by Matt Handle
“It’s just a little further,” he told him. “We can make it.”
Sam shook his head as he gasped for breath. “And then what?” he asked. “Pike already said we couldn’t climb over the fence.”
Before either man could reply, a zombie came shuffling out of the shower room. Jesse didn’t recognize the woman, but if the warden was still alive, he could have explained that she was the reporter that had screamed earlier while watching Billy’s execution. Her smart business jacket and skirt were now caked in blood and a huge gouge ran from her left temple down to the bottom of her right cheek. The wound had turned her face into a morbid Halloween mask and she growled as she came toward them.
Sam leveled his pistol at her and shot her right between the eyes. She landed on the floor with a thump. Then Sam looked back at Jesse.
“I never killed a woman before,” he said wearily.
“Me either,” Jesse replied. “But I’m not sure that one counts.”
Sam nodded his head and reached up so Jesse could help him from the ground. “I hope you’re right,” he said with a frown. “I already got enough to answer for.”
The three men made it past their cells and to the broken door that led to the Death House. The hallway beyond was dim and reeked of blood. They stopped to rest a minute and as they did, they heard a faint moan and footsteps.
Jesse stated the obvious. “There’s at least one more of them in there.”
Pike nodded as he checked to see how many rounds he had left. Jesse and Sam took the hint and did the same before reloading from the box of 9mm ammunition that they’d taken from the safe. They stood still for no more than two minutes, but Sam tiredly pointed a finger back in the direction they came. All three men looked and saw that Billy and the rest of the zombies were now in the hall and closing fast.
“We ain’t gonna make it,” Sam sighed.
“We aren’t going to make it easy on them either,” Pike retorted.
They stepped through the doorway and marched their way down the dimly lit corridor. The former doctor that had injected Billy with whatever caused this catastrophe was hunched over and waiting almost in the same spot he’d been in when it all started. His lab coat was ripped and bloodied and his thin hair was mussed, but you might have thought he was simply injured until you looked in his eyes. His eyes were the same blank, bloody eyes they’d seen on the rest of the monsters that now hunted the block.
Pike didn’t hesitate. He killed the former doctor where he stood and the three men kept moving. They had just reached the double doors that led outside to the parking lot, Sam in the lead, when the entire wall, doors included, burst inward with a terrible crash. Broken bricks, shattered glass, and slabs of steel flew everywhere, slamming into all three men and knocking them to the ground. The smashed-in front grill and hood of one of the prison’s transport vans was now wedged in what remained of the doorframe. The engine was still running and the room immediately smelled of gasoline and burnt rubber.
Pike moaned in pain as he tried to sit up along the wall he’d been tossed against like a rag doll. Both of his legs were broken and he felt as if someone or something had punched him hard in the stomach. Blood ran down into his eyes from a gash across his scalp. Jesse was in slightly better shape just a few feet away, but his left arm was broken and he cradled it awkwardly as he looked toward Sam. Pike followed Jesse’s gaze and bowed his head for a second in mourning.
Sam’s body lay in a crumpled heap, half-way beneath the front of the van. The vehicle had crushed him on impact and his dead gaze stared blindly up at the ceiling. His gun lay two feet away from his outstretched hand and upon seeing it Jesse fumbled as he tried to find his own weapon. He’d lost it in the crash and it took a minute before he located it atop a small pile of rubble off to his side.
He crawled over to retrieve it, grimacing each time he put any pressure on his broken arm. He got to his feet and looked into the shattered windshield of the van. The driver’s head was mashed into the glass, a mess of torn flesh, broken bone, and blood. Jesse stepped closer to verify what he already knew. The driver had been a zombie, one of the gatehouse guards. The red eyes and khaki uniform told him all he needed to know. The infection had spread beyond the building. This one was dead, but there were probably others wandering outside.
The crunching noise of debris underfoot made Jesse look back down the hall. Billy and his monstrous crew had returned to the Death House. The big zombie lurched toward them as its fellow undead crowded in around it, eager to eat the final two members of the living.
“Can you walk?” Jesse croaked at Pike.
Pike shook his head and gave Jesse a pained frown. “Both my legs are broken,” he told him. “Pick up Sam’s gun and bring it to me quickly.”
Jesse did as he was asked. The zombies weren’t more than 25 feet away when Pike placed a hand on Jesse’s good shoulder. “You really didn’t kill your wife, did you?”
“Ex,” Jesse corrected him. “And no, I really didn’t.”
Pike offered him a smile. “That’s good. That’s real good.”
Pike raised the pistol and fired, killing Cruz as the undead guard approached. “You need to get out of here,” he said.
Jesse shot down two more of the zombies, a pair of inmates whose names he couldn’t remember. “Fuck that.”
Pike brushed broken bricks and dust off his stomach and said more forcefully. “I mean it, Jesse. You have to leave me here. There’s too many of them and it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Jesse glanced down at Pike to see what he was talking about. With the rubble no longer concealing Pike’s torso, he saw that the older man’s prison orange was stained a dark red and the large spot was spreading rapidly. A long shard of metal stuck out from the middle of the stain, piercing Pike’s stomach.
“I’m a dead man,” Pike explained needlessly. “And based on the chunk Wilson took out of me, I don’t think you want to be around when I croak.”
“Maybe we could get help…” Jesse began, but even as he said it, he knew it was hopeless.
Pike fired again, this time missing the zombies who were now just ten feet away.
“Go!” Pike ordered him with what little strength he had left. He pulled the flare gun out of his pocket and offered it to Jesse. Then he motioned toward the van and its leaking gasoline.
“Maybe you’ll do me a favor and make use of this on your way out.”
Jesse looked Pike in the eyes and nodded solemnly. Then he stood up and turned his back on him, the approaching zombies, and the hell hole he’d called home for the past five years. He scrambled over the broken wall and around the side of the van until he’d made it outside.
The storm had passed, but a steady rain still fell from the starless sky. Jesse didn’t see any zombies, but he knew better than to assume there weren’t more somewhere close by. He couldn’t see Pike any longer, but he heard gunfire from inside the hallway as he backed away from the wreckage. The monsters would be on top of his friend any second.
Jesse pointed the flare gun at the back of the ruined van and fired once, then twice. He hit the mark both times and seconds later, flames lit up in and around the vehicle. Jesse loped away from it as fast as he could manage, but when the fire found the van’s leaking gas tank and exploded, it still threw him to the pavement.
He got back up and looked at the results of his handiwork. The end of the building he’d just escaped looked like a bomb had hit it. There was hardly anything left but fire, charred bricks, and the outline of the van’s broken frame amidst the black smoke.
Wincing at the pain in his arm, he started in the direction of the front gate, fully expecting to be shot by a sniper’s bullet at any moment. He came across another undead guard as he neared the gatehouse, but he put three rounds in the creature’s face before it got within 10 feet of him. When he reached the small outbuilding, he found a panel of buttons beneath a row of dead monitors. It only took Jesse a minute to figure out which one opened the metal gat
es. He worried for a second that it might not work with the power still being out, but his fears were proved unfounded. The gates swung open without hesitation or complaint.
He stared in wonder at the open path to the road that led away from the prison and to the towns beyond. He didn’t know what had happened to the guards that kept watch in the towers or if the zombies had spread to the other cell blocks and he realized he didn’t care. Help would probably arrive soon, the police, firemen, hell, maybe even the National Guard. But for now, there was no one but him and the monsters he’d been locked up with and left to die. He wiped the raindrops from his eyes and smiled as he stepped through the gate and started the long hike into a new future. He was an innocent man. And he was finally free.