Refuge From The Dead (Book 1): Lockdown

by Joseph A. Coley

  “Yes, sir,” both men said simultaneously.

  “All right. I know that you boys are new here and you are working overtime, so I’m going to make it easy on you. The two tower officers that are up there have been on duty for fifteen hours now. If you guys can relieve them, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  Michael nodded. Tower officer – while somewhat boring – was a very easy assignment. All you had to do was make sure that no one made it over the fence, and if someone did, shoot them. Pretty cut and dry. Michael had qualified at the top of his class, along with Zachary Grant. The two men tied for top honors at the academy, with each one only missing three shots out of sixty with a handgun, and neither missed with the 870MCS or AR-15.

  “Can do, sir,” Michael replied.

  “Sweet. Make sure you have your weapons cards and head to the armory. I will issue your 870 and AR-15. Normally, you would take over the long guns on post, but we are doing a thorough cleaning and need those weapons cleaned,” Captain Winston said, arranging some paperwork.

  “Sir, can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah, what is it, Caine?” Winston said, not bothering to look up.

  “What is our emergency plan for this virus?”

  Winston stopped and looked up. “You guys, too? We have to keep this place going, no matter what. Anything short of the end of the world means that Black Mountain State Prison keeps on keepin’ on.”

  “At the risk of sounding stupid, sir. What then?” Helton asked.

  “What then, what?”

  “Sir, we have reason to believe that there is more to this virus than what is being reported. I have heard several calls on the CB saying that there is some weird shit going on out there. Caine’s wife works at Bluefield Regional ER, and he said they have been treating plenty of people with this virus. People are leaving town in droves and there have been reports of the dead returning to life,” Helton said. “The fact that you’re geared up for a TSU mission doesn’t do much to take away from the fact that there is some serious shit going down outside the walls of this prison.”

  While he hadn’t heard the effects of the virus, Captain Winston was unsettled by the mention of it. Half the shift called in and five others had to be taken to the hospital from being attacked by inmates. While it didn’t seem to add up, the dead returning to life was farfetched to say the least. He waved a dismissive hand.

  “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see. TSU is on standby because of this virus shit. We have to get hold of every person we can, including TSU. I don’t doubt that this virus going around is causing some major fucking problems with everyone, but having the dead return to life seems a bit…what’s the word…fucking stupid. Don’t you think, Officer Helton?”

  “A little, yes sir. I’m not one for believing conspiracy theories, but…” Helton started.

  “Then I don’t think there need be mention about fucking dead bodies returning to life. That shit is borderline grounds for getting your ass fired. Now, go to your goddamned post before I write you up!”

  “Yes, sir,” Helton replied.

  Michael was already trying to get Ryan out of the Watch Commander’s office when Captain Winston snapped at him. Ryan turned to follow his friend back out to the armory.

  “What the hell was that for, Ryan? You trying to get fired?” Michael asked.

  “Dude, I’m telling you there is something going on, and I only hope that it isn’t too late before you start believing me.”

  “When I see a dead fucker waltz up to the fence and try to get in to prison, then I will believe you. Until then, can we just get our long guns and get to the towers?”

  “Yeah, I suppose. At least we will be armed when they get here.”

  Michael frowned. “When who gets here?”

  “The goddamned walking dead, Caine.”

  “Seriously, Ryan? Who are you trying to convince?”

  “Just take your cellphone to the tower with you, just in case,” Ryan pleaded.

  “You know we will get fired if they catch us up there with a cellphone.”

  “Yeah, I do. But I would rather risk that than be in the dark about what is going on in the outside world. Keep an eye on social media. Facebook and Twitter will blow up if this shit is for real. If we don’t hear anything by tomorrow morning, then I will back off. Until then, keep an eye on things in the outside world. If I can get a break from the tower, I’ll check my CB again. There’s more to life than working in a goddamned prison, anyway.”

  “All right, dude. But if the shit hits the fan, then what? We can’t just walk out of here, even if it came to that.”

