to procure the weapon, and why he needed it at all.

  Something slammed the cell door again, but neither of them could see who, or what, it was. The wedged furniture had worked so well that their view of the outside was compromised.

  'Get the fuck out of here!' Shane yelled, but he knew that whoever was hitting the gate was unlikely to listen. These were hardened criminals they were dealing with, not impertinent children. Telling them to back off was about as good as inviting them to try their luck at getting in.

  There came one more slam, a scream, and then a gargle so close that Shane could practically smell the breath of whoever had made such a noise. Through a crack between the cabinet and a chair, Shane could see skin-colour, and a small rivulet of blood dripping across it. Then he was staring into the wide, bloodshot eye of a man as he slid down the cell door.

  'It's getting bad out there,' Shane said, stepping away from the bed.

  A pool of blood began to work its way into the cell. When Billy Toombs saw it, he said: 'No shit.'

  The next hour was filled with screams, and Shane and Billy sat waiting, trying to figure out what was happening. They finally reached the conclusion: All Hell had broken loose.

  *

  Marla was starting to feel the effects of the whisky and decided that she had had enough, despite it being a free bar.

  'Prick,' she mumbled, referring to Charles Dean and the ridiculous array of self-gratifying bullshit adorning his office walls. The thing was, it got boring after a while, and once Marla had read each of the certificates twice, she wanted to go home more than ever.

  She wiped the glass clean on the sleeve of her blouse, and dropped it back into the fake globe where it smashed against one of the miniatures at the bottom. She smiled, said 'Ooops,' and decided that it was a good thing that she would be leaving pretty soon, as soon as she could find another job.

  This really was taking the piss, now. She had been stuck in the governor's office for well over an hour. What did he expect? Did he want her to wait there until he was good and ready to return? Was it possible that he had forgotten her, and was probably having a good old catch-up with the guards whilst they all smoked fine cigars outside?

  That, she guessed, was it.

  She wouldn't wait any longer. He couldn't fire her for going home; she was already fired, albeit amicably.

  'Fuck it!'

  She opened the office door and stepped out onto the corridor.

  *

  The light flickered on and off with an infinitesimal blinking sound every time it did so. Damp laundry filled plastic baskets, waiting to be loaded into the machines which lined three out of the four walls. A few of the machines were still switched on; the red lights on the front of the consoles flashed. Whoever had used the room last had forgotten to shut down properly, which would under normal circumstances warrant a major bollocking from the guards, but in this instance it might be forgiven.

  'Shhhh,' Terry said. Jared had accidentally tripped over a box of detergent, and was now standing in a pile of white powder staring gingerly towards his reprimanding cellmate.

  'What if there's one of those things in here?' he asked, stepping out of the powder and leaving white footprints in his wake.

  'There isn't.' Terry whispered.

  'How can you be sure?'

  Terry reached down and began to sort through a pile of folded clothes. 'Can you see anyone?'

  Jared looked around; nobody. The room was big, though, and there were a few places to hide, but he got the impression that those things were not so much about the stealth, and that hiding would be the last thing on their agenda if they had the slightest opportunity for attack.

  Terry Lewis began to peel off his prison overalls. Jared watched with increasing confusion.

  'What are you doing?' Jared asked.

  Terry was naked now, apart from his boxers. 'What the fuck does it look like?' he said. 'I'm changing out of those,' he pointed to the orange boiler-suit which he had just removed, 'and I'm putting these on.' in his hand he was clenching plain white clothes, a tee shirt and trousers. They were the official garb of the less violent prisoners, the ones from Block D, which was used to safeguard the pussies from the ones who might cause them damage. It wasn't fair, really, to throw in a tax-evader with a serial-killer; it might provide ammunition for the system-haters who were already trying to initiate deals and retrials from the outside.

  'What about me?' Jared asked as he glanced down at his orange boiler-suit, mouth agape.

  Terry shook his head. 'Find your own fucking size,' he said. 'What am I, your mother?'

  Jared dropped to his knees and began to search through the pile; he was only small, and weighed less than one hundred and thirty pounds wringing wet, but luckily so was somebody over in Block D.

  He quickly changed, shielding his inferior body from Terry Lewis, who was not interested in the slightest. Sharing a cell did not mean that you got to see each others balls, and Jared was not the kind of guy to let it all hang out, not like some of the other inmates.

  'What the fuck are we going to do now?' Jared asked.

  The truth of it was: Terry had no idea. Something bad was happening, something evil. He had read all about it, studied it, but never once thought he would be caught up in the middle of it.

  'I don't know,' he finally said. 'But I'm not willing to die today. Are you?'

  Jared shook his head. 'Fuck no!'

  'I want you to keep that at the front of your mind,' Terry said. 'And we'll get out of this just fine.'

  Deep down, he didn't believe it himself.

