DEAD CELLS

by Adam Millard

  She slowly made her way up the corridor, passing by doors that were either locked, or blocked by cleaning equipment. She was about to make a decision and try one of the doors when the man appeared from nowhere.

  Marla didn't scream; she couldn't. Her heart seemed to jump up into her mouth and prevent anything from emerging.

  'It's okay,' the man said. 'I'm not gonna hurt you.'

  She was pretty sure that, at some point during her life, she had heard those exact words only to be fooled a few seconds later. She was taking no chances. In her hand, she was clutching the paperweight, and now she lifted it into the air and began to shake it threateningly.

  'You stay back,' she said. 'I'll fucking kill you.'

  She didn't know where her words came from, but they didn't betray what she thought she would do.

  'There's no need to be killing anyone,' the man said. 'So just calm down.'

  Marla scanned the man, who was wearing white coveralls which meant that he was non-violent, for a concealed weapon, but if he was carrying one, it was extremely well hidden.

  'Who are you?' she gasped, swallowing hard.

  'My name's Terry,' he said, offering a sweet smile. 'Terry Lewis.'

  Marla lowered the paperweight, as if the knowing of his name made him less of a threat. She was about to speak, to ask questions that perhaps he knew the answer to, when another man appeared out of the door behind Terry.

  He was running towards her, his face contorted with violence, his voice attempting something of a scream.

  Marla recoiled, raised the paperweight once again, and waited for the man to reach her.

  He didn't.

  As the man was level with Terry Lewis, Terry threw out an arm, which hit the new man in the throat. He crumpled to the ground, where he began to roll around, clutching at himself where the fist had connected.

  'Never mind him,' Terry said, as calm and collected as was possible. 'He tends to get a little nervous around women that ain't his momma.'

  Marla relaxed a little.

  'I don't suppose you know what the fuck is happening here?' she asked.

  'Haven't a clue,' Terry shrugged. 'But we're staying alive as best we can.'

  To Marla, that sounded like a good plan.

  *

  They encountered at least fifteen of the creatures as they ran across the landing; at one point, it looked as if they were cornered, but managed to weave and push the things away without getting snagged or scratched. It wasn't a good idea to hang around any longer than was necessary, and so they kept moving, trying to stay one step ahead of the thickening throng of wandering bodies. Shane developed a stitch in his right side; he hadn't been working out as often as he should have recently. What was the point? He was a free man in a few weeks, and he knew that once he was home with his wife and daughter, visiting the gym would be the farthest thing from his mind. Now, though, as the pain stabbed at his ribs, he wished he'd at least stuck to some sort of regime.

  'How you doing?' Billy asked, noticing Shane's hand gripping at the pain in his side. 'You haven't been scratched, have you?'

  Shane laughed, slowing his pace. 'Hell no,' he said. 'You know when I stopped going to the workout room a few weeks ago.'

  Billy nodded.

  'It was a bad idea,' Shane said. 'Feel like I'm going to keel over any second.'

  Billy stopped running. There were no creatures about, not at the moment. 'You need to get some water down you,' he said. 'We should get to the canteen.'

  The canteen was downstairs. Who knew how many of those things they would pass along the way? But it made sense; Shane was thirsty.

  'Sounds good to me,' he said. 'You never know, the survivors could all have had the same idea. Go to where the food and water is.'

  Billy hoped not. He wasn't really in the mood for socialising, especially with a bunch of people who were either infected, or deserved to be.

  They continued, knowing that the likelihood of the canteen being open when they arrived was slim. Yet they had to go somewhere; standing around waiting for the creatures to find them was not an option.

  Shane hadn't noticed before, but the prison was filled with the sounds of the undead, scratching around, moaning and growling. He thought that if he listened hard enough, he could hear them chewing away at captured inmates, but that might have just been a figment of his imagination.

  Along the way, Billy started a conversation that seemed to lead nowhere: Was help on its way? Shane said that he didn't think so; Billy tended to agree. If news of what was happening had reached the outside, then the cavalry would have already arrived, wouldn't they? Billy said that the cavalry might have been notified, only to deem the prison and its inmates as collateral damage. The government was known for its lack of compassion when it came down to the greater good, and Shane wouldn't have put it past them to ignore any pleas from within the prison if it meant the issue being contained.

  Where better to contain it?

  A few floors above them, a scream echoed. It sounded like a man's, but it was difficult to tell. Billy and Shane shared a telling expression before descending the steps to the floor below. It was here that they found the man.

  *

  'Did you know him?' Shane asked, glancing down at the mutilated body lying vertically on the final few steps.

  Billy shook his head. 'Uh-huh.'

  'Me neither,' Shane said through gritted teeth. 'Whatever did this to him was fucking persistent, I'll give them that.'

  The body was missing a leg, and an arm; most of the right-hand side of the torso had been gnawed through. Exposed ribs jutted out at uncompromising angles. The face, on one side, was stripped clean, to the skull, and both of the eyes had been removed, leaving only the darkness of the sockets in which they once sat.