  Ryan shrugged. “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it, I suppose. Do you have anything here? Like, supplies or anything?”

  “My overnight bag. I’ve got a change of uniform and toiletries, mostly travel-sized stuff from Richmond, and my water bottle. All that stuff is in my range bag. Not much else aside from that.”

  “Well, I’ve got my range bag and some leftover clothes from the academy. We got anybody else here tonight? Anybody with training outside of DOC?”

  Michael let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his head. “What about Grant? Is he working tonight?”

  “Yeah, he texted me a couple hours ago. Didn’t get much sleep, but he said he was coming in to help cover for the injured guys. I talked to Poston down at BCC, he’s going in, too. They’ve had a shitload of call-ins.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Sent five of our guys to the hospital, a couple of ‘em got bit on the hand.”

  Ryan planted his hand in Michael’s chest. “Wait, what? Bit?”

  “Yeah, some of the new inmates bit a couple of them. That’s why they sent ‘em to Bluefield Regional.”

  “Michael, the people on my CB kept saying something like ‘don’t get bit’ and ‘don’t let them bite you.’”

  “This is starting to sound more and more like an episode of The Walking Dead, Ryan. Dead people coming back to life? People biting other people? Come on, man. I know this virus is some seriously bad shit, but damn.”

  “Michael, just humor me, all right?” Ryan said, pleading.

  Michael rubbed his face. “All right. Let’s go get our long guns and get to the tower. We can discuss this later. Just call me on the phone in the tower, don’t use your cellphone after dark. If they see the light up there, we are both gonna get fired.”

  “Okay, just keep this in mind – whenever shit hits the fan, the news always says ‘be prepared for the worst,’ whenever that message starts changing to ‘don’t panic,’ well, you know what’s coming.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Michael sat in the tower, disbelieving what he was hearing. After getting his 870MCS and AR-15 and ammo, he and Helton had taken up their posts. Three stories above Black Mountain, they kept an eye out…on nothing. There was no movement during a lockdown, and from their vantage point, they could see very little in the way of officers, either. Now that he had thought of it, Michael hadn’t seen anyone aside from Helton and Captain Winston. The only other person that he knew to be there was Grant. There was very little traffic on the radio except the roving patrol vehicle making its laps around the facility. During certain operations, there would be a second vehicle making opposite laps of the primary, but this afternoon there was the lone, black Ford Explorer slowly circling the institution.

  For the last several hours, Michael had been watching social media with interest. From the way it sounded, things were getting almost as bad as Ryan had described. There were videos of cars clogging up the roads in major cities, each person trying to find somewhere else to be. Family and loved ones took precedent, he could understand that, but getting to them in the chaos that was playing out by the minute was near-suicide. Adding to his stress was the fact that he had sent several texts to Lindsey, all of them unanswered. He knew she would be busy, but it rattled him nonetheless. Michael was starting to come to terms with what Ryan had been babbling on about.

  Ther
e was some serious shit going down. It may not be the end of the world, but it wasn’t fucking far off. Michael leaned forward in his chair. He’d had Helton on speakerphone for the last ten minutes. The more they talked, the more he wanted to just go. But go where? He was in a very secure location, as Ryan had pointed out. Too bad that secure location was still populated with nearly a thousand dangerous assholes just waiting to get at someone.

  “Won’t be long until martial law is implemented, Mike. Cities are the first to go, high technology, that kind of stuff. After that, the government will start to control basic utilities. Power, water, internet. Stuff like that will come next.”

  “All right, Helton. I get your point. Shit is starting to go downhill a little too quickly around here. Have you seen New York? Place looks like it did after 9/11.”

  “Yeah, I have. I told you, it’s not going to be long, now. We need to figure out a way to hole up, preferably here.”

