DEAD CELLS

by Adam Millard

  Not wishing to stare at the effigy for too long, he continued with the search.

  There were three pews, which was plenty as far as the prison was concerned. They had a very tiny congregation; no more than three people a day, so there really was no point in installing anything larger than was necessary.

  In front of each pew, strapped to the back of the chair in front, was a bible: King James.

  Shane plucked one of the bibles from its netting and stuffed it into the pocket of his coveralls. He didn't know why he did it, but nothing made any sense at the moment. Whether he had subconsciously decided to turn to God at a later time, or not, it just seemed to be a good idea to be carrying a copy of the bible.

  He headed on up towards the altar, taking the two steps carefully. Billy Toombs was still talking in his deep monotone; Shane thought it best to leave him for as long as he needed.

  Upon the altar was an open copy of the bible, and Shane found himself instantly drawn to a particular segment.

  Matthew 9:32-33: “As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil.”

  'How fucking appropriate,' Shane muttered.

  He turned and walked across to the apse, which was not really large enough to be called so, but Shane had no idea what else to call it.

  It was here that Shane saw the body.

  The padre had yanked down a curtain onto himself, perhaps to conceal himself from the eyes of God, perhaps to hide from the creatures.

  Shane could see feet as they jutted out at the end of the royal-blue curtain, feet that were covered with blood, feet that were missing toes...

  Shane made the sign of the cross on his forehead; again, he wasn't sure why he did it, it just seemed appropriate given the surroundings and current situation.

  Shane was going to call out to Billy, to let him know that he had located the padre, but it didn't seem fair to interrupt the man when he was pouring his heart out to, well to nobody, really.

  The things had been in the chapel, that was the main thing, and they were nowhere to be seen now, which put Shane on edge. He glanced around, expecting to find one of them ambling towards him with outstretched arms.

  Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

  'Anything?' Billy asked, which prompted Shane to swing around with his aluminium stick.

  'Jesus fu—' Shane began, then remembered where he was. 'You frightened the life out of me.'

  'Sorry,' Billy smiled. 'I think I got the answer machine.' He pointed towards the booth from which he had just emerged.

  'Let's hope not,' Shane said. 'I found the bloke who used to run this place.' He pointed across to the curtain and the bloodied feet at the end of it.

  Billy made the sign of the cross. 'Poor padre,' he said. 'Wonder whether he had time to exorcise a few of them.'

  Shane shook his head. 'They're not possessed,' he said. 'They're simply us, sans logic and control. It's like they have some kind of rabies.'

  That, Billy thought, was about the best and most comprehensive way to describe it. The way they came at you, with complete disregard, the darkness of their eyes, the frothy mouths, although there was nothing frothy about the black tar that dripped from every available orifice. It was like rabies.

  'Did you find anything?' Billy said.

  Shane thought about the bible in his coverall pocket, and shook his head. 'Nothing that could come in handy.'

  'Still want to barricade yourself in,' asked Billy, but he already knew the answer.

  'Not here,' Shane said. 'We need to get out of this place completely. I don't think we can get extra jailtime for trying to survive a viral outbreak.'

  'Me neither.'

  'Then let's try and get over the fucking wall.'

  They didn't get very far.

  The door to the chapel was filled with grunting creatures; they stumbled forward, scratching at the wooden décor either side of them.

  'Put that on hold,' Billy said. He took out his knife and stepped into the battle.

  *

  'Behind you!' Shane yelled. 'Watch your fucking back!'

  The creature lunged forward, and almost made it onto Billy, who was fending off the other two. Shane grabbed the thing's leg and yanked it back. There was a sickening snap as the creature's leg was torn from its socket, but the thing felt no pain at all. It was on its front, thrashing around the aisle like a drunken man being ejected from a nightclub by the burly bouncers. Shane managed to drag it towards the altar; it was only a few feet, but enough to keep it from scratching Billy, or worse, biting him.

  Shane had time to look up; Billy had already slit the throat of one of them, but all that did was piss the creature off, who was trying to find its opponent without being able to see; its neck had been so severely slashed that its head was facing upwards, held on by an inch of flesh at the back of the neck. From where Shane was, all he could see was the creature's exposed throat and spine. Billy spun with the knife once again, this time finishing off what he had failed to do with the first cut.

  The head slipped backwards, falling off the creatures shoulders. It landed in the aisle and rolled a few feet, where it came to rest against the leg of a pew.

  Shane turned his attention back to the thing which he gripped in his hands. The legs were flailing and kicking, but Shane managed to dodge them. He realised, a second later, that he had dropped the aluminium runner. Realising that he was completely unarmed, he knew he had to improvise.

  He dropped the thing's legs and lunged forward so that he was on top of its back. It growled and shuffled beneath him; it was like trying to wrestle an alligator, or so Shane assumed.

  He could hear Billy taunting the other creature, begging it to come forward and try its luck, but he couldn't take his eyes off what he was doing.

  As the creature continued to buck and moan beneath him, Shane reached a hand carefully around to the front, keeping a safe distance from its mouth, and tightened in on its neck. As he pulled the head upwards, there was a tiny snap, almost like a twig being trodden on in the middle of the woods. Shane pulled harder, tightening his arm around its throat. The creature gurgled, spilled out black ooze from its mouth.

