What the fuck is going on here? Winston thought. Whatever this is, we are not fucking prepared for it!
Get inside.
Get inside NOW.
CHAPTER 9
Officer Ryan Helton watched in morbid amazement at the man that Officer Cunningham had just shot. Cunningham had just put two rounds straight through the man’s chest with not so much as a stutter in the man’s step. The deranged man simply kept slowly walking towards the officer. Suddenly, the tower felt like a much less secure area.
“Ryan! What the hell was that? Was that gunfire?” Michael asked over the phone, still on speaker.
“Michael, we have a very serious problem on our hands! This fucker at the fence just took two rounds to the chest and is still coming!”
“What? How the fuck is that possible?”
Ryan got back into the tower and sat the AR-15 down. His eyes were trying to tell his brain what he saw, but his brain couldn’t comprehend it. No man alive should be able to take that kind of a shot to the chest and keep coming. There was something else going on, something very fucking bad.
“Ryan! What the fuck is going on?”
Ryan braced himself against his desk, trying not to vomit. He swallowed hard. “I don’t know, Michael. Did you hear that automatic gunfire? There is something very fucking wrong going on outside the walls of this prison. We need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Fuck the job; the fucking world is ending. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stuck here when it does.”
“Ryan, I have to get my family. There is no way in hell that I’m leaving them out there. I got a call into Lindsey’s mother. She’s all right and so is Anna, but they are scared shitless. What the hell are we going to do? I’ve got to get my wife and my baby girl, Ryan.”
As if to punctuate the urgency of the situation, the radio crackled to life.
“Master Control to all units. All officers are to report to the gym at once. This is not a drill. Captain Winston is acting Warden at this time, and orders all officers to report to the gym immediately. I repeat – this is not a drill.”
“Ryan, the Emergency Alert System just went active on my phone. It says to stay indoors and not make any contact with infected individuals. Jesus, what the hell is going on?”
Ryan hurriedly picked up the phone from the handset. “Michael, let’s go find out. We need to get to the gym, right now.”
* * *
The remaining thirteen officers at Black Mountain State Prison showed up to the gym, even those manning control rooms. The control rooms could not be abandoned, except in dire emergencies. Emergency keys were available in the event of a cataclysmic catastrophe, and the current situation seemed to fit the bill. No one had a clear and concise idea about what was going on in the outside world. The up side of the prison being located in a difficult to find spot was that it deterred most escape attempts. The down side was when certain situations arose – even bad weather – the institution was nearly inaccessible. For the time being, that was for the best.
Captain and Acting Warden Winston stood before his men. Each one was talking to another, trying to figure out what to do next. Most did not have families, but Michael Caine was the exception. He needed to get to his family quickly and get them somewhere safe, even if that meant bringing them to the prison for safekeeping. His gut rumbled, partially from hunger, partially from the wracking nerves. He’d always had issues with his stomach, especially when he got anxious or stressed, and now was no exception.
“All right! Everyone sit down and give me a minute to explain what is going on!” Winston said.
Each officer took a seat quickly. The gym had been set up for a meeting the day prior and still had seating and tables. As Winston looked at the faces of the men before him, he couldn’t believe what he was about to tell them.
“As most of you know, the Mortui Virus has been wreaking havoc in Africa and Eastern Europe. Approximately six weeks ago, the virus made the jump to the United States and began infecting people. The government largely tried to cover up the incidents with victims of the virus until recently. The virus was spreading too quickly and there was little they could do about it. The virus is…God how do I say this…the virus is bringing the dead back to life.”
A chorus of laughs permeated the room, echoing off the walls of the gym.
“This isn’t a joke, goddamnit!” Winston yelled. The laughter quickly subsided, along with the generally upbeat demeanor of the men in the room. Ryan Helton got to his feet and tried his best to give Captain Winston’s news some validity.
“He’s telling the truth! I had reports on my CB of the dead coming back to life a couple hours ago when I came in. I didn’t know what to make of it, but it seems like it’s true. From the amount of people that I heard talking about it, it’s spreading fast,” Ryan Helton said.
Winston pointed to Helton. “Helton, I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to you then, but I am now. Anything that you can add to the mix, I’m all ears. We need information more than anything else right now.”
Helton stepped forward and addressed the group. “From what I heard, the dead are coming back to life and attacking the living. They try to eat you, or at least take a chunk out of you. I was told that if you were bitten, you would become one of them that much faster. The virus kills you and then reanimates you. But it’s not you, it’s just the basic instinct to feed and spread the virus that takes over.”
“Are you fucking shitting me, Helton? You knew about this and didn’t tell anyone?” Cunningham said, getting to his feet quickly and pointing at Helton.
“And tell you what, exactly? The dead are coming back to life? I had very serious issues with saying something to Captain Winston and Officer Caine. You’re just some twentysomething asshole that got this job because your daddy worked here! Don’t give me any shit about not talking to you. I don’t even fucking like you, Cunningham!”
“Fuck you, Helton! You should have said something! Now what the fuck are we gonna do, wiseass?”