  “There is no way in hell that I am letting my daughter around these psychopaths. The most secure areas of the prison are on the inside of the secure perimeter. That means that these assholes would only be a locked door or two away from me and my family,” Michael said, shaking his head at the phone. “No. Hell no. there has to be a better way to do this, Ryan.”

  “I hate to disagree with you, brother, but that’s the price we have to pay to be safe. How many did Captain Winston say we had left? Seventeen? Minus you, roving, Winston, and me that puts us down to thirteen officers. We are outnumbered nearly a hundred to one.”

  “Yeah, thanks for putting my mind at ease, Ryan!”

  There was a long silence. Helton had struck a nerve with Michael and he knew it. On the other end of the phone, Michael could hear him sigh deeply.

  “I’m sorry, dude.”

  There was another pause. “Not your fault, brother. You still can’t get hold of Lindsey, can you?”

  “No. I need to at least talk to her and her mother. My stomach is already doing laps around my ass thinking about Anna. I can’t let anything happen to her, Ryan. That little girl is my whole life, man.”

  “I know what you mean, Mike. I think that…”

  The radio crackling to life interrupted Helton. The roving patrol vehicle rarely stopped – if ever – and never stopped without a damn good reason. From Helton’s tower, he could see that the black Explorer had come to a halt about two hundred yards away below him.

  “Roving 1 to Tower 2 can you see me?”

  Helton strained to see the officer below him. While he couldn’t see the exact details of what was going on, he could make out the officer.

  “Yeah, Roving 1, I’ve got you below me. What’s up?” Helton answered.

  “Master Control has an alarm at the fence in this zone. Can you see anything from up there?”

  Helton leaned over his desk and looked down. The zone that the Roving Patrol officer was looking at stretched beyond his viewing area, blocked by the corner of the sally port officer’s building.

  “No, my view is blocked by the sally port, though. Can’t see the whole area. Let me get out on the catwalk and see.”

  “What’s going on over there, Ryan?” Michael asked over the phone.

  Ryan grabbed his AR-15. “I don’t know. Roving has an alarm on the fence, but I can’t see it from in here. Gonna try to go out and see if I can get a better view.”

  Alarms on the fence were common, but ultimately false alarms. The generally sensitive nature of the equipment worked against the officers more than it worked for them. During strong storms, it would go off, indicating that someone was trying to get over the razor-wire barricade. Wayward animals would also bump into the sensors, setting them off. During a particularly bad stretch the year before, the fence alarms went off three times due a large black bear roaming around the institution.

  “All right, Helton. Be careful,” Michael said.

  Ryan exited the tower onto the catwalk. “Don’t worry dude. It’s probably nothing.”

  * * *

  Daniel Cunningham waved to the tower officer. Although he couldn’t see Officer Helton that well, he felt certain Helton could see him. Master Control had given him another wild goose chase from the looks of it. Just to make sure, he was going to have Helton look as well. He’d parked the Explorer and gotten out, hating that he had to do so. There was something going on over the local radio station and he wanted to make sure that he could hear whatever it was. They had stated they were going to make some sort of announcement in a few minutes, and he was eager to hear what it was. Nothing good could be coming, though. The entire time he’d been out in the Explorer, he’d been listening to the stereo. Instead of the usual classic rock, he had been greeted with a nonstop litany of news broadcasts, each one sounding more bizarre than the next. People in the outside world were losing their damn minds over this new virus. What was the name of it? Mortui? Something like that. Whatever it was, it was interrupting his evening run of Foghat and Deep Purple.

  The problem was there was no wildlife and no wind right now.

  Officer Cunningham walked to the section of fence where the alarm had come from. As one of the only armed posts at the prison, he had the ability to defend himself should there be someone trying to break out, or – a less likely occurrence – someone trying to get in to the institution.

  This was the latter.

  Cunningham didn’t know what to make of it. At first, it looked like someone had shimmied down from the top of the fence. Officer Cunningham’s first reaction was to draw his weapon, a Glock 23 .40 caliber handgun. The man – one in his late twenties from the looks of it – was beating against the chain-link fence adamantly, looking as if he was trying to get someone’s attention.