  With hope – he didn't know what he would do if it didn't work – he yanked the head backwards so hard that he was face-to-face with the thing, its eyes bulging, its life-blood seeping out of the corners of its mouth, The crack that came this time was like a firework, and Shane knew that he had severed the spinal-cord. As the thing seemingly realised what fate had befallen it, Shane eased up the pressure, allowing the body to slump forward.

  Exhaling, Shane pushed himself to his feet. He glanced across to find Billy had beheaded the second creature in much the same fashion as he had the first. As he wiped the bloodied blade on the trouser-leg of his coveralls, he smiled.

  'Most exercise I've had in a while,' he said.

  Shane doubled over, fighting to suck air into his lungs, air that was apparently not there.

  'Yeah,' he managed. 'That wasn't what I had in mind when I suggested the chapel.'

  'The wall?' Billy said. 'Still fancy our chances?'

  'More so than if we stay here,' Shane said, picking up his aluminium stick. 'Do you think we need to use the confessionals for what we've just done?'

  Billy Toombs shook his head. 'Think God will just assume we're showing off,' he said, laughing a little. 'Might be easier to just save up for when we get out of here, do it all in one go.'

  Shane nodded.

  They left the chapel no better off, with consciences as heavy as they always had been.

  *

  He came to on the ground; he knew he was on the ground because he had a mouthful of gravel. The first thing he realised was that he was not alone; he could see feet as they walked by his head, feet belonging to people dressed in orange trousers. They were moaning, the people with the feet, moaning and growling as they walked around him, and he knew that he would like to do that too.

  He pushed himself up slowly, and be
gan to growl, but that didn't seem enough. He was hungry; very hungry. As he glanced around at the others he tried to figure out if they would taste good. After a minute or so, he knew that he wasn't meant to eat those ones. They were the same as him. They were also hungry.

  He managed to get to his feet, swaying and almost toppling over on a few occasions, but once up, he felt like he would be okay. A few of the others – they were all dressed in orange, which was strange because he wasn't – looked at him, as if they were trying to decide if he would taste good. They subsequently ignored him, deciding that he was one of them, now, and had tasted good once, but not anymore.

  One of them, a big one with a hairy face, stumbled into him, but he didn't mind; he simply moaned once more and shrugged his shoulder. Inside, he could feel himself regaining strength. Eventually, he would be back to normal, or as close to normal as was physically possible now that he had been infected.

  He knew one thing, though. He needed to eat something, anything, but there was nothing around, and he knew that he couldn't eat any of the others because they were the same as him. He began to walk forward, which was almost impossible at first, but it got easier the more steps he took.

  Starving.

  A few of the others let out guttural warnings if he got too close, but he ignored them, because he knew that they wouldn't do anything. Maybe they were just talking to him? It didn't matter.

  So hungry...

  He almost fell forward, where he would have met a row of steel bars with his face, but he managed to regain his footing and steady himself.

  Where was all the food?....

  He knew that he was injured, but it didn't matter. He looked down to where his stomach should have been, but there was a massive hole with bits of viscera poking out. He probably wouldn't be able to digest properly, not anymore, but none of that mattered now.

  What mattered was feeding....

  He felt like he ought to know where he was, like he should recognise the people who he was with, but there was nothing. It was like he had just been born, born into a world where his sole purpose was to hunt and feed on...on whatever he could. How could he find food, though, if he was trapped, which was how he presently felt? There was nothing in the vicinity to eat, but his brain told him to keep looking, to keep walking until he found it, and then to attack as quickly as possible to satiate the hunger consuming him.

  He walked in a perfect circle, almost falling over twice, and yet when he returned to the point where he had started a few minutes earlier, it felt brand new. He continued like this for almost an hour, sniffing the air, hoping to come across something that would feed him. As he walked, his hand accidentally brushed against a name-tag that had been pinned to his shirt, and sent it flying across the floor.

  On it read the name: Warden Charles Dean.

  But none of that mattered to him.

  Not now.

  All that mattered was feeding...

  *

  'I'm not sure this is a great idea,' Marla said as she surveyed the corridor. There were eight of them, and they all seemed to want to get into the governor's office. 'There's nothing in there for them. It's as if they still have some memories remaining, and now they want to get to the governor to teach him a thing or two about pain.'

  'That doesn't sound feasible,' Terry spat. 'We don't know what the virus does to them, but we know one thing's for certain: It doesn't make them smarter, and I doubt whether it leaves them with agendas.'

  Terry was right, although Marla had trouble admitting it. They wouldn't have remembered where the warden's office was, for a start, so they sure as hell wouldn't have headed towards it with ulterior motives. It just didn't sound right.

  Marla edged backwards, concealing herself once again from the ambling throng. 'Whatever. The main thing is: We need to get into that office, right?'

  Michaelson nodded. 'That radio is the only chance we have of surviving,' he said. 'If we can contact the PD, they'll send somebody to get us out of here, and then it's just a matter of sitting tight.'