  'Sick fucking things,' Billy said, holding a hand up to his mouth, anticipating the vomit that never quite arrived. The dryness of his mouth, though, proved how close he actually was to throwing up.

  Shane stepped over the extended leg of the prone body, and almost slipped in the blood that had pooled around the cadaver's ankle. Billy grabbed for him, and managed to keep him upright.

  'You okay?' asked Billy.

  'Nearly went arse over—'

  The corpse suddenly snapped into life, grasping Shane's ankle. At first, Shane didn't know what had happened, and stared into Billy's eyes as if his colleague could explain further.

  Billy pulled Shane away from the body. The hand slipped off Shane's foot and thudded down onto the third step of the stairs. What made everything a thousand times creepier, though, was those eyes – or the lack thereof. The corpse snapped its head around, trying to settle on something, anything, but with sight gone, and most of its other senses compromised, it was a pitiful sight to behold.

  Shane wiped spit away from the corner of his mouth and said, 'Do you want to do the honours?'

  Billy dropped his shoulders. 'Makes no difference to me,' he said. 'As far as I'm concerned, it's the humane thing to do.'

  He stepped forward, keeping enough distance from the arm that was still flailing frantically around on the one side, and drove his massive boot down onto the face of the corpse. Beneath his boot, the remainder of the features spread out, the way a dog-shit would if you stepped on it. There was a crunch as Billy twisted his foot; the skull was cracking, bone driving deep into the brain. After a few involuntary twitches, the creature's motion came to a complete halt. Billy took his foot away, making the sign of the cross on his chest as he did so.

  'That was unpleasant,' Shane said.

  Billy smiled. 'Remind me to get a new pair of boots as soon as possible,' he said, wiping his foot along the floor as if he was trying to rid himself of a piece of recalcitrant sellotape.

  'Dude, they don't make them in your size anymore, not unless you go to Bigfoots-R-Us.'

  'Well, I'd rather shop there than Leprechauns4U,' Billy smiled. Shane laughed out loud. It was surprisingly easy to forget about the terror in which they sudden
ly found themselves. Laughing seemed to take the edge off an otherwise horrific scenario.

  They reached the door to the canteen and immediately realised that their journey had been in vain. The door was wide open; Shane glanced down at the mess covering the tiled floor. There was food everywhere; uncooked meat stretched across the ground from the door to the back wall. It looked like the aftermath of a massacre, with only animal carcasses as casualties.

  'After you,' Billy said, extending his hand with exaggerated enthusiasm. His faux etiquette failed to raise a smile for Shane this time. He stepped into the room with some trepidation. Billy held his knife to his chest, the way a hunter might stalk a deer, and followed.

  The squelch underfoot was almost sickening. It was difficult to remember that the remains were merely those of animals, intended to be eaten by the inmates at a later date. It sounded, as it would, like human remains being trodden on.

  Surprisingly, the smell in the canteen wasn't that bad. It was hardly pot-pourri, but the anticipated stench of abattoir never came either.

  'Something was here,' Shane said, and then realised how obvious it was. He clarified with, 'Something inhuman.'

  Billy nodded. 'One of those things,' he said. 'Must have mistook the meat for us. These things must be smarter than they look if that's the case. If they know the difference between human meat and bacon, then we need to be even more careful.'

  Shane agreed. The creatures seemed to be stupid, the way they bumped into one another and stumbled from place to place, but if they were able to make assessments and decisions, then they obviously retained some of their more complex functions, something which made the hackles rise on the back of Shane's neck.

  As they slipped further into the room, Billy noted the darkness which he hadn't been aware of before. The light was on in the corridor from which they came, but that limited light failed to reach more than halfway into the canteen. The barred windows on the far walls let in only a few rays of light from the East towers, but not enough to see by, and certainly not enough to explore by.

  Shane walked across to one of the large windows and glanced out onto the yard.

  'Anybody out there?' asked Billy, momentarily lowering his knife.

  Shane shook his head. 'I don't see anyone,' he said. 'I'm assuming that the main perimeter would still be locked. There's no way anyone could get out onto the yard, unless it was one of the guards with the combination.'

  The combination changed on a daily basis and was automatically chosen at random by the computer in Charles Dean's office. If it was after midnight now, which Shane was pretty sure of, then the chances were that the new combination had been implemented. There would be no way of knowing that combination; not even the guards would be aware of it yet, as it was shared only with the clocking-in guards at seven in the morning.

  'Could somebody get to the governor's computer?' Billy asked, knowing exactly what Shane was thinking.

  'It's possible,' Shane replied. 'But unlikely. If those things are everywhere, which I think they would be by now, and Dean's office is way across the prison, then the guards would need serious leverage to reach it.'

  'Weapons?'

  'Exactly.'

  'The armoury is only on the other side of A Block,' Billy added. 'If they made it to the weapons, they could already be on their way out of the prison by now.'

  Unfortunately, that was true, which made Shane's teeth stand on edge.

  Apart from the yard, which was not the most desirable of escape routes, there were only two other entrances to the prison. At the basement level, where the guards parked their expensive cars, there was a door that led directly into the facility. Through that door, there were several gates, each of which required a four-digit code. Finally, there was one more door, which required fingerprint scans. It was thorough, if nothing else.

