“HELP!” he screamed. “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
And, as if God himself had heard Justin screaming, the locks buzzed and the door popped open.
The vampire jailer crossed his mind, but images of claw marks on ancient coffin lids rolled in and squished such tactical concerns. He wasted no time in leaping from his bunk and breaking out into the corridor. Up ahead towards the control room, past the empty holding cells to his right, he saw Petey Starnes.
Petey staggered, his immense gut rising and falling with the labor of his breath. He wore blue latex gloves, like he’d been performing a body cavity search when everything erupted. Blood covered the front of his khaki uniform shirt. Behind him, boot-clad feet stuck out from behind the wall. A body or bodies, lying on the floor.
Justin retreated until his back struck the wall. To his left, another wall; to his right, the open door to his cell. All he had to do was step back inside and close the bars. Maybe they’d find his claw marks on the wall someday.
“Petey?” he called out in a strangled voice. “You all right, man?”
Petey stopped and leaned against the wall for support. “Good to go, man. Little winded.”
“What’s with the blood? You ain’t gonna bite me, right?”
“Chill out. I stabbed one of these fuckers. Stabbed a couple of them, actually.”
Justin moved slowly along the wall to where Petey stood. Around the corner, the corridor opened up into a little lobby. One wall consisted of the glass-fronted control room, while another sported three in-processing offices and the countertop where Justin had laid his belongings and clothes upon arrival. The elevator was located just to the right of the corridor and to the right of that, the door to the real lobby. With a door to the outside.
Three bodies lay on the floor, two in Sheriff’s Department brown, the last in civilian clothes. Justin recognized him as the vomiting man from earlier.
“That bastard,” Petey said, “was a blood-sucking vampire. He fuckin’ bit Jimmy. Ray broke a broom in half and stabbed him, but then old Ray and Jimmy got into it because Jimmy started getting bitey, and then I had to stab both of them because they both got bitey. Right through the heart, man. Like in a goddamned movie.”
A broom handle protruded from the chest of each deputy. Justin blinked at them, trying to wrap his mind around this scene that Petey described like it made perfect sense.
“You get bit?”
“Naw, man.”
“Not even a little? What’s with the huffing and puffing?”
“I’m fat and out of shape. That’s what fat people do when they exert themselves. We huff and puff.” Petey leaned over and sucked in a great chestful of air. He stood up and let it go in one long breath. “Damn!”
“How…I mean…”
“Shit, I don’t know,” Petey said. “That dude right there was all sick and suddenly he came up with fangs. Where’d he get them? I have no earthly idea.”
Justin stared at the bodies. A few hours ago, he had been sitting in his apartment. Watching cable, eating potato chips. “What do we do now?” he asked.
“We get out of here, that’s what we do now. Your clothes are still in the bag in that office back there—go put them on and let’s bounce.”
Justin did. Jeans, socks, sneakers, tee shirt, hoodie. Despite his present circumstances, he felt immeasurably better when he rid himself of the jail garb. Getting rid of that felt like shedding a rough, raspy, second skin in which terrible things could happen to him. He didn’t feel like himself again, but he felt better.
Back in the in-processing lobby, Petey leaned against the frame in the doorway to the control room. He’d been leaning over again, but he straightened up when Justin approached.
“Sure you’re okay?”
“Listen,” he said, ignoring the question. “This whole motherfucker is a lockdown facility. None of these doors is going to open without somebody buzzing it open, and when the finger comes off the buzzer those locks are going to engage again. So what we’re going to do is, I’m going to buzz them and you jam them open as you go through. We’ll get in my truck and haul ass.”
“Gotcha.” Justin went and stood by the door that led out to the little waiting room outside the in-processing lobby. But then he stopped.
Claw marks.
He thought of the rest of the building rising above him. Two, three floors of deputies and inmates, some as innocent as he—some even more so. Some cell blocks and bunk rooms hadn’t been opened tonight. There were men up there, trapped behind locked doors as he himself had been trapped behind the bars of the holding cell. If someone didn’t come neutralize this situation in two or three days, they would all die. Like colonists buried alive in the days before coroners, medical examiners and such simple yet critically important things as establishing death before sticking someone in a pine box.
“What about everybody else?” He asked.
Petey, who had moved behind the glass in the control room, scowled and stuck his head out. “What about them?”
“Are we going to leave everybody in here? What about your fellow deputies? What about the people in the cells? We can’t just abandon them.”
“Come in here for a second.”
Petey motioned him into the control room. Justin found himself standing before a bank of black-and-white television monitors.
“Look,” Petey said. “This shit’s everywhere.”
On the bank of glowing monitors covering one wall of the control room, men struggled and fell in the bunkrooms that comprised the main part of the jail—the part he himself would have been in but for Petey’s largesse—while jailers and trustees stumbled in the corridors. Black, white, Hispanic, they all had the same narrow, wolfish look as the one who had tried to gain entry to Justin’s own cell. Justin counted two bunkrooms that appeared normal; in these, jumpsuited men lay on bunks, on the floors, apparently unaware of the commotion taking place outside.