  *

  The main structure, everything up to and including Block D, had been built at a time when there was as much chance of breaking into prison as there was of busting out. In the late eighteenth century, a few people had succeeded in penetrating the security of similar sized prisons, scaling the twenty-foot walls and getting retribution against inmates that had done them wrong, which was why Jackson had been created with that in mind. Surrounding the prison were three walls, each of which stood at almost forty feet. Between wall one and two, an electric mat covered the ground all of the way around; if anyone were to fall between these two walls, the chances of them surviving were miniscule, and if they did, they would find themselves wishing for death to come just to be rid of the pain.

  Between the second and third walls, eight men patrolled constantly. Out of the eight guards, four had German Shepherds.

  With the dogs barking at each other, the eight guards were gathered in one area between the walls, discussing why it was that they had not been relieved of their posts. A few of the anxious men argued that they needed to get home to their wives, for they would be worried. One of the men continued to attempt to get through on the two-way but, as had been the case for over an hour, there was nothing but silence.

  They decided to give it a few more minutes before sending a man in to investigate further.

  *

  It was no wonder the prisoners detested Charles Dean so unequivocally; he had built himself a very nice quarters on the side of the prison. Everything, it seemed, was antique, or would be by the end of the decade. As a prison governor he was certainly astute, but as a collector of fine arts which would eventually fetch hi
m a fortune at auction, he was as shrewd as any dealer. Marla wondered whether any of the prisoners had, at some time or another, made plans to relieve the governor of a few of his items. Probably. The problem was, though, that when a prisoner was escorted through to Charles Dean's office, usually by at least two guards, past all of the good stuff hanging on the walls and resting temptingly inside alcoves, it would be near impossible to cause a distraction large enough to sneak anything away, which then made her wonder of any of the guards had had the same idea. She knew that Tyler was a corrupt fucker of a man, so it was likely, at some point, that he had been tempted by the goods on display, as he had been when he had assaulted Marla. She was sure that a man possessed of such weak will would find it almost impossible to ignore the antiquities and their obvious price-tags. In fact, it wouldn't surprise her to discover that Officer Tyler had already embezzled a few minor items just to test the governor's knowledge of the items he actually possessed. It was simple, really. Start off small, work up to something worth enough money to retire on. Charles Dean was not getting any younger, and his memory was probably not as good as it once had been. Fuck, you could probably swipe half of the things lining the quarters and he would be so caught up in prison business that he wouldn't notice until you were halfway across the country.

  Marla felt the effects of the whisky as her head began to ache and buzz. She had to drive home yet, which was probably not such a good idea, but the sooner she got to bed and slept it off, the better.

  Noticing the eerie silence for the first time, she called out: 'Hello?' It was, she knew, the worst thing to do; there was always the chance that somebody would reply, and being in a prison, where hundreds of violent men were incarcerated and the guards were not much better, a reply was not necessarily a good thing.

  She ambled down the hallway, not knowing where she was going. This was the first time Charles Dean had taken her to his office since she accepted the position, and she couldn't remember which direction they had come from a few hours before, but why would she? She hadn't expected to be trying to find her own way out.

  She came to a T as she reached the end of the hallway.

  'Oh, great!' she said, looking to the east and then the west. 'Decisions, decisions.'

  But, luckily for her, the decision was already made.

  From the east came a man, dragging himself through the hallway, smearing blood against the cream wall. He was growling. His contorted face oozed with dark drool as he neared.

  Marla screamed.

  *

  She began to backtrack, hoping that the office belonging to Charles Dean had a lock on the inside of the door. If it had, she hadn't noticed it earlier, but then she had been overwhelmed by the many egotistical certificates hanging on the walls; why would she have been checking to see if the office had sufficient security?

  The man kept coming, sliding across the wall, leaving behind a trail of blood from a wounded shoulder. Never once, though, did he break into a run, or quicken his pace. He was either confident of catching up to Marla, or too wounded to run. Either way, Marla didn't care. She needed to call for help, and she needed to barricade herself in the governor's office. As she slid in through the door, she yelled up the hallway: 'Stay away! Stay the fuck away!' The man didn't falter, just kept on coming.

  She swung the office door shut and looked down to the handle. There was nothing; not even a chain. Charles Dean certainly put a lot of faith in his guards, enough to warrant the lackadaisical approach to office-security. The absence of even a deadbolt, though, was bad news, and Marla realised this as soon as there was a thud against the door. Her shoulder jarred from the impact as the man slammed into it again. She bit her tongue, and blood began to dribble out in a fine rivulet. It hurt, but she didn't have time to acknowledge the pain as the man growled and pushed the door wide enough to slide a hand through.

  Marla screamed. Her instincts were telling her to bite the hand, but she couldn't. Looking down at it, she could see that it was basically an open wound. Knuckles were exposed, and sinewy flesh hung loosely from the thumb.

  A wrist followed the hand, and before she knew what was happening the hand was smothering her face, trying to push her away from the door so that it could gain proper entry.

  Breathless, and out of options, Marla knew that she had to step away. By letting the man fall into the office, she would be back on a level playing field. She knew what she had to do, and she knew where to find a weapon.

  She stepped away from the door, an exhalation, a whimper of fear. Had she made the right move?

  The door crashed open; the man's momentum saw him fall to his knees and sprawl out on the fancy rug beneath him.

  Marla had a few seconds, that was all, and she wasted none of them. She ran across to the governor's desk and plucked up the paperweight. She had spotted it earlier, whilst sitting at the desk sipping whisky. She abhorred it; the little boat at the centre of the glass served to signify that Charles Dean was a prick. When she had sat staring at it, she had never envisioned using it as a weapon, but now that was exactly what she was going to do.

  She paced back to where the man was clambering to his feet.

  'What the fuck?' she cried. She hit the man on the side of the face with the paperweight, but not as hard as she should have. The man barely flinched; his eyes seemed to grow darker, and he was up on one foot before Marla managed to hit him again, this time with enough force to put him back down.

  'Fuck you!' she snapped. The man moaned, tried to crawl to his feet, but Marla wouldn't allow it. She hit him again. A chunk of the man's head came away from the force of the paperweight. Had she meant to hurt the maniac so fatally? Had she had a choice in the matter?

  He rolled over onto his back and, as he stared up at her with black eyes and a sneer, she brought the paperweight down once more.

  *

  'How many of them are out there?' Billy Toombs asked.

  Shane, who was staring through a gap in the barricade, said, 'Hard to tell. I can see three of them across the way.'

  On the landing opposite, the three men were roaming up and down the row. Shane had watched the men leave their cells, watched them get attacked by other men, watched them die, and was now watching them as they wandered aimlessly around, bouncing off cells, crawling on all fours and eating the men who had lost the fight. The fear he felt when the realisation of what he was witnessing had been immense, more than he had ever felt before. The last time he had felt so helpless and unsure was sitting in the car outside the liquor shop, waiting for the moment to make his move.

  'We need to get out of here,' Billy said. The knife he had been holding throughout was still clenched tightly in his hand, so tightly that his knuckles were white. 'It's only a matter of time before they find us. We're much safer out in the open.'

  It was true. In the cell, they had nowhere to run. One, maybe two of them, they could handle, but any more than that and Shane knew that they would be in serious trouble.

  'We go out there,' Shane said, 'then we'll need to go prepared. I saw what those things are capable of; they don't seem to feel pain the way we would.'

  Billy shrugged and began to look around the cell for something, anything, that they could use to protect themselves.

  He had his knife, that was enough for him, but Shane was unarmed. To venture out of the cell without at least something to keep those things at bay was practically suicide.

  Shane moved away from the bed, which was still blocking the cell door, and helped to search.

  'Where are the guards?' Billy asked.

  'Even the guards wouldn't have been able to stop those things,' Shane replied. 'The guards would have battered them a few times with their batons, but those fucking things are relentless.'

  'You saying they're all dead?' asked Billy. He opened the drawer to his bedside table and started to remove the books that had taken up residence there, stacking them neatly on the floor next to the bed.

  'I'm saying, it stands a chance tha
t once the guards realised they were fucked, they disappeared, the ones that were lucky did, anyway.'

  Shane watched as Billy Toombs cleared the drawer of its contents and pulled the empty wood from its hole. There was an audible crunch as twisted metal snapped away from wood. Satisfied, Billy tossed the empty drawer aside and pulled at the aluminium runner, which was still attached to the main structure of the cabinet.

  'You know,' Shane said as his cellmate became increasingly frustrated with the recalcitrant drawer runner, 'you really need to see somebody about that temper of yours.'

  Billy smiled; his breathlessness prevented him from laughing out loud.

  With one final twist, and a foreign word that Shane didn't think translated as anything nice, the aluminium runner came away.

  'Nice,' Shane said. Billy handed it to him, and immediately it felt good in his hand. It was light, which was always good, and the end had twisted creating a sharp point. It was, given the circumstances, the best they were going to muster.

  They moved the bed away from the gate, trying to keep the noise to an absolute minimum. Shane kept a close eye on the numbers outside the cell, and as far as he could see there were only four of them on the same level. The next level up, though, that one seemed to be swamped by them. Since there were only ten steps between levels, it paid to stay as silent as possible.

  In another part of the prison, though, somebody screamed. It was faint, but both Shane and Billy heard it, and it sounded like a woman.

  With the bed pushed aside, and their weapons in hand, Shane looked deep into Billy's eyes, and for the first time since they had met three years ago, the hulking half-Indian, half-Irishman looked frightened.

  'Ready?' Shane asked.

  Billy swallowed hard. 'As I'm ever gonna be.'