“I don’t fucking know, CUNTingham? Why don’t you figure it out for your goddamn self?”
“Why don’t both you assholes sit down and shut the fuck up? Then I will explain what we are going to do!” Winston yelled, interrupting both men. Both sat down.
Winston cleared his throat. “The Emergency Alert System is activated telling people to stay at home. Well, I say fuck that. I know that some of you have families at home that you want to get to. Since there is no protocol for what is going on, I am making my own.”
Four officers stood up and, without a word, walked out of the room. Winston spread his arms out as to say what the fuck, but it was too late. The four officers exited the room quickly. One of them was Zachary Grant, Caine’s roommate at the academy. Michael couldn’t figure out what Grant was doing other than trying to get to his family. Michael couldn’t blame him. He needed to get to his, post fucking haste. Five minutes later, the four officers were leaving the institution. Without manpower, they might as well just lock the place up and leave. There was too much to keep up with being short on personnel.
“Anyone else?” Winston asked, looking around the room. Several officers exchanged glances to one another, but no one made a move. The idea of leaving was on everyone’s mind, but no one acted on it. From what Winston could tell, the remaining few that he had left had no families or close loved ones. They had no reason to leave the safety of the prison, not yet at least.
“What the fuck happened to the Warden? The Assistant Warden? The Major? Where the fuck did all those assholes go?” Cunningham asked.
It was a damn good question. The Warden was a relatively new man named Carl Franklin, a man who had worked his way up the ladder from being a CO thirty years ago to a Warden. No one had seen hide nor hair of the top three ranking men at the prison, and no one had really noticed until now that they were absent. In the event of an emergency, they should have been the first three contacted. The Warden was in charge of ever
ything overall, the Assistant Warden took his place if he was not available. The Major was Chief of Security and dealt with any issues concerning the security of the institution.
“I don’t know. Last one I’d spoken to was Warden Franklin. He said that he would be on his way up here. That was six hours ago and I haven’t heard anything from the other two, so it looks like we’re on our own.”
“Well, I say that we lock the place down and throw away the fuckin’ keys! These assholes don’t need to be let out in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse! Fuck ‘em!” Cunningham blurted out.
“So where do you propose that the rest of us stay, Cunningham? Did you think of that, you fucking moron?” Helton yelled, laughing. “Fact of the matter is that this is the most secure building in the goddamn state. That being said, the inmates are going to want to know what the fuck is going on. Question is, do we tell them or not?”
Cunningham’s face turned red. He didn’t like being put into situations he couldn’t control. He was young and impudent, though. He’d had a temper ever since walking through the doors of Black Mountain, and that kind of attitude combined with a “you can’t touch me” demeanor spelled disaster. Helton knew the truth about the kid, though. He’d been hired since his father had worked there previously, and Charles Cunningham was a hell of an officer, his son, however, was a total douche.
“I vote that we don’t tell them shit. We tell them that we are on lockdown until further notice,” Cunningham said. “And if they give us any shit, we tell ‘em to hit the fucking road since Captain Winston here doesn’t think we should have the public around criminals.”
“Well I sure as hell wouldn’t want them around my family if I had any, Cunningham, which brings me to my next point. We will be sending two and three man teams out into town, going as far as Bluefield. If you find people who want help, pick them up and bring them here. We have more than enough food for everyone for quite a while. We will figure out what to do with the inmates later.”
“Sir, with your permission, I would like to take myself and Officer Caine along with a couple rifles, shotguns, and Glocks and go get his family,” Helton said, looking towards Michael.
Michael had sat through the meeting, largely avoiding most of the conversation. He’d already made up his mind that – no matter what – he was leaving to go get his wife and daughter. The fact that Ryan Helton was willing to help was a godsend; he needed all the help he could get. In addition, taking the guns under the guise of the DOC could take some of the heat off them once they left the mountain. Martial law had been declared, not that anyone was paying attention. The streets were a dangerous place to be right now, law enforcement or otherwise. The chatter of automatic gunfire earlier had convinced him of that.
“I don’t think we should waste our assets on getting anyone else in here, Captain. I think we should focus on…” Cunningham started to say.
“I think you should shut the fuck up and mind your own damn business, Cunningham. It’s done. Helton, Caine, take one of the state vans, one of the four-wheel-drive ones. Pick up the people you need to get. I will get the armory open and everyone – and I mean everyone is to be armed right now. Once the power goes out and we are on generator power, we will only have a few days of it before we run out of fuel and this place will be a hell of a lot harder to control. We will stay armed until further notice. The rest of us will stay here and secure vital resources. I will take a team over to the warehouse after we draw weapons and get what we have over there. Commissary truck just ran the other day, so there should be more food over there. I want to grab tactical gear, clothes, anything that might be of use. Oh, by the way, Cunningham, you can pull chow by your damn self for that little comment. Get the hot boxes from the chow hall and make it happen. If you tell any of the inmates anything other than what they are having for dinner, I swear to God I will shoot you myself.”
Most of the men nodded in unison, minus Cunningham. He had other plans.