They’ll find out soon enough.
“Holy shit,” Justin whispered.
On one monitor, a brown-shirted deputy stopped and stared at the camera. Its black eyes held him motionless as he felt suddenly overcome by the notion that the thing could see him, too; that it knew he was there, could sense his bewilderment and fear.
It grinned and bared its fangs.
“This is so fucked up,” he said. “How did it get up there if this guy out here brought it in and you stabbed him? I mean, that’s him laying right out there, right? How is this even possible?”
“It must have been in here earlier,” Petey said. He coughed and grunted. “Up there. Came in again through in-processing, with Asshole out there. Came in from outside the jail, though. Means…”
“This same problem might be developing out in the public. Right now.”
“Bingo. And check this out.”
Petey punched some keys on a computer keyboard at the bottom of the monitor bank. The top row of screens blinked and refocused on new scenes. In the corridors above, small knots of afflicted deputies and trustees stood motionless outside of bunkrooms.
“They’re waiting to get in,” Petey said. Light from the monitors reflected off the sheen of sweat covering his face. He took his breaths in uneven gusts that he released in ragged sighs. “Those are the unaffected cells. Eventually, they’re going to figure out that if somebody buzzes those doors, they can all get in there and eat.”
“Those guys in there are fucked,” Justin said.
“Unless you want to fight through an army of vampires to save them. You want to do that, be my guest. But my ass is…hey, check this out.”
Petey pointed to the leftmost monitor. Justin looked. Three figures in sheriff’s department uniforms stood motionless before a closed door.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That is…”
Petey rose from the chair and stood in the doorway. He pointed to a door beside the inprocessing office. The stairwell.
“…right there. Hit
the wrong button, those bastards are coming out.”
Justin stared at the door, then back at the monitor. He hadn’t thought it possible for his guts to feel any colder, but he’d been wrong. Less than ten feet separated him and Petey from the creatures on the monitor.
The inmates of this jail were damned. There was nothing he could do.
“So I suggest,” Petey labored, “that we get the fuck out of here. Now.”
He rummaged around in a toolbox under the monitor table. Finding nothing that suited him there, he straightened up and surveyed the table. Sweat dripped from the bags beneath his eyes; he looked to Justin like he hadn’t slept in weeks. The control room was redolent of body odor barely concealed beneath his cheap cologne and the smell of latex from his gloves.
He grabbed a pair of clipboards and thrust them at Justin. “Here,” he said. “Use these to jam the doors open. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Don’t hit the wrong button.”
“I won’t. Bank on it.”
Stepping over the bodies, Justin made his way to the first of two doors that led from the outside. The buzzer sounded, the lock clanked and he entered a tiny, square room the size of a broom closet. To his left, a glass window looked into the control room. To his right, an elevator. In front, the door to the public lobby. And freedom.
He wedged a clipboard in the first door and pulled the handle until the door’s weight firmly held the clipboard in place. He stepped back and rested a hand on the second door and waited.
No buzz.
“Okay!” he yelled. “Go ahead and hit the second one!”
Still nothing.
He turned to the window and plastered his face to the glass. On the other side, Petey sat before the glowing monitors, jamming his index finger at a button on the console. Justin passed back through the first door and stepped into the control room.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Petey’s head seemed to be swaying atop the mountain of his chest. For a moment, Justin thought he had lost consciousness. But then he turned, his face knotted with confusion.
“Won’t work,” he said. “I press the…button and…nothing happens.”
If Petey had looked sick before, now he looked near death. His skin had gone white and pale, his lips a bluish tear at the bottom of his chubby face. Sweat beaded on his broad forehead. He blinked and turned his head when he addressed Justin, almost as if he had trouble focusing.
He didn’t get bit, Justin thought. He didn’t! He said so!
Why don’t you ask him to show you his hands?
Justin looked down. A pair of white latex gloves covered both of Petey’s hands. He could have received a bite on one of those. Justin wouldn’t have known.
He swallowed and said, “It’s probably a security measure. Only one door open at a time, right? Keep prisoners from escaping?”
“Yeah,” Petey panted. “I think that’s right.”
“So we have to fool the system, make it think that other door’s closed. You got any duct tape around here?”
“Of course we got duct tape. What kind of rinky-dink outfit you think we’re running here?”
Am I imagining things, or is his voice changing?
Justin took in a deep breath. He had to do this while Petey remained in control of his faculties. Because once Petey stopped being Petey and lost the inclination to operate the control board, Justin would have nobody to buzz him out. Even if he rammed one of those makeshift stakes through Petey’s heart and made his vampire career a short one, he’d be stuck in here. Maybe not in a cell, but stuck anyway.
Claw marks.
“Can you get it for me?” Justin asked. “Or tell me where it is?”
With what appeared like a titanic effort, Petey reached under the table and came up with a plastic bin of sundries. He pushed it down the length of the table at Justin and collapsed back in his chair. The seat back groaned beneath his weight. “Jesus,” he muttered.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m just…fuck, man, I’m feeling like shit all of a sudden, you know? You think I could be having a heart attack?”