  Jared liked the sound of that and smiled, relieved that it would all be at an end soon enough.

  'In that case,' Terry said, 'we need a plan. Or we could just go out there, guns blazing, blow them all to Hell?' It was a rhetorical question, meant to be playful, but everyone nodded along as if it was the best plan they had ever heard. Terry shook his head. 'Oh...so we're just gonna go and blow as many of them away as possible?'

  'We need to get into that office,' Jenson said, using his shotgun to point. 'The best way to do it would be to keep those fucking things at arms length. If we shoot them where they stand, then there's no chance of any of us becoming infected, and we all make it out of here in one piece.'

  Marla didn't want to, but she agreed. 'I know for a fact that I don't want to become one of those things,' she said. 'If we can make a few clean headshots, put them down straight away, then we're home free.'

  Terry sighed. He had been contemplating returning to the fold, becoming spiritual again, but would he be able to after allowing such a massacre to take place?

  'Do what needs to be done,' he mumbled. 'We need that radio, like you said.'

  'You ready?' Michaelson asked Jenson, who cocked the shotgun.

  'Let's do it.'

  *

  They swung around the corner without deciding who was going to shoot what, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that they all went down, and stayed down.

  Jenson missed with his first shot, hitting one of the creatures in the shoulder. It recoiled slightly as the bullet tore through it, but that was about all. It came for the guards with clenched teeth, and it was the second shot from Jenson that managed to remove those teeth and spray them against the corridor wall.

  Michaelson, with pistol in each hand, took out two with his first two shots; it wasn't a time to celebrate, though, as the ones remaining on their feet didn't look too pleased, and leapt forward with ghastly intentions.

  Jenson moved forward, cocked and shot, and hit one of them – one he recognised as a paedophile from Block A, even though it was missing most of its jaw – directly in the eye. It stood for a few seconds, and then toppled backwards, hitting the door behind it. All manner of black innards trailed down the walls by now, leaving slimy tracks behind.

  Two of the remaining things lunged forward, screaming and grunting. Michaelson managed to shoot the one on the left, and expected the other guard to take out the other, but when Jenson fired, all that came was a anti-climactic click.

  The shotgun was jammed.

  Jenson panicked; the line that he and Michaelson had been holding was no longer a priority, and he took a few steps back to try to fix the problem with his gun.

  'Watch out!' Marla shouted as she appeared in the corridor.

  Michaelson fired with both pistols and, luckily for him, shattered the approaching thing's face on both sides. It hit the floor with a dramatic thud and rolled onto its front where it remained, motionless.

  There were two left, and one of them was running, or so it seemed. Its forward momentum, though, was what made it rush forward with preternatural speed.

  'How fucking long?' Michaelson snapped, firing two rounds at the maniacal figure lunging towards him. Both shots missed the target, but one of them tore the ear of the thing clear off and sent it flying upwards where it stuck to the ceiling with vile effectiveness.

  'Almost done!' replied Jenson, who was on one knee loading fresh shells into the chamber. 'One second.'

  Michaelson didn't have time to fire off another shot; he was bundled over by the creature, who continued to snap and bite at his shins even when he was down. The guard whipped out a leg and caught the creature full on in the face. There was a satisfying crunch as its head snapped backwards, and Michaelson managed to level the pistol and fire.

  The chin of the creature exploded; teeth flew from its mouth on a sea of blackness. The second bullet hit with such force the entire body lifted from the floor. Michaelson felt t
he weight shift from his legs, and felt instantly better.

  Jenson heard a voice from way back in the corridor. 'There's only one left,' it said, which was hardly a consolation when you were out there facing it.

  Officer Michaelson was still on the ground when the last creature reached him. It screamed, a guttural screech that shook the very walls in which they were encased, and then it dropped forward, mouth wide open, ready to bite.

  Ready to feed.

  There was a second when Michaelson simply accepted his fate. How was he going to stop it in time? There was no way he could fire off his pistols; the fucking thing was already on him.

  Then came the blast. The creature flew a few feet into the air, both feet left the ground. When it came to a stop against the wall, sliding slowly downwards until it was sitting upright against the bloodsoaked skirting, Michaelson saw the huge, smoking hole in the creature's chest. Viscera hung loosely from the cavity, a dark mass of fleshy, singed meat fell out and landed in the creature's lap.

  The thing looked down at it, as if pondering how things had gotten quite as bad as they had, and then came another blast. When Michaelson looked back – he hadn't been expecting the sudden follow-up from the other guard – the top half of the creature's head was missing, although that may have been it sliding down the door like one of those rubber spiders you used to be able to buy from the funfair.

  'You didn't get bit, did you?' Jenson asked with trembling eagerness. When Michaelson climbed to his feet, he realised that Jenson was pointing the shotgun in his direction.

  'No,' he said, holstering his pistols. 'Not a fucking scratch.'

  Jenson exhaled deeply. 'Thank fuck for that,' he said. 'Thought you were a goner for sure.'

  Appearing in the corridor, the rest of the group were almost as breathless as the guards.

  'Are you okay?' Marla asked nobody in particular. 'That was insane.'