“Men, this place will become a hot spot for people to come to. Since the area isn’t highly populated, we might have a few hours to a few days before people come here. When they do, we need to be ready for them.”
“What about the inmates? What are we supposed to tell them?” Michael asked.
“I’ve already cut TV off, but chances are, they know already. We keep them on lockdown right now until we can figure out what to do with them,” Winston answered.
“Sir, this prison could help house a lot of good people. Much better people than we have here,” Michael said.
Winston nodded. “So that begs the question. In the apocalypse, is it better to have the dangerous people on the outside amongst the public, or do we keep them here to live among us?”
Michael didn’t have an answer for that.
CHAPTER 10
Michael hadn’t been this nervous since his first mission in Iraq. Six months removed from basic training, he was manning a .50 cal on top of a Humvee. He had been a big fucking target on top of the Humvee, with little to protect him. Any moment, there could have been a Hajji sniper just waiting to blow his fucking head off. He’d nearly pissed himself the first time that he took enemy fire, and even today, the sound of gunfire made him edgy. Even at that, he was going at it with a whole platoon of infantry; now he had one other man. Granted, that one man had gone out of his way to speak up and volunteer himself to go and rescue his family. Michael was eternally grateful for Ryan wanting to go out, but what in the hell were they going to be running in to? The dead coming back to life? It seemed like too much science fiction and not enough fact.
But the facts were piling up quickly.
Details of the Mortui Virus were starting to come to life, but it was a little too late. Most major cities had been powder kegs for the last few weeks, just waiting to explode. At some point, they hit critical mass and could no longer contain the virus. Scenes of pure chaos and anarchy populated the airwaves. From New York to Seattle, images came across the TV. In Ney York, aerial views of the city showed fires burning out of control, the FNDY unable to keep up with the demand for fire suppression. In Seattle, videos of people trying to hole up at CenturyLink Stadium were taken off the air quickly after the undead broke through. Thousands of infected poured into the field and stands. They had little hope of escape.
The CDC had released what limited information they had about Mortui. The virus was extremely contagious, but only transmissible by body fluids. Blood, saliva, and sexually transmitted fluids were the main source of infection. Intricate details of the virus were slow in coming, maybe never to be discovered. The virus was very complicated, acting on more than one area of the brain at a time, but no one knew how.
None of this information mattered to Michael and Ryan Helton. All they knew was that there were seven people in the parking lot that were presumed to be undead. The initial infected man that had been pounding on the fence was now aimlessly wandering the parking lot with the rest.
The door buzzed as Michael and Ryan waited to be let back out of the institution. With them was Captain Winston. Winston was escorting them to the armory to arm up for their trip into town. While they waited in the sally port, the lights flickered once, and then went out. Five seconds later, the generators kicked in. Winston looked at his watch.
“Shit. Five o’clock and the goddamn power out. I was hoping to keep it on the rest of the night, at least,” Winston said, glaring at his watch as if the timepiece were the reason behind the power failure.
“So realistically, how much time do we have on the gennys?” Michael asked. The door buzzed again, and he opened it.
“I don’t know. Depends on how well the Building and Grounds guys kept the fuel up for it. They were supposed to refill it after that last storm that knocked the power out. They all run on diesel, so if you guys can locate some fuel while you’re out there, see about grabbing it or securing it for later. We may not need it now, but we will before long.”
Michael nodded. “Roger that, sir. Anyt
hing else we need to look for?”
Master Control opened the door to the armory. All three men stepped inside. On the walls were several racks of shotguns, Glock 23s, and AR-15s. There were also rows of CS grenades, a 37mm grenade launcher, and other non-lethal rounds to go with it. Captain Winston looked around the room.
“Well, the armory looks like it is still pretty well stocked, but I don’t have to tell you that if you run across some guns, grab ‘em.”
“What about medical supplies? Food? How well stocked are we?” Ryan asked, grabbing an 870MCS shotgun.
“Depends on how long we keep the psychos locked up. What do you guys think about letting them out?” Winston asked. There was no sense in beating around the bush. They were going to have to do something about the inmates, so Michael spoke his mind.
“Give them a choice. I’d say most of them would choose to leave of their own volition. The ones that stay have to be kept locked up until we can figure out who we can trust. They’re not all bad, Captain.”
“Yeah, you’re right. However, they are dangerous, or they wouldn’t be here. We can’t expect to turn them into productive citizens overnight. It would take a lot of time to get them in the right mindset.”
Ryan grabbed a box of twelve-gauge buckshot and started loading the 870. “And what mindset would that be, sir? The dead are coming back to life. Something tells me they wouldn’t be well-adjusted to something like that.”
“True. But we could use that to our advantage,” Winston said.
“And how’s that?” Michael asked. He grabbed a Glock, holster, and a double mag pouch.
“They’re killers. Let them kill the undead. What is the harm in letting them do something they do already?”
“They might get a taste for it, Captain,” Ryan said.
Winston raised an eyebrow. “Like they haven’t already?”
Refuge From The Dead (Book 1): Lockdown Page 6