Where is it where is it where where where IS THE FUCKING DUCT TAPE
At the bottom, just beneath a dirty Burlington Royals ball cap, Justin located the tape. His right hand closed around it and he jerked it out. “Naw, man. You’re nineteen. Folks like us don’t have heart attacks.”
“Yeah, but I’m a big, fat, nasty pig. I ain’t got blood, I got grease with pieces of bacon floating in it.”
“You’re all right,” Justin lied. “Now get your fingers to that control board. We’re getting out of here.”
“That’s a big ten-four.”
Justin exited the control room and waited for the first buzz. When the door opened, he held it ajar with his body while he tore a length of the gray tape and applied it to the security roller on the lock’s striker plate.
One down, one to go. We can do this.
He stepped inside the tiny vestibule and let the door close. Then he turned and knocked on the control room window. On the other side of the glass, Petey jabbed at the button. But nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” Petey asked. It came out wass-ong, like a drunk.
It’s magnetic, not mechanical. If metal doesn’t touch metal, that damn thing knows it’s still open.
I’m fucked.
His head swam with a sudden surge of panic. It attacked with such force that he nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself on the wall, resting his head against the glass.
“Justin?”
No. He wasn’t fucked. Not yet.
He raised his head. Then he walked back through in-processing and into the control room.
“What’s wrong?”
“You got your truck keys on you?”
“Uhh…yeah. Why?”
“Can you throw them to me?”
Petey stared at him.
His eyes are going to go black. Any minute now. He’ll blink and they’ll be solid black. And he’ll have fangs.
But then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He tossed them onto the table, where they fell with a jangle. Justin grabbed them.
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s under the gloves, Petey? You got bit, didn’t you? On the hand?”
Petey looked down at his gloved hands. His head swayed precariously, then rolled into a resigned nod.
“I’m going to get help, all right? We’ll get the feds, Center for Disease Control, all those people. We’ll get this fixed. Including you, okay?”
“Gotta hurry,” Petey said. His voice was almost a whisper now. “I feel like ass.”
“I can do that. But I need you to stay with me a bit, okay? I need you to operate these controls. Because the system knows there’s still a door open. The duct tape didn’t work.”
“Duct tape…always works.”
“Not this time. Stay with me, all right?”
Petey nodded. Justin could tell in the way he moved his body he didn’t have much time left.
“I’m going to let that first door engage. Then you buzz the second. Okay?”
“Ten-four.”
Justin left the control room. He pulled the first door open and removed the length of duct tape. Then he stepped through.
The door closed behind him. Giddy panic seized his brain again.
He’s going to lose it now. Right now. And you’ll still be in here.
His eyes fell on the door in front of him. The handle. It didn’t buzz.
Oh, God.
He rapped on the control room window. “Petey? Buzz me out, man.”
No response.
Justin pressed his face against the window glass. On the other side, Petey sat slumped in his chair. His shoulders twitched weakly. But for that, he could have been
Dead. Dead like you’ll be, only dead a lot faster. Yours won’t be like that. Gonna take a while for you to die in here. Three days? Four?
His hands formed into fists.
Somebody will find you eventually. They’ll know how you died. It’ll give them nightmares.
He screamed then. He had never screamed like that, not at Kayleigh, not at his worthless mother, not at anyone. His chest erupted in the scream of the unjustly damned, a scream of razor blades and broken glass that tore at his vocal chords. He attacked the window. He beat his fists against it.
Petey lifted his head with his eyes closed. But then he raised his arm and pressed a button on the control board.
The buzzer sounded. Justin darted sideways and depressed the handle, tearing the door open and exploding into the public lobby. Two rows of empty plastic chairs bolted to the floor waited for him. Portraits of past Morgan County head sheriffs stared at him from their resting places on the walls.
Another window to the control room looked out over the lobby. Through the glass, he could see Petey begin to shake. His spine suddenly straightened and he bent backwards over the back of the chair. His mouth opened wide towards the ceiling.
He was changing.
You are one lucky motherfucker, Lesner, said the nearest sheriff from his frame.
“Yeah,” Justin muttered. “Real lucky.”
Hoping his luck would hold long enough to get him to Petey’s truck, he clutched the keys and ventured out into the night.
13.
Heather and Justin laid the bodies on the grass in front of the courthouse and covered them with a plastic tarpaulin from the bed of Justin’s truck. Then they removed their gloves and sat on the tailgate while Justin told his story. When he stopped talking, Heather sat for a long time and waited because he hadn’t finished. He simply stopped in the middle. He swallowed and looked off into the distance, obviously reliving something but not telling her what it was.
“And?” she finally asked.
“And I got home,” he said, shrugging and looking at the street beneath his feet.
“I mean, what happened between then and now? That was four days ago. How did you survive?”
He shrugged again, this time throwing in a shake of the head for good measure. His face looked drawn, old. Heather wondered how she could have ever mistaken him for a child. “I didn’t answer the door. That’s how I survived.”
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