  It worked.

  Officer Cunningham raised his Glock and drew a bead on the man. “Hey! Turn around and keep your hands above your head!” He grabbed the mic for his radio, fumbling with the key before finally pressing the push-to-talk button. “Roving to Master! Roving to Master! I’ve got one unauthorized male on the fence in Zone 9! Send me another officer out here!”

  “Master copies. Do not approach the subject if possible. Backup is on the way out, Cunningham.”

  Don’t approach? Why the hell not? This asshole looks nuttier than squirrel shit, AND he’s trying to get into a prison.

  “Copy that, Master. Roving to Tower 2, can you see me now?”

  “Roving I can see you, but I still don’t have eyes on your guest,” Helton answered.

  “Copy that. He’s not trying to do anything, just beating on the fence.”

  Cunningham watched as the man continued to physically assault the aluminum fence. It didn’t look as if he had a purpose. He never attempted to go over the fence, and it didn’t look like he had come from inside the prison. Cunningham couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing, but he was afraid of it nonetheless. But why? Why be afraid of some nut? There was a certain amount of fear to the whole thing, but he couldn’t figure out why. He swallowed hard, keeping the Glock on the man.

  Where the hell is my backup?

  The man stopped beating the fence.

  “Hey, buddy! Keep your hands above your head!”

  The man slowly shambled toward him, shuffling his feet, and keeping his arms at his sides.

  Cunningham stepped back with his right foot, sliding it along the ground. This was to make sure that if there was an obstruction behind him that he wouldn’t fall over it or be tripped up. Cunningham’s heart pounded in his chest. Now, he was scared shitless. There was something very, very wrong with the man slowly coming towards him. Aside from the glassy stare and the odd gait, the man had blood on the front of his shirt and face. Cunningham swallowed hard and kept the Glock raised.

  “I don’t want to have to shoot you, buddy! Get on the ground, now!”

  The man lunged.

  Officer Cunningham fired two shots, striking the man directly in the chest. While the .40 caliber rounds were one of the best “man stopping” rounds made,
it did nothing for the man shambling towards Cunningham. Blood came from the wound, but not nearly as much as what should have. Cunningham nearly pissed himself when the man kept coming. Crimson began to spread across the man’s white shirt, further mucking the coagulated blood already there.

  “What…Um…Get on the fucking ground!”

  “On the ground! On the ground” Came a voice from behind him. It was Captain Winston, moving forward with and AR-15 raised at the man. “Cunningham, take a couple steps to your left and back up! I don’t want to catch you in crossfire.”

  Officer Cunningham did as he was told, shuffling a few steps to the left, and quickly backing up. Once he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Captain Winston, he stopped.

  “What the fuck is wrong with him, sir? Do you see the blood? I just put two rounds in this asshole’s chest! This fucker ain’t right!” Cunningham said, his voice cracking slightly.

  “I don’t know Cunningham, but if he don’t get on the fucking ground I’m gonna put him in the fucking ground!”

  “Master to Captain Winston! We have several other subjects walking towards you! They are approximately two hundred yards to your two o’clock!”

  Captain Winston lowered the AR-15 slightly. With just a few cars in the parking lot, seeing across the area was not difficult. He scanned the area, looking for the people that Master Control had seen. While his vision wasn’t perfect, he couldn’t see anyone. Winston took a few steps back and keyed his radio.

  “Master, I can’t see anyone!”

  Several gunshots popped in the air. The shots were far off, but there was no mistaking the sound of automatic gunfire. The automatic fire was quickly followed by several single shots, much louder than the automatic fire and much closer.

  “What the fuck? Master! We have automatic gunfire within earshot of the institution! What the hell is going on out there?” Captain Winston yelled over his radio.

  “Sir! I see the others!” Officer Cunningham yelled. “This asshole won’t stop! What the fuck are we gonna do!”