  The other method of entry was a little more complicated, and involved all of the measures of the basement, plus a retina-scan, a two-guard security check, and an x-ray machine. That was situated on the first floor.

  It was possible that surviving officers made it out through one of those exits, but that relied heavily on there being nothing standing between them and the gate.

  That was very unlikely.

  Shane left his post by the window and took a few steps into the room. Both men jumped as something clattered from the kitchen.

  Billy instinctively raised the knife into the air; Shane lowered his aluminium stick and held a finger to his puckered lips. 'Shhhh,'

  The kitchen, if it could be referred to as such, was situated through double doors on the west wall. There were no windows through which to see, mainly because the guards didn't think it was a good idea for the prisoners to know exactly what they were eating.

  Billy held his fist up, and as he did Shane knew what he sought. Shane too raised his hand. A battle of scissors, paper, stone ensued, which Shane lost.

  'Great!' Shane whispered. Billy made a gesture that told his cellmate to quit whining and get on with it.

  Shane took a few steps towards the closed double doors that led to the kitchen, but paused when they suddenly swung outwards.

  Standing between the frame, six and a half foot of pure evil: Cyrus Clay did not look happy.

  His face was smeared with blood, and his stomach seemed to be hanging out through several lacerations. Intestines, blackened and dripping, dangled down to his lap, and swung side to side with every move he made.

  Then it growled.

  And then, it charged.

  It was the fastest either of them had seen one of the creatures move, almost preternaturally quick. It was only when it was almost upon Shane that he realised it was holding a meat cleaver, which it swung maniacally. Shane threw his head back to avoid being slashed; he felt the wind as the blade whipped the air an inch in front of his face. Billy cried something, but Shane didn't hear it. All he heard was the whoosh as the cleaver split the atmosphere in two.

  The next thing the creature had crashed into Shane. They both hit the ground, and Shane gasped for air which was no longer available.

  The creature – formerly Cyrus Clay – tried to sink filthy teeth into Shane's neck, but Shane managed to wriggle upwards beneath the immense weight of his opponent. As he shifted, the teeth gnawed at nothingness.

  Then, Cyrus's head snapped to the left, and then the right. A fist, Billy's fist, was punching away the increasingly frantic head as it bobbed down trying to take a bite out of the face of Shane beneath it. The black drool hung from its mouth like a dark string. As it settled on Shane's coveralls, it stretched and broke off.

  'Stab it!' Shane called from beneath the creature, but Billy couldn't get close enough to inflict such damage. It was moving too quickly to get a clear cut. Besides, Billy was concerned that he would slit the creature and the subsequent blood would somehow infect Shane. If a single drop were to spray into his mouth, that might be enough to contaminate his cellmate.

  It was a risk that he wasn't willing to take.

  The creature tried to raise the cleaver, but Shane saw its intentions and grabbed onto its wrist, forcing it back down to the ground.

  Its eyes glared down into Shane's face with something akin to contempt.

  Shane realised that he was still gripping onto the aluminium runner, and managed to lift his right arm off the floor so that it was inbetween them.

  Billy lashed a foot towards Cyrus, who retorted with a guttural cry of angst and frustration. The foot landed just to the side of the creature's neck, sending its head to one side with a crack.

  Shane slowly pushed the drawer runner upwards until it was beneath the thing's drool-covered chin.

  'Fuck you!' Shane said, and pushed as hard as he could; the aluminium strip made its way through the creature's jaw, up past the nose, and into the brain. There was a momentary look of confusion on its face, a split-second where the eyes bulged so far from the sockets that they were liable to drop out, and then the full weight of the creature came down o
n top of Shane as the life dripped out of it.

  'Need a hand?' Billy asked. Shane looked up to find his friend smiling nervously.

  'Get this fucking thing off of me,' Shane said. 'It weighs a tonne.'

  Billy dragged the corpse off; as he did so, Shane made sure that he retracted his weapon from its skull. It came out covered in a thick black tar. It looked like a dipstick that had been used to check for oil.

  Shane clambered to his feet, which seemed to have other ideas as they danced independently beneath him with pins and needles.

  'Did you get any of that shit in your mouth?' asked Billy, who was checking himself over for possible tears and scratches.

  'I don't think so,' Shane replied. Billy could tell by Shane's expression that, now that it had been brought to his attention, he was slightly concerned.

  What if he did? What if, by some unfortunate twist of fate, a dot of the creature's blood or saliva fell into his mouth, rendering him one of the infected?

  'You look fine to me,' Billy offered, reassuringly.

  'I feel it,' Shane added.

  'Then let's get the fuck out of this canteen before another one of them shows up.'

  It was, Shane thought, the best idea Billy had ever had.

  *

  The shift patrolling the wall had decided that enough was enough, and all went marching along to find out what was going on, why they hadn't been relieved of their posts, and how much overtime they were going to get, if any.

  They made it into the facility, where they came face-to-face with a horde of hungry creatures, inmates that they had berated and beaten in the past just for shits